I tested LG's newest Mini-LED TV – is the QNED93 better than LG's OLED?

For reasons best known to itself, the latest LG QNED Mini-LED range is called the ‘93’ in the UK, but ‘92’ in most other territories. So this QNED93 review is also, effectively, a QNED92 review, too.

Is the model the UK is getting ‘one better’, then? Apparently not – supposedly it’s exactly the same (with the obvious exception of TV tuners and what-have-you), with both numbered models aiming to be the best TV of the Mini-LED format.

Anyway, that’s not really the question, is it? The obvious question is: has LG cracked its Mini-LED offering for the QNED93 to be a viable offering to its OLED alternatives?

How much does the LG QNED93 cost?

The LG QNED93 is on sale now, and in the United Kingdom the 65-inch version (on review) sells for £1799. You can also buy a 55-inch for £1,299, a 75-inch for £2,699, and an 85-inch whopper for £3,799.

Like-for-like comparisons in other markets are tricky to make, of course, given that TVs require region-specific features – but it seems safe to say that LG will be offering a QNED92 in places like Australia and North America (albeit, quite likely minus the 55-inch model).

What's new in the QNED93?

Predictably, LG has laid the features on with a trowel here. It’s what the television market demands, after all, especially at this sort of money – and you can bet your boots that every one of LG’s rivals will be doing the same.

So the QNED93 uses an LCD panel enhanced by Quantum Dot and Nanocell technologies, and backlit using Mini-LED. It’s a combination that’s designed to offer bright, high-contrast images with rigorously focused and controlled backlighting, along with outstanding colour contrast and a game stab at 100 percent colour volume.

It’s a 4K panel, naturally enough, with a 120Hz refresh rate – and it’s compatible with HLG, HDR10 and Dolby Vision high dynamic range standards. Gamers will be pleased to learn it supports Dolby Vision Gaming (at 120Hz) and can run at up to 144Hz VRR (that's Variable Refresh Rate) if you can't do without.

The Alpha 8 AI Processor 4K Gen 2 picture processing engine (yes, that whole thing is its name) is running the show, and along with a quad-core CPU it’s in charge of deploying any number of racy-sounding features and performance-enhancing algorithms.

It’s a brave (by which I mean ‘foolish’) electronics company that hasn’t forced ‘AI’ to the front of the stage, of course – which means the QNED93 includes ‘AI Picture Pro’ as the main feature that’s going to optimise your picture quality.

In essence, ‘AI Picture Pro’ enables a whole lot of image enhancement features in one go – so whether or not you just trust it to do the business or prefer to investigate each of the different features on a case-by-case basis is very much up to you (and depends quite a lot on the amount of time you’re prepared to devote to setting up your new TV).

To name but a few of the more prominent features, there’s ‘4K Expression Enhancer’, ‘Dynamic Tone Mapping Pro’, ‘Motion Pro’ and ‘Precision Dimming Pro’ – which, I think we can all agree, is plenty of ‘Pro’s to be going on with.

Add in a menu of 10 different picture presets (including the obligatory ‘Filmmaker Mode’) and it seems fairly obvious that it’s only a matter of time before adjusting the LG’s picture options allows you to find a balance that’s exactly what you’re looking for.

Gamers haven’t been left out of this flurry of functionality, of course. As well as the compatibility with Dolby Vision Gaming I’ve already mentioned, every one of the QNED93’s four HDMI inputs support 4K@120Hz, VRR (up to 144Hz), ALLM (that's Auto Low-Latency Mode), AMD FreeSync, HGiG and QMS. And there’s a pop-up ‘GameBoard’ that offers real-time info without the need to open up a full-screen menu.

LG hasn’t scrimped on the ‘AI’ when it comes to sound, either. The QNED93 may ‘only’ feature a downward-firing 2.2-channel speaker array powered by a total of 40 watts, but features ‘Alpha 8 AI Sound Pro’ (which attempts to turn the output of those four drivers into a virtual 9.1.2 presentation) and it’s compatible with Dolby Atmos soundtracks.

The TV is also compatible with LG’s ‘WOW Orchestra’ feature, so if you decide an appropriate LG soundbar is in order, the QNED93’s audio system can enhance, rather than be overridden by, the soundbar’s efforts. And if you want to go down the whole ‘surround sound’ route, the QNED93 is ready to power a couple of wireless speakers via Bluetooth in order to provide rear channels of sound.

Can the QNED93 beat an OLED?

It’s possible to watch content on the QNED93 from quite a few different sources, of course. In the course of this test I watch broadcast TV, streams from Apple TV+ and Netflix, movies via a UHD 4K Blu-ray player and games via a Sony Playstation 5.

And it’s all the same to the LG. In almost every circumstance, it’s a convincing watch – it’s only when you set it a really tricky upscaling task with some properly low-resolution content is it anything less than composed and watchable.

Having said that, of course, it almost goes without saying that the QNED93 does its best work when given some native 4K stuff to deal with, ideally with an HDR element to it too. Pander to it in this respect and the LG is rewarding in pretty much every respect.

It’s very bright, that’s for sure – and it has a fairly game stab at creating true black, too. Contrasts are quite strikingly dynamic, and despite the fact that the screen can betray just how hard its backlighting control is working (when conformed with stuff like scrolling white text on a black background, for instance) it allows bright tones to share screen-space with the darkest tones quite happily.

