LG C3 OLED TV OLED42C3PSA (42")

A nice small tv – I’ve been a happy Samsung tv owner for a long time. When our 40” 5 year old model started to fail it was time to see what is out there. After much online searching and my tech head son’s valuable input we found this LG OLED tv on sale at JB-HIFI during the Black Friday sales. The price was good at $1345. Even after some explanation I’m not too sure what OLED means practically, but who cares.

The tv itself is very good and reasonably easy to use. The picture quality has to seen to understand how good it is. Both my wife and I are pleased with our purchase.

The picture is amazingly clear, bright and sharp. The thing about OLED I did take note about is that the screen pixels are more fragile and there are many warnings to not leave a fixed picture on the screen as it may burn in the pixels. The tv even has a “pixel wash” auto function that attempts to reduce the problem. It works in the background so I shouldn’t be aware of it happening.

It was easy to set up and I’m still (3 weeks) getting used to driving the remote which has lots of functionality but you need to know how to get to it. The user operating pamphlet was is some help but not as much as it should. The remote does have a voice control to make things easier. Something I don’t like is that when turned on the tv goes into an LG menu screen and I have to navigate back to live tv. If there is a way to fix it I haven’t found it and here the manual is useless.

One review said the sound output wasn’t so good, can’t comment much as we haven’t used it, we hooked straight into a Bose tv sound bar via the optical output.

Note that except power, all other connections come from the far left side of the tv.

I had a problem registering the tv with LG for the warranty. Done online I was required to tick that I had read and agreed to LG privacy etc terms. I read them and I don’t. It was a marathon effort to find an email address to write to LG and complain without agreeing to said T&Cs. I did get a reply telling me that if I emailed the requested details they would do it for me. A compromise that should not be needed.

I wear hearing aids and have a small transmitter box that plugs into the headphone socket on the tv to transmit to my hearing aids so my family does not have to suffer a loud tv while we all watch. This has not been a problem with past tv’s. With this tv it is impossible to set up. I can have sound going via the optical ink to my sound bar OR the headphone outlet but not both. There are other menu options but none that allow me listen via my hearing aids and have the normal sound output. I wrote to LG and received nil response. Checking online tech forums I found no solution so I’ve engineered one at some small expense. I bought an optical splitter plus optical cables so the optical output goes to the sound bar and also goes to an another purchased box that turns the optical signal to a headphone style output. After much messing around I finally got it to work. For such a modern hi-tech marvel this should not have been a necessity. I am disappointed with LG’s lack of response . I imagine a software upgrade might fix the problem but who knows.

This is the most beneficial tv for gaming and movies – Don't let the screen size full you. It's really good to play games (xbox series x, ps5) as thats what I have tested/played without annoying blooming issues or no lagging/screen tears. Movies on this are perfect but as you know anything below HD isn't that good. All ports are 120hz which makes makes you have less anxiety which console or gaming device to sacrifice to use for arc (sound system)