LG 65QNED85

Design

• 55-, 75- and 85-inch alternatives
• Multiple options for feet position

The LG 65QNED85 evo AI is, in the best way, an unremarkable television in terms of design. It’s a big, black, nicely proportioned rectangle that’s usefully slim (30mm) if you intend to wall-hang it – it’s VESA-compliant and weighs a fairly standard 22.5kg.

If you’re standing it on a surface, though, it’s good to know there are four available positions for the ‘L’-shaped feet. They can be towards the outside of the frame or closer to the middle, which gives you options regarding the size of the surface you want to put it on, and they can either keep the screen low or raise it up to provide space for a soundbar.

The standard of build and finish is more than adequate in relation to the asking price. The bezels around the edge of the screen are carefully fitted and usefully slim – a 65-inch TV will never look discreet, but LG has done what it can to minimise the bulk of the QNED85.

Connectivity

• Four HDMI 2.1 inputs
• Apple and Google ‘Home’ compatibility

Because this is an LG TV, all of the four HDMI inputs are at full 2.1 standard. Additionally, HDMI 3 is eARC-enabled. In addition to those four HDMI inputs, the LG features an Ethernet socket, a couple of USB 2.0 slots, a pair of aerial binding posts, a CI slot, and a digital optical output for use with more ‘vintage’ soundbars.

There’s also Bluetooth 5.3 and Wi-Fi 6 wireless connectivity – a Wi-Fi or Ethernet connection means your LG TV is compatible with smart home versions of Apple and Google, as well as Google Cast.

User Experience

• Remote, app or voice control
• WebOS interface
• LG Channels

The 65QNED85 evo AI is supplied with the latest version of the ‘Magic’ remote control the company has been finessing for a while now. It combines ‘air mouse’ point-and-click functionality with a motion sensor, a scroll-wheel and a reasonably sensible button layout, and is crying out for some backlighting.

As well as putting you in charge of the 2025 version of LG’s WebOS operating system (which LG promises will be upgraded, free of charge, for the next five years), the remote control allows you to interact with plenty of the AI features the company quite obviously considers obligatory.

So there’s AI Picture Wizard and AI Sound Wizard for those who can’t be doing with the more comprehensive set-up menus that are available. There’s AI Voice ID and AI Chatbot, which between them can recognise a specific user’s voice and offer appropriate tips and recommendations – AI Concierge does something similar but includes customised keywords when helping with content searches. If it can be AI-d, LG will have AI-d it.   

The LG ThinQ control app has not come in for quite the same attention as the remote control. It’s still a useful and usable interface, of course, but it looks less interesting and engaging with every day that passes.

The operating system is fairly neat and tidy, isn’t too overtly after your money when it comes to making recommendations, and has a welcome degree of customisation so you can easily access the apps you’re after.

Every worthwhile catch-up TV and streaming service is available, and LG provides its own Channels app that provides a surprising amount of free content (with ads, naturally).

Gaming

• Dolby Vision for Gaming
• All four HDMI sockets offer full console gaming support
• Game Optimiser dashboard

LG has always taken the gaming aspect of its TVs seriously, and the 65QNED85 is no exception. Each of its four HDMI inputs supports VRR to 144Hz , HGiG, AMD FreeSync and Dolby Vision for Gaming (4K/120Hz).

Console gamers will be absolutely fine here, and anyone with a hankering after 165Hz support and the like will already know that these are features only found on TVs costing a fair bit more than this.

LG is claiming input lag of 5ms in Game Mode. That may sound optimistic, and it is, but the broad point – that the LG is absolutely lightning-fast in its gaming responses – is satisfactorily made. The Game Optimiser on-screen dashboard is as useful here as it is on any other TV – only you, as the end user, can decide if it’s a benefit or a distraction. 

Features

• Four HDMI 2.1 inputs
• Dolby Vision HDR (including Dolby Vision for Gaming)
• AI with everything

The 65QNED evo AI is a 4K LCD TV – it features Mini LED backlighting with local dimming, and utilises the QNED (quantum nano-emitting diode) technology LG has been all-in on for some time.

It uses a combination of quantum dots and nano-cell particles which, in combination with the huge number of individual LED backlights, is designed to offer brightness, a wide colour gamut, high contrasts and deeper black tones. 

The panel is compatible with HLG, HDR10 and Dolby Vision HDR standards, and has a native 120Hz fresh rate.

The entire operation is under the control of LG’s a8 AI Processor 4K Gen 2 processing engine. Brightness control and upscaling is AI-assisted – which, as I will come to soon, is far from the only instance where the 65QNED85 evo AI has firmly grasped the AI nettle.

