The LG NANO85 4K TV has a stylish and modern look, and metal back panel. The borders are thing and not distracting.
PROS
• Very easy setup and good out-of-the-box colors
• Excellent internal media player
• Easy smart home integration with Alexa and Google Assistant
• Good out-of-the box colors and upscaling capabilities
• Impressive reflection handling
CONS
• Poor black uniformity and bad local dimming
• Poor internal speakers
Considered on the lower end of LG’s Nano Series TVs, the NanoCell 85 series from 2020 is budget friendly and comes with ThinQ smart technology as well as support for Dolby Atoms, Dolby Vision and HDR. It’s available in 49, 55, 65, and 75 inch screen size. The newer lower end NanoCell Series no longer supports Dolby Vision, especially if you want something on the smaller end like 49 inches so the Nano85 49 inch version is an excellent Dolby Vision TV choice. Thanks to the IPS panel, NANO85 series TV has a wide viewing angle and has a quite respectable picture quality in brighter rooms. However, the black levels and contrast ratio is too low for it to be really convincing in dark environments. NANO85 TVs only comes with edge lit local dimming, which is rather disappointing and does not really improve the blackness and puts a white glow around images and text that are not black.
The picture quality is very good straight out of the box. You can fine tune it according to your liking. One of the best features of LG NanoCell TVs is that you can set any video signal to its HDR processing, making normal pictures more color rich. It’s like watching any video source in HDR format. NanoCell TVs also allow you to adjust and save settings for any video format. Maybe you want to add HDR processing and sharpen the images to SDR videos. Maybe for Dolby Vision videos, you want to add any noise reduction processing. All you have to do is change it and it’ll use the same settings for the same video format.
From the gaming side, it has 120Hz display and an HDMI 2.1 interface, which allows an ALLM and a VRR, so the NANO85 can already take the next gen consoles to the next level. The input latency is very short, it has a decent reaction time and there is an initialization function with a black frame to help minimize motion blur. This is a fantastic TV for your modern gaming needs.
With the magic remote, you can also control the TV with LG’s AI thinQ voice commands. It works with Google Assistant and Alexa. Both are easy to setup. If you’re into smart home functionalities, you can set up the TV to turn on and off, change volume and inputs from any Echo device.
LG native apps and are very good. It has most of the streaming services you’d expect like Netflix, Disney+, Sling TV, and Hulu, however it doesn’t have quite the library of apps like Roku or Fire TV. What is also very good is it’s internal video and music player. It’s capable of playing WAV, FLAC, mp3 audio files and MPG, MKV video files from either a connected USB drive or over the network, making this TV a capable network streaming device.
Like most modern TVs, its internal speakers are nothing special. There’s not enough space to physically fit decent speaker drivers into the thin TV panel. You’d be better off with a soundbar or a home theater system.
Key Features
• Real 4K NanoCell Display: Nano Color, Nano Accuracy, Nano Bezel, Local Dimming
• α7 Gen 3 Processor 4K with AI Picture & AI Sound
• webOS + ThinQ AI w/ Magic Remote
• Cinema HDR w/ Dolby Vision IQ and Dolby Atmos
• Gaming: FreeSync, Variable Refresh Rate, ALLM, HGiG
Technical review from Rtings.com
LG Unboxing and Setup guide
