LG LW980S TV: Dead In The Water

This is the story of a very special TV, the LW980S. While LG made an excellent LW980S for the Korean market, the firm decided to sell a lower-quality, entry-level-worthy version under the same name and at the same price in Europe.

Once upon a time, a new and exciting TV was hailed king of the market and king of a certain Korean manufacturer's TV range. That TV was the LG LW980S but, unfortunately, this fairy tale was not to be, as the fate of this model was effectively scuppered by its own creator.

The LG LW980S was supposed to be the Rolls Royce of TVs. With a Nano Full LED IPS screen, 288 local backlight dimming blocks, a regular remote and a snazzy 'Wiimote' style remote, plus a whole load of the very latest connected services, it was clearly destined to be the crème de la crème in the global TV sector.

Clouding on a Nano Full LED screen?

Several European test labs and reviewers were sent LW980S TVs in September, and some have already published reviews of this model. We, on the other hand, decided to suspend publication after we saw our own test results, which turned out to be particularly disappointing for a Nano Full LED screen. Not only was the contrast ratio a rather pitiful 1000:1 but we spotted several worrying defects in the product, notably the same kind of clouding effects as usually seen in lower-end Edge LED TVs. In other words, a scene that's supposed to be solid or dark black would be plagued with grey cloud-type smudges.


We therefore wondered whether the TV we'd received was still a prototype rather than the final model destined for the high street. We also seriously wondered whether it really had those 288 dimming blocks promised by LG.

Round One: it's a prototype, forget it

When we contacted LG, they were first of all very shocked to hear the news. Apparently, we were the first test lab in Europe to have negative feedback and poor test results for their new star product. Naturally, we started to get a bit worried, especially since we then saw other sites in the UK, Germany and France giving this TV a good write-up and talking of 'incredible' picture quality. We were assured that our model must be 'broken', and so a couple of days later we took delivery of a second LW980S.

Unfortunately though, we got the same sub-standard results with our second LW980S as with the first model tested in September!


In the meantime, with the help of LG Europe, LG France (DigitalVersus shares a test lab with sister site Les Numériques in Paris) had been looking into the issue and had received confirmation from LG Korea that, contrary to what we'd initially been told, the two models we had been sent were, in fact, prototypes and not final models. LG France therefore asked us not to publish the results obtained with these two models, a request we considered to be perfectly reasonable. We did, however, decide to take things a little further, as we e-mailed a summary of our findings to LG Korea, pointing out the incoherent test results in the prototype and outlining what kind of progress we expected to see in the final version.

We were hoping to get hold of a final version of the LW980S at the beginning of October. By mid-October, though, we were being told that it would be more like the end of the month, as a few final touches were still being made in the factory and were taking longer than expected.

Then came the bombshell.

LW980S Twins! A good model for the Asian market, a sub-standard model for Europe ... but the same price for everyone!

LG Korea has now admitted to LG Europe that there are actually two different versions of the LW980S:
- Asia: LG 55LW980S with 288 local dimming blocks (12 x 24)
- Asia: LG 47LW980S with 240 local dimming blocks (10 x 24)
- Europe: LG 55LW980S with 96 local dimming blocks (8 x 12)
- Europe: LG 47LW980S with 72 local dimming blocks (8 x 9)

One disappointed owner of the LG LW980S illustrates the problem in this simple but effective video:


LG had actually come up with a kind of low-quality Nano Full LED technology for the European market. This turned out to be no better than Edge LED backlighting, yet it was still a fair bit more expensive, as the 47" model comes with a price tag of around €2,000 (approx. £1,730). It seems that LG Europe was initially oblivious to the problem and only became aware of the differing tech specs much further down the line. In fact, one of the firm's representatives confirmed online that the LW980S tech specs had changed and that they too had only just found out about it. However, unlike that particular LG rep, we don't for one minute think that this second-rate LW980S lives up to expectations, even in light of its updated tech specs!

LG Europe is therefore now lumbered with an LW980S that's impossible to sell and which you certainly shouldn't buy. Users looking for an exceptional-quality TV would be much better off picking LG's previous model, the LX9500, which has over 200 local dimming blocks.

What on earth was LG Korea thinking? Well, it seems that the move was largely intended to cut production costs, as the cost of manufacturing a TV with 288 local dimming blocks was proving more expensive than previously estimated. Given the TV market's current state of downturn, now is clearly not a time for extravagance. In fact, it seems that the future of the Asian model (named the LW9800) is also now in doubt.

Thanks to Pierre Anzil and Tristan François for their help with these investigations.

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