The name says plenty: it’s an OLED screen TV which translate in a living color palette and a very intense black. Letter B identifies it as the standard issue of OLED TV series from 2016, the only actual advantage that higher LG products have is a better design and 3D support.
Design
Two people are required to install the TV. It weighs 18.6 kg and it’s large enough to make handling by just one person simply impossible.
The rear casing is painted in light gray and it’s also very thin, just like other OLED TVs. The inferior area is a thicker, mainly because that’s the area of the mainboard and ports. All and all, the thickness rises from a few millimeters to 4.8 cm, without measuring the support. On the center there’s a joystick for control without a remote.
This model brings along the famous Magi Remote, especially useful for controlling apps from Web OS.
A colorful, well designed guide displayed on the screen guides the user through the setup steps of the TV. I managed to get the TV to communicate with my RCS receiver so I was able to switch channels, modify the channel list and other functions by using just one remote.
Picture quality
OLED55B6P offers a brilliant picture, vivid colors, enhanced brightness and a huge and deep contrast, but don’t expect to see all these from a regular TV channel. Not even HD channels offer data to match the capabilities of this TV.
However, if you’re streaming high resolution images from a high quality source, you will instantly by aware of the change. I had a few TV testing videos (you can easily find them on Google) and it was a pleasure to watch them, admiring every detail and every beautifully rendered picture.
Obviously, a 4K Blu-Ray will really take out the best from this TV. OLED technology comes with other advantages as well: the TV no longer has side placed LEDs throwing light towards the center of the screen, but each pixel lights up individually. This also means that each pixel can be separately turned off – that’s where the “Infinite Contrast” name comes from. Furthermore, if the TV can provide, at least temporarily, a brightness of 600 nits, it means it can also display very bright pictures.
You will enjoy high quality streaming on decent streaming sources such as Netflix, or when watching high resolution photographs from an USB flash drive or an external hard drive. I used a few vacation photos to check out how the TV manages them, and I ended watching all my gallery again, because I’ve never seen them on such a large screen.
HDR technology lights up on details from dark or very bright pictures. There are HDR movies as well as a few TV transmissions using HDR technology.
OLED55B6P model comes with both Dolby Vision (more complex HDR) and HDR10 (lower end HDR) support. If you remember the review of 55UH750 model from a few months back, it was only capable of rendering HDR10, being from an inferior tier.
Concluding, HDR technologies are well covered by this TV’s hardware.
Ultra HD Premium
As previously mentioned, this TV features a 4K panel, boasting a 3840 x 2160 resolution. It comes with Ultra HD Premium certification which is given only to the best products going out the factory gates. These are usually built by the highest standards and are complimented by a quality sound system.
Sound
There’s no better sound system on a TV in its class. The highest volume level goes well above other competitors, while the sound is still pleasant to the ear, without distortion on the entire dynamic range.
The sound systems consists of 40W Hardman Kardon speakers. Specs reveal a 4.0 configuration – 4 regular speakers set in stereo mode. Optionally, an optic output can route the sound towards headphones while the Bluetooth system provides streaming on wireless speakers.
The TV brings along a few sound enhancement technologies: Clear Voice III, OLED Surround, Hi-Fi Audio and other few gimmicks by LG, the most noteworthy being a sound tuning mode. This tuning mode emits a sound that’s recorded by the microphone inside the remote. Then the TV will automatically adjust the speakers.
Smart TV
Web OS interface uses joyful animations which are guaranteed to steal at least a smile. Menu navigation is intuitive and fast. There a fast settings group, for small adjustments along with the regular configuration menus, highly complex but featuring explanation tooltips for each function.
WebOS 3.0 is faster and richer in function compared to 2.0.
There aren’t too many available apps, but you probably don’t even want them. The real advantage of Smart TV rests in the efficient integration of various PC software such as Netflix and HBO Go.
The main apps available on OLED55B6P are Netflix, HBO Go, Accuweather, Cinemagia, Youtube, Euronews, Deeze, Google Maps, Filmbox and Plex. Among these there are various apps for small services or games, although not so eye-catching as the ones mentioned above.
Any app we’ve tested worked properly without issues. We were confident Netflix and HBO GO won’t be an issue, but Youtube used to feature some bugs on some other TVs, as there is the need for a fast CPU to process all the data. Fortunately, OLED55B6P has everything it needs beneath the hood, so the overall Youtube experience was a good one, with minor lags when using the virtual keyboard.
The internet browser worked surprisingly well. Pages load at decent speed, being able to play even Youtube embedded videos.
Phone screen sharing worked without issues while the synchronization is fairly easy to do.
One of the default software software is a file browser which instantly detects external storage media, making it easy to browse through files and folders. The TV supports HEVC and VP9 formats when playing from external media.
This is the same place where you’ll encounter screen caps. It’s a rather strange function, as it initially does some sort of digital zoom, just like you’d put a magnifying glass over the screen. That’s the only way you can take screenshots. Apparently, there’s not an alternative to this, so far.
Magic Remote reveals to be highly helpful; it’s enough to spin it around in the air and it will work just like a computer mouse. It’s easy to interact with any app, has a reasonable size, buttons are easy to learn and have a nice feel, especially volume and channel buttons.
Conclusion
LG OLED55B6P is a real high-end TV. We haven’t actually found something we really don’t like; it works perfectly in all its modes and provides excellent quality imaging and sound. The only sort-of issue is that regular digital television won’t be able to fully use the capacities of this TV. It would be wise instead, to pair it with a Blu-Ray 4K player or other comparable streaming source.
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