Top positive review
5.0 out of 5 starsAmazon LG C9 OLED Renewed, What You Might Be Able To Expect
Reviewed in the United States on October 29, 2019
I got the Amazon Renewed 65 inch C9 OLED. It was around $400 off retail price. I knew it would be a gamble. I’ve heard and read that burn in with these TVs can happen and it’s not necessarily advised to buy used. So I was very nervous about what I might get. However, I have had a lot of luck in the past with refurbished TVs. My last TV was a refurb LG and I was very pleased with it, especially for the price. My first HD TV was a store model I got for 40% off probably 10 years ago and it still works. TVs this large will typically be shipped via freight, so that’s the first hurdle. Freight is usually more gentle than standard shipping companies like UPS or FedEx. My box did have a large puncture, thankfully whatever punctured the box didn’t hit the screen. Shipping was pretty quick, about a week, Friday to the following Friday. The TV arrived sealed in its retail box, inside of a larger box with some heavy duty bubble wrap both above and below the corners of the TVs box. So it was relatively well packaged. As far as I could tell, the TV appeared to be unopened. I don’t know what the condition of this TV is. I read about Amazon Renewed policy prior to my purchase and there are several conditions your TV could be in to qualify as renewed. Open Box, Refurbished or “Used” are the ones I can remember. I can live with refurbished or open box, but I definitely don’t want a used TV. Well the one I received appeared to be new. As far as I can tell it was never opened. It might be a factory refurbished, if that’s the case, I got a great deal. I opened the box, everything was there and sealed up like it would be with a new model. Got the TV up on my stand, there’s no cosmetic damage. Turned it on, the screen is perfect. I tested it on multiple test patterns and images and it’s perfect, no burnt in images or image retention. I’ve never experienced an OLED, so it was extremely impressive. The blacks are amazing, the image motion is excellent and the colors are extremely vivid. My living room is as dark as it can be, the slightly dimmer image of an OLED, compared to a QLED, is perfect for me. There’s supposed to be G Sync compatibility later this year for Nvidia RTX graphics cards. The C9 has a 1ms response time, on par with high end gaming monitors. I have been into PC gaming for nearly 15 years and I have had at least half a dozen high end monitors over the years, this TV is as good or better than any monitor I've ever witnessed with the only exception being limited to 60 fps at 4K over HDMI. I currently have SLI RTX 2080 TI's, so I have the best possible performance money can buy at this time and this TV is the perfect match for my system. Obviously a superior LG OLED model would be even better, but their price puts them well out of my budget.
If you’re more interested in how the tv performs, I’d say check out the reviews for the retail model or check out YouTube. My review is more for what you might be able to expect from an Amazon Renewed TV.
UPDATE: with Nvidia driver updates and firmware updates for this TV, I can verify that G Sync is now working flawlessly with this TV and it’s amazing! The response time is phenomenal and the image motion perfect and smooth, even with frame rates into the 40s. Even racing games, which are notorious for stuttering under 60 FPS, like Forza 7, play very smooth when frame rates dip under 60. I’m gaming at full 4K 3840x2160 at 60 Hz with full RGB color mode, or 4:4:4 if you prefer that, with excellent HDR. Brightness is around 1100 nits according to my measurement. I play a lot of game’s with static HUDs and no image retention so far, even though I often have 5-6 hour gaming sessions straight. However, I always run the anti-burn in features every couple weeks just to be safe. I’ve never been so happy with a TV. I’ve never spent this much on a TV, but it was so worth it if you gave an RTX graphics card. Absolutely love it. Can’t wait for the next Nvidia GPU with HDMI 2.1, this TV will support 4K 120 Hz, G Sync and HDR!!