Until you get right up to the brightest whites there’s plenty of detail available, too – the minutiae of colour temperatures, textures and patterns are all revealed and all enjoy plenty of variation. There’s even a fair amount of information in dark scenes, rather than the prevailing ‘crush to uniformity’ that quite a few alternative designs default to. The brightest whites can become rather static and lacking insight, though.

Edge-definition is good, and there’s notable depth of field in those scenes that require it. Control of even quite complex patterns is strong, and the LG controls on-screen motion with real determination – unless you step down to standard definition or below it’s almost impossible to provoke.

The colour balance is on the vibrant side, although it never seems artificial – and besides, there are numerous ways you can fiddle around with this sort of thing to get the output you like best.

Step down from the native 4K stuff and the LG hangs on in there determinedly. It’s a very capable upscaler of 1080p or even 720p content, and while it’s inevitably a little less detailed and a little less positive where edges and complicated patterns are concerned it’s never less than watchable. Properly antique stuff looks a bit of a mess, of course, but how often do you intend to watch reruns of Australian soap operas from the 1980s?

It’s a great monitor for gaming, too. All of the picture-quality positives listed above apply – and the LG’s ability to create bright whites and commendably deep blacks combines beautifully where lighting effects and suchlike are concerned. There’s no judder, no tearing, none of the nastiness that less capable TVs can introduce when asked to keep up with the torrent of information being poured in by a games console. And response times are so fast as to be non-existent.

The QNED93 is by no means the first TV to have sound quality that doesn’t come anywhere close to properly complementing its picture quality – but it’s the most recent one I’ve tested, and so is available for criticism.

With sound in ‘Standard’ mode, it sounds edgy and toppy – it’s not quite ‘hard’ but it’s not far off, and there’s little low-frequency presence to try to balance it out. There’s little dynamism and while the midrange projects reasonably well it still delivers voices in a rather breathless and insubstantial manner.

Switch to ‘AI Sound Pro’ and the sound of the 93 becomes, if anything, less focused and vaguer – the additional space the algorithm creates is filled with nothing of any substance.

Is the QNED93's software easy to use?

‘Design’ isn’t really a thing that happens to mainstream TVs, is it? The LG QNED93 is nothing special in this regard – it’s perfectly well built and finished, naturally, and the bezels that surround its screen are gratifyingly slim, but fundamentally it just looks like a television.

What else were you expecting? Still, at least it’s reasonably slim in profile, so it won’t look daft if you use a VESA bracket to mount it on the wall – its 19.8kg (at 65-inch size) might preclude a stud wall or similar, though.

The pedestal it stands on if you’re not wall-mounting is a fairly prosaic item, and it doesn’t swivel. It’s reasonably compact, though, so the TV doesn’t need an especially large surface to stand on.

Connectivity runs to four HDMI inputs, one of which is eARC-enabled and all of which are at HDMI 2.1 standard – which puts the LG ahead of those nominal competitors that consider two full-fat HDMI sockets to be sufficient. There’s also a couple of USB-A 2.0 slots, a pair of aerial binding posts, a digital optical output and an Ethernet socket.

There’s Wi-Fi 6 for wireless connectivity, and the QNED93 also features Bluetooth 5.3 with aptX codec compatibility. The wireless aspect of its functionality means that Apple AirPlay is available, as are Apple Home, Google Home and LG’s own ‘ThinQ’ smart home technology.

The smart TV interface is the most current version of LG’s long-serving and successful ‘webOS’ – and the company is prepared to offer 5 year’s-worth of upgrades as and when they become available. So while the TV is currently running webOS 25, it will be upgraded all the way to 30.

It’s a pretty decent interface as it stands, with a simple and easily customised layout and plenty of content available from plenty of sources. LG’s own ‘Channels’ service alone will keep you entertained indefinitely.

Navigating webOS' set-up menus and what-have-you can be done in a number of different, equally well-implemented ways. Anyone who’s used an LG TV over the last decade or so will recognise the broad outline of the remote control handset – a couple of new buttons (or, rather, new features taking the button-space of old ones) is all that set it apart.

The ‘Home Hub’ button (which becomes an ‘input selection’ button if you press and hold) takes you to a useful page from where you can – hey! – select inputs, explore ThinQ and other IoT possibilities, make AirPlay 2 connections, and so on.

If you use voice commands – the QNED93 works with Hey Google and has Amazon Alexa built in – the ‘AI concierge’ will learn your preferences and begin to suggest keywords linked to your behaviour.

And there’s further machine-led interaction available in the form of ‘AI Chatbot’ – LG reckons the overwhelming majority of user queries can be solved this way, which for everyone concerned has to be preferable to emails or phonecalls to the company.

But if you’re not all that keen on the sound of your own voice, there’s always the ThinQ control app that’s free for iOS and Android. It’s clean, stable and logical – which makes it a cut or two above some alternatives.

LG QNED93 review: Verdict

A well-specified television with a whole lot going for it where picture quality is concerned, that has plenty going on as a gaming monitor too, and that enjoys a great user interface – and it’s ‘only’ four stars?

It’s a sign of just how competitive the TV market is, and of how accomplished many TVs are, that a product as capable as the LG QNED93 (or QNED92 in some territories) can’t quite manage top marks.

This is how cutthroat the TV market is at the moment. Come back in six month’s time though, when the QNED93 has become more affordable, and its current ‘really good’ might even have become ‘great’ in the context of price.

Also consider

Has the best OLED TV suddenly become a bad TV just because it’s 2025 now? Of course not – and now the 65in version of Samsung’s S95D has dipped in price, it could be argued that it’s better than ever.