How Good is 1440p 240Hz OLED? - LG 27GR95QE Review

welcome back to monitor's unboxed I know a lot of you guys have been waiting for this one today it's finally time to discuss LG's brand new OLED gaming monitor the 27 gr 95qe a shocking name as always for a highly anticipated product that I expect to fly off shelves but what can you do this is of course if the name wasn't a complete giveaway the new 27-inch 1440p 240Hz OLED display that along with cutie oleds we saw last year is ushering in a new generation of display technology for PC gamers the 27gr 95qe is essentially a version of their latest OLED TVs cut down to a more appropriate size for desktop use if LG C2 in its 42 inch size a 3840x2160 panel and then you cut it down to 27 inches you get roughly a 2560 by 1440 display the pixel density doesn't quite match this new 27 inch panel is actually slightly more dense than the 42 inch OLED TVs we reviewed last year suggesting a minor difference in manufacturing process but that is basically what LG is going for here it uses the same W OLED Tech we've become familiar with from LG display unlike their TVs this new 27 inch variant is much more suited to proper PC gaming the refresh rate has been doubled to 240 hertz which is set to bring excellent motion Clarity it features display port for easier connectivity with graphics cards it supports adaptive sync with g-sync compatible and freesync premium branding and crucially it's just simply a much more appropriate traditional size for desk usage LG's 42 inch TVs are very large and not suitable for everyone whereas this 27 inch model should work well for many buyers naturally this is a high-end product though it's OLED so it supports full true HDR capabilities thanks to its per pixel local dimming and it has a high refresh rate so it is expensive coming in at a thousand dollars US but it's not outrageously overpriced or anything considering many other true HDR products are sitting in this sort of price range at the moment whether or not it's worth buying will be something to explore in this video today's video is sponsored by nordvpn the quick and easy to use VPN service that I've personally been using for many years now nordvpn is great for me when I'm traveling abroad to places like computex and I still want to watch my team play Australian Rules Football I just load up the app select Australia and I can stream matches at Great speeds using my existing account it's also amazing for getting the best deals while traveling sometimes you have to be in a certain country to get the cheapest flights or car rentals nordvpn makes that very easy even researching stuff for these videos is assisted by nordvpn as the best way to gather pricing information in regions like Europe for me is to tunnel in and appear like a local it gives you localized search results and it tends to be faster as well if you're interested go to nordvpn.com monitors unbox to get the two-year plan with an exclusive deal plus one bonus month free it's risk-free with nordvpn's 30-day money-back guarantee that's nordvpn.com monitors unboxed the design of the 27gr 95qe is a little different from a regular gaming monitor as LG are leaning into the thin OLED display panel to create a more aesthetically pleasing design than we usually see from chunky LCDs on the rear there is a large box section that contains all the processing Hardware but the panel itself extends out from this box and is quite thin around three of these edges which looks great the combination of gray plastic and metal looks decent as well not a whole lot of gamer styling that there are several Vents and a subtle hexagon pattern true hardcore Gamers will be pleased with the inclusion of RGB LED strips on either side of the components box which are quite bright and can provide some level of ambient lighting the stand is a combination of metal legs and a plastic pillar which I think looks great and doesn't occupy too much desk space What impressed me the most is the large range of height adjustability with quite a high maximum height that should be versatile for many desktop setups it also supports tilt pivot and swivel adjustment so you can use this monitor in a portrait orientation if you really want to though not sure how suitable this OLED would be for say a portrait secondary monitor the front is of course dominated by the OLED panel which doesn't have especially thin bezels at least relative to the best LCDs I've tested but at times it can be hard to notice as the panel is capable of true zero blacks that blend in with the bezel borders there's also a strip below the bottom bezel that doesn't look amazing but does house the IR sensor for the remote control along that bottom Edge there's also a power button and additional LED light to control the OSD you will need to use the included remote as there's no directional toggle on the housing of the monitor itself so don't lose that remote inside the OSD you'll find a pretty standard range of features for an LG monitor including some gaming specific stuff like a refresh rate display and even crosshairs a risky inclusion on an OLED where a Crosshair can