As any home cinema fan knows, the world needs more small – but good – OLED TVs. After all, just because we may be short on space, or be fortunate enough to be able to afford an OLED as a bedroom set, doesn’t mean we should have to sacrifice picture quality.
That’s why myself, and the wider home cinema team, keep banging on about why it’s so great that LG, Panasonic and Philips continue to offer 42- and 48-inch variants of their step-down OLEDs.
This year that list was headlined by the 42-inch and 48-inch LG C4, which not only earned a perfect five-star rating when we tested them, but also impressed our reviews team enough to pick up trophies at this year's What Hi-Fi? Awards. Specifically, the 42-inch LG C4 won the best 40-43-inch and best gaming TV trophies, while the 48-inch C4 won the best 48-50-inch category at the What Hi-Fi? Awards 2024.
There’s a good reason for that. For the money, both manage to retain the key strengths of their larger siblings, which we compared directly against when we ran the two through our review processes’ stringent series of comparative checks. Excellent, punchy but realistic picture quality? Check. Solid motion handling? Check. Flawless gaming specifications? Check. They’re all present on the 42-inch and 48-inch LG C4.
But, while these strengths were retained, the sets also kept one big annoyance – their horribly low stand height.
Most OLEDs, and TVs in general, regardless of whether they have feet or pedestal stand designs, have at least two height options. The reason being, despite some brands' insistence on adding speaker bars (which is a separate bugbear I have about certain modern TVs), companies are aware that serious movie fans will likely want to add a separate sound system.
This is especially true on smaller TVs where they have even less space – and a key reason weak audio is firmly in both the 42- and 48-inch LG C4’s cons list in our respective reviews.
Despite positive steps, the form factor and small dimensions of modern TVs mean it’s all but impossible to get truly great home cinema sound without a separate soundbar, so being able to set a TV stand a little higher to accommodate one neatly below the screen makes sense.
What doesn’t make sense is that, despite being clearly aware of the need for a soundbar, since the high price of OLEDs means that many are being purchased by home cinema enthusiasts, companies haven’t applied that learning to smaller models yet.
Both the 42- and 48-inch models have a single height option, that isn’t tall enough for even the smallest of soundbars to sit under without clipping some of the screen’s bottom edge. As an added annoyance, the 48-inch model’s central stand also has an angled front, making it even more awkward if your stand is a fairly thin one.
This is a long-running problem I experience every day as an owner of a 48-inch LG C2, and the reason I’ve had to invest in a fairly deep, and in some ways comically large, stand for the set, as I refuse to rely on its in-built speakers.
Hopefully TV manufacturers will rectify this mistake in 2025 when we, fingers crossed, get to see key new models for the year, including the fabled LG C5. Here’s hoping at least.
MORE:
These are the best small TVs we’ve reviewed
We rate the best Dolby Atmos soundbars
Our picks of the best OLED TVs
