LG's new TVs get brilliant free upgrade that'll last for years to come

Mike Lowe
·2 min read
LG C3 OLED lifestyle image.
LG C3 OLED lifestyle image.

As is tradition in the world of the best TVs, LG is the first company to reveal its annual television line-up ahead of a major showcase at the world's largest tech conference held in Las Vegas, known as CES. And following the announcement of its OLED M4 wireless TV and new roster of G4, C4 and more OLED tellies, there's a major purchase incentive announcement to sweeten the deal for those considering buying a new 4K LG TV.

That's because the Korean brand has revealed that all its 4K TVs from 2024 will feature five years of free webOS software upgrades. Similar to how the best Android phones also receive support for security and feature drops as that software grows, so too will the best LG TVs now obtain over-the-air updates to improve their offering and remain up to date.

Now that might sound like a minor point, but LG iterates its webOS software year-on-year, bringing improvements to functionality, layout, and even new features. All this goes towards making that best OLED TV that little better thanks to the magic of software. And 2024 is no different in bringing some new additions to webOS.

What's new in webOS?

It was only a few months back, in September 2023, that LG Channels 3.0 was introduced to bring free streaming direct to LG's TVs. In the UK there are over 150 ad-supported streaming channels, so there's a huge resource to get free TV already.

While the layout of webOS introduced Quick Cards in 2023, breaking up the visual format of the home page and allowing for quick access to your favourites – live TV, music, games, and so forth – for 2024 the software introduces Dynamic Quick Cards, which are much smaller and make way for a new Top Picks section.

Furthermore there's the introduction of User IDs, at up to 10 per device, which can be password protected and even further personalised. From a Picture Wizard applying per account to give your preferred visual aesthetic, to Voice ID Recognition (US and Korea only initially), it's a much more personalised setup for households where multiple people use the TV.

On the hardware side LG's new processors will permit multi-view of up to four sources simultaneously on one screen, each of which is fully interactive in a shrunken state – meaning you needn't open the source in full to interact with it. However, products with lesser processors may not be able to offer this feature in full.