burn in there's also a range of OLED care features but they are accessed through a separate button on the remote so it's not easy to find them on first glance as for ports LG includes One display port two HDMI ports a USB hub and even an optical audio output which are all very easy to access on the rear the display port is DP 1.4 with DSC and the HDMI ports are HDMI 2.1 with 48 gigabits per second of bandwidth a great inclusion as that allows the full 1440p 240Hz over HDMI unlike many other 1440p 240Hz displays I've tested that cheap out on the HDMI ports and end up limited to just 144 Hertz like with a lot of the oleds we've reviewed there are several other areas to look at before discussing Motion Performance and one of them is the screen coding we've seen several different Coatings across various oleds and this usually generates quite a bit of discussion as to whether glossy or matte Coatings are superior typically that question is hard to answer as it depends heavily on the environment you'll be using the display in as well as light sources and tolerance for Reflections the 27 gr95qe uses a matte screen coating which LG describes as anti-glare low reflection having now used over 100 monitors with some variety of matte finish I'd say this LG panel is one of the better map monitors it does a great job of handling direct light sources it doesn't reflect as much diffuse light as many LCDs I've seen and even in brighter usage conditions it preserves a lot of what makes OLED great in its deep blacks I also don't think the coding makes the screen look particularly blurry or like it has a coating of Vaseline but it is on the heavier side so if you're super sensitive to matte coating grain then this will be somewhat more noticeable than lighter Coatings as for text blurriness I believe most of these concerns are actually more attributable to the subpixel layout than the coating itself which I'll talk about in a moment should this panel have been glossy some people would definitely say yes but I'm not as convinced a glossy panel like we see on LG's OLED TVs would further increase apparent blacks in the right lighting conditions increase the pop and Clarity plus it would eliminate any matte finish related grain but this comes at the cost of Reflections which are a problem even with the great reflection handling of LG's TV setup light sources in front of the display do produce visible mirror-like Reflections and with the relatively low brightness of oleds it can be difficult to eliminate this especially when using the display during the day in a sunny room or under bright indoor Lighting in a dark room the downsides of a matte finish such as diffuse Reflections are eliminated as well and with some panel types like cutie OLED we get the worst of Both Worlds where the coding reflects ambient light anyway like a matte screen would without the benefits of reducing mirror-like reflections in general here's what I think are the best Coatings for each type of environment if you are using this display in a brightly lit room if there are light sources directly in front of the display or if you can't control room lighting very well with blinds and things like that a matte coating for an OLED is preferable and the 27 gr95 Q8 looks great in these conditions in a dimly lit room with some ambient light or if you can optimize light in the room by putting light sources behind the display or using blinds a glossy finish is preferable as it will look richer and clearer in a dark room like Gaming With the Lights Off there's almost no difference between glossy and matte with a slight advantage to glossy as it will have no coding related grain the W OLED sub pixel array is not ideal for desktop usage I think this is a more noticeable issue than past wrl displays due to the size and resolution of this monitor previously we had big 42 inch panels at 4K which weren't sitting further away and perhaps using a 125 or 150 scale factor this panel is 27 inches and 1440p so I suspect people will be sitting closer and using 100 scaling which exposes the issues with W OLED more significantly the main concern here is the use of an rwgb layout instead of traditional RGB which operating systems expect when rendering text using modern subpixel rendering techniques woled uses that additional white subpixel which changes the way each color is rendered and for fine elements like text that causes a bit of blurriness and almost shadowing relative to a normal RGB subpixel LCD I don't think it looks very good and it's a noticeable downgrade over an LCD for text quality previously in my pg-42 uq review I set the rwgb layout was better than triangle RGB used in QD OLED monitors like the aw3423dw but I disagree when it comes to the smaller 27 gr95qe while triangle RGB does have color fringing issues due to its unusual layout the artifacts generated from rwgb are found to be more noticeable during everyday usage as a result I don't think this monitor is well suited to desktop use or productivity work and that's exacerbated by the risk of permanent burning when using an OLED for desktop use which often has a lot of static