Between 10 picture modes, including the still-divisive Filmmaker Mode, dynamic tone mapping, and Motion Pro motion control, the processor is pulling many levers and throwing many switches in an effort to deliver optimum picture quality no matter the content.

Sound is provided by a 2.0 array of downward-firing drivers, powered by a total of 20 watts. There’s further AI usage in the shape of a8 AI Sound Pro that wants to provide a facsimile of 9.1.2 spatial audio from two channels of audio information, and AI Acoustic Tuning.

The fact the 65QNED85 evo AI is compatible with LG’s WOW Orchestra feature, in which the TV’s audio system joins in with, rather than being overridden by, a suitable soundbar, is a rather more tangible benefit.

Picture Quality

• Bright, high-contrast images
• Very decent with black tones
• Some very minor backlighting issues

Personally I don’t subscribe to the notion that AI automatically makes things better. In the case of this LG’s AI Picture Wizard, though, I am prepared to concede that it makes a big difference to the out of the box picture quality of the 65QNED85 evo AI, very quickly and with next-to-no effort on the part of the user. It’s not as effective as actually using the set-up menus, of course, but as a painless way of getting most of what this TV is capable of, it’s very worthwhile.

Images here are bright and high-contrast – LG’s claims for best-case-scenario peaks of almost 2000 nits seem plausible, and the depth and variation available in black tones makes a Dolby Vision-assisted Netflix stream of A House of Dynamite look dynamic and punchy (even in Filmmaker Mode).

In between these two extremes, the colour palette is vibrant and naturalistic – primaries will pop, sure, but nothing is overblown or overdriven, and the LG displays a particularly pleasing facility with skin tones.

Detail levels are high at every point, and the 65QNED85 evo AI can cope with tight or complex patterns calmly – crawl or shimmer is barely a rumour in all but the most trying circumstances. Information regarding texture – again, especially when complexions are concerned – is readily forthcoming, and this combines with confident edge-definition to deliver genuinely convincing images.

It’s possible to get decently smooth motion out of the LG – but to do so you’ll have to ignore the set-up wizard and trust the evidence of your eyes. Almost all of the Clarity options in the set-up menus need to be switched off, especially TruMotion, if the screen is going to be able to cope with on-screen movement without smearing or ghosting.

In general, the LG controls its backlighting pretty well. It’s blessed with a great many discrete dimming zones, after all, and the processor seems very responsive indeed when it comes to lighting fluctuations.

Quick transitions between scenes can betray how hard the processor is working, it’s true – a little patchiness and dirt areas are visible for a split-second during smash-transitions from bright to dark. There can be more than a little hint of haloing during those white text on black background-type scenes, too. But if you balance this against the gratifying black-tone depth and detail the LG is capable of generating, it’s not a huge price to pay. 

Upscaling

• Quite competent upscaling… up to a point

If you step down in quality from native 4K content to a 1080p Blu-ray of Killer Joe, most of what makes the 65QNED85 evo AI so watchable remains intact. Contrasts are strong, detail levels are very acceptable, and the TV’s facility with skin-tones and -textures is carried over too.

Picture noise can creep in during the most difficult scenes, admittedly, and edge definition becomes a little more approximate than previously – but by the standards of large-yet-quite-affordable televisions, the LG does good work with Full HD content.

And unlike some alternatives, the LG doesn’t throw in the towel when given a bit of standard-def stuff to deal with. The nuance of its colour palette deserts it somewhat, picture noise sets up camp in almost every instance, and motion control becomes altogether more approximate – and it can be weirdly bright in scenes that don’t really call for it.

But nevertheless, by prevailing standards the 65QNED85 evo AI gives a pretty solid rendition of the lo-res content you might want to watch.

Sound Quality

• Narrow, thin sound
• Unsubtle and undynamic
• AI Sound Wizard is no help

I am well used to affordable TVs being no great shakes when it comes to sound quality – but I must admit to being slightly startled by just how poor this LG sounds. It stops short of being actively offensive, I will concede – but not by much.

Leave the AI Sound Wizard well alone and the sound during an Amazon Prime stream of The Neon Demon is thin and hard, stays strictly within the physical boundaries of the screen itself, and overlooks detail at every turn.

It doesn’t enjoy anything beyond modest volume levels, and can quickly get edgy and shouty if you push your luck. There’s no light or shade to the sound this television makes – it’s a flat and two-dimensional listen, and is particularly strident where dialogue is concerned.

Most of this is true of the sound post-AI Sound Wizard too. The presentation gets both larger and louder, but it’s no more detailed or dynamic – and it’s not as well-organised as before, and if anything becomes even more shouty and insistent.

So not for the first time I’m suggesting you should budget for a modestly priced soundbar to try and do some justice to the images your new TV is capable of serving up – in fact, I’m this close to insisting.

Should you buy it?