Sure, you can get a better OLED from LG but you're going to pay extra for that. The 55CS3 is an excellent performer across the board but is particularly good at making your new Sony or Microsoft consoles shine. It'll also help your older hardware learn a few new tricks before you put them out to pasture.
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Design
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Performance
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Features
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Value
We’ve often said that nobody does OLED better than LG. This remained true during our time with the company’s OLED evo 55CS3 4K TV set as it proved that we’ll let a few things slide if we’re allowed to spend time in front of one of these screens.
You shouldn’t expect perfection from a R21,000 TV from any brand and LG’s offering is no exception. Still, the focus has been placed where it matters most. The panel is the main thing and if there’s nothing else you take from this review, know that this one is splendid. The semi-affordable price is almost a surprise at this point.
Boxing match
One of our main concerns when it comes to new TVs is how much of a pain they are to set up alone. Trying to unbox and install a 75in TV is a serious pain in the neck, for example, and smaller screen sizes are no guarantee of an easier time. LG’s 55CS3 has the benefit of the smaller panel but the screen’s extremely thin profile does make it challenging to extract and assemble without help. That said, some smart design work with the box and the base means that anyone with a moderately-sized coffee table and the ability to lift about twenty kilos at a time should have no trouble putting this up.
Installing the base is as simple as gently popping the screen face down on one of the box’s styrofoam inserts (the flat one, please) and inserting a couple of screws. Then it’s all over barring the lift-and-place in your chosen location and the subsequent software setup. If you’re looking to install the set on a wall, you can expect to do a little more work. Part of this work involves finding a mounting bracket since this TV doesn’t ship with one in the box. You should also have an assistant on hand, ensuring that it’ll only be slightly more of a mission than standing it on its base.
Everybody wants to be Netflix
Subsequent setup is the domain of LG’s Magic Remote, an onscreen pointer, and your internet connection. There’s little point in buying the 55CS3 — or one of the differently-sized variants — unless you’re planning to connect the TV to the internet and the interface reflects that. Perhaps unfortunately, WebOS 2.3 is also the same interface everyone else is bent on using. Visually, anyway.
There are plenty of smart features once you’ve clicked through the prompts and inserted your credentials in the right places and it’ll all feel familiar while you’re doing so. In a way, that’s a great thing. Ease of setup is always desirable. But it also immediately feels like everything else on the market and that’s something WebOS has never really been. Still, it’s a slick interface even if it tries just a bit too hard to be everything for everyone.
As was popular in 2023 (the year this television launched) and still is in 2024, there’s the option to let onboard artificial intelligence handle most of your audio settings. This can be enabled during the initial setup but you can also opt to skip it and fiddle by yourself for a bit. We took the latter course, because what’s the point if you’re not going to explore the menus on your own? Predictably, no matter which option you select, you’ll find that the 55CS3 will perform better with a soundbar attached. It’s nothing personal. Any TV at this price point (or lower and higher) faces the same challenge.
Zero performance anxiety
If middling audio has you slightly worried, you can stop now. Even if the 55CS3’s standard audio was all but absent, the TV’s visual performance is stunning enough that you’d still want to own one. We could gush about picture fidelity and contrast, the vibrant colour reproduction (we used Asterix & Obelix: The Middle Kingdom for visual testing, if it’s not immediately obvious) and the sharply defined outlines the OLED evo 55CS3 is capable of but we’d be rehashing any of the recent reports about LG’s OLED panels. They’re good. They’re always good. It would be more remarkable at this point to encounter a shoddy TV screen from the South Korean brand and even then, it’d have to be a factory defect.
The 55CS3 should especially be on the average gamer’s radar and not just because of the dedicated gaming dashboard packed with tweakable settings. There are four HDMI ports capable of 120Hz and the panel invokes all of the magical words required to summon the gaming gods. Nvidia’s G-Sync and AMD’s FreeSync, support for variable refresh rates, a 0.1ms response time, and support for Dolby Atmos and VisionIQ outfit this screen to give you the best possible image from the new generation of game consoles. It’s this way in practice too, with even previous generations (we took it as far back as the Nintendo Wii and Sony’s PlayStation 2) being offered a vibrant overhaul by the TV’s internal processing. It won’t scale Mario Galaxy or Ratchet and Clank: Up Your Arsenal up to 4K but it looks better than you’d expect it to.
LG OLED evo 55CS3 4K TV verdict
LG’s OLED TVs rarely have any serious competition. When they do, it’s because LG provided the panels for those too (looking at you, Sony Bravia XR). The Evo version of the TV offers better brightness than LG’s stock OLED panels but there are better options from the company out there too. It mostly comes down to how much you’re willing to pay for one of LG’s OLEDs. If your budget is around the R20,000 mark (if it’s nearly there, make it bigger), you really should be sprinting in the direction of anybody who sells the 55CS3. The next step up is LG’s C3 set, with a corresponding leap in price. For an excellent balance of smart features and picture quality and to keep a little cash for a soundbar add-on, the OLED evo 55CS3 is very worthy of your attention.
