Announced at the LG World Premiere presentation on January 6th at the CES conference in Las Vegas, the new LG C5 OLED TV is about to meet its release date, especially now LG C5 pre orders have gone live. We bring you everything you need to know including confirmed information about the specifications and features of LG’s new mid-range OLED TV.

On top of that, we can now take a closer look at the pricing, as this was a detail that remained uncertain up until pre-orders became available. While you’re here, also be sure to check out the G5 release date and G5 pre-orders if you’re interested in the higher-end model.

LG C5 release date: when will the LG C5 come out?

LG hasn’t exactly announced the release date for the new mid-range OLED TV, but retailer listings for pre-orders reveal what you need to know. As we can see from the LG C5 Amazon retail listing, these cards are slated to arrive on April 6th at the earliest; this is around a week after the pre-order period expires on the LG website. The official storefront says pre-orders are expected to start shipping “the week of” March 31st. Additionally, a special soundbar featuring these new TVs ends on April 6th.

LG C5 specs & features: what we know

At the grand unveiling of their new range at CES 2025, LG revealed some of the specification information on the upcoming products, including the LG C5. Disappointingly, there doesn’t seem to be a great deal of difference between the C5 and the C4; certainly, the new TV represents much less of a jump than existed between the C4 and the C3.

Firstly, the processor is an α9 Gen8 aka Alpha 9 Gen 8 chip, which is an upgrade over the previous Alpha 9 Gen 7, though this is a similar leap to the Gen 7 in the C4 compared to the Gen 6 in the C3.

Peak brightness is, according to LG, slightly higher in the C5, though they gave no figures as to how much of an improvement over the C4 it was, so it’s safe to assume it’s a fairly small uplift. It’s possible this may come about due to the aforementioned processor upgrade increasing efficiency and optimizing power delivery, rather than any improvements to the panel, which don’t seem to be present. There’s no mention of the new ‘Brightness Booster Ultimate‘ tech that’s going to be present in the new G5, and the maximum refresh rate has maintained the 144Hz found in the previous gen.

The biggest changes for the C5 appear to be the upgrade to webOS 25 and the AI features this will include. ‘Smart profiles’ can be assigned to different people with voice recognition, allowing the TV to automatically detect who you are when you ask it to do something and alter its features to your personal preference. The AI Picture wizard will also help you customize the picture to your preference.

Size options for the LG C5 are the same as those for the C4, namely: 42″, 28″, 55″, 65″, 77″, 83″.

LG C5 price

Now that pre-orders have arrived, we can throw out any earlier speculation. The great news is that the C5 generation starts even cheaper than the last-gen for the 42″ model. The table below explains all you need to know.

Will the C5 come with MLA?

MLA (Micro Lens Array) technology was present in the panels of the previous gen LG G4, giving it higher peak brightness without increasing the risk of burn-in or higher power requirements, so the hope was that we’d see it in the mid-range C5 this year; unfortunately, this does not look likely to be the case.

The company seems to have moved away from MLA panels as they are quite expensive to make, in favour of Brightness Booster Ultimate which is likely LG’s name for Four-Stack OLED technology – a cheaper way of achieving similar results. Neither Brightness Booster Ultimate or MLA are likely to be present on the C5 however, with the former only being mentioned in the context of the G5.

Will it be worth buying the C5 over last year’s model model?

Based on what LG has revealed at CES 2025, we can’t imagine that the fairly limited improvements to the C5 over its predecessor will make it worth buying over the C4 unless the two end up being priced fairly similarly. If you look at the 65-inch models on Amazon currently, there’s about a $300 difference between the C4 and the preceding C3, and if the pricing for the C4 and C5 ends up having a similar gap then we’d probably opt for the older model. However we won’t know for sure until the first reviews come out for the new TV.

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Aaron Ritchie

Aaron's laptop knowledge makes him the go-to guy on PC Guide. But he still finds time for features, deals and much more.