elements you shouldn't be concerned about burning or the sub mix all out for that matter when using OLED for Content consumption like watching videos or playing games but if you have the same elements on screen for a long period of time like say the toolbar in an application that will likely burn in over time which is why I don't recommend OLED as a productivity monitor LG do offer some screen care features like screen shifting and automatic screen saver and various cleaning modes which are basically standard for OLED monitors today but things like screen shifting are not enabled by default so you might want to explore that if you are concerned about burn-in also LG only offer a two-year limited warranty with the 27 gr95qe which is inferior to the three-year warranty that specifically covers burn-in which is provided with alienware's cutie OLED monitors I'd want my 1 000 monitor to last at least five years and be sufficiently covered for burn-in so a two-year warranty is disappointing for those in countries with bad consumer rights Motion Performance is next up and like other oleds we've tested there isn't a whole lot to go over here the 27 gr95 QE at 240 hertz is an extremely fast monitor in fact it's the fastest tuned OLED we've seen recording an average response time of 0.2 milliseconds and cumulative deviation well under 100. interestingly like a few other Lids there is a one refresh cycle period of slight overshoot with most Transitions and this is somewhat more pronounced than other models I've tested this contributes to a total response time that is roughly that of the refresh rate as it takes one cycle at a given refresh rate for the monitor to settle to its finalized value in practice this is extremely difficult to spot as a visual artifact at such a high refresh rate it's just an interesting fact about how these oleds work that we spotted during testing also in line with other oleds is this monitor's ability to keep basically the same performance at any refresh rate so for variable refresh rate Gamers this is an excellent monitor that delivers Rock Solid response times at any refresh the only difference you'll see is that one refreshed cycle of overshoot getting longer at lower refreshes to the point where at 60 hertz in the UFO test you can actually see a very faint inverse ghosting Trail though I wasn't really able to spot this while gaming there are no overdrive settings here and I'd say this monitor does deliver a single overdrive mode experience compared to other displays the 27 gr95qe is a top Contender for Speed and absolutely destroys its LCD competition the fastest LCD in our charts is the Asus pg27aqn which is 10 times slower in response times although does pack a higher refresh rate relative to other oleds this new 27 inch model is slightly faster than the competition though this isn't really detectable in practice so you could think of other OLED Technologies as basically equivalent oleds like this new LG monitor are able to extend their lead on LCDs in average performance because oleds don't get any slower at lower refresh rates while LCDs typically do we see excellent results here in excess of 10 times faster than the nearest best LCD and we're typically looking at a difference between 0.2 milliseconds for this LG and more like four to five milliseconds for a standard LCD and this is all achieved without noticeable inverse ghosting on the OLED again looking at cumulative deviation there is a strong suggestion that oleds are the fastest monitor technology we have right now the 27gr 95qe specifically is a little interesting due to that more pronounced cycle of overshoot Slash undershoot than we saw from say the Alienware cutie OLED or lgc2 TV but this doesn't significantly change the performance picture relative to LCDs which are much worse in this metric for even the best class leaders 120hz performance is great no issues here which makes this display well suited to console gaming it also has HDMI 2.1 to help there 60hz isn't the best use case of OLED Tech as despite extremely fast response times there is still a fair bit of motion blur as the monitor simply isn't refreshing very fast input latency is excellent the processing delay in the sgr mode is just 0.3 milliseconds which when combined with a 240Hz refresh rate and 0.2 millisecond average response times leads to the best total input lag I've seen from a monitor this is a seriously responsive monitor to use and it's particularly noticeable up against a 144hz monitor or slower due to its refresh rate being high it has one millisecond less processing delay than the aw3423dwf and it's a similar margin to the 360 Hertz pg-27aqn in overall lag due to faster response times however the pg27aqn is fast in terms of refresh lag due to that higher refresh rate meaning the pg27aqn on average starts transitioning faster than the 27gi 95qe but finishes transitioning after the LG OLED for some competitive games the start point of the transition is more important than the endpoint but either way these are two very fast monitors power consumption is not amazing but isn't terrible either we when showing a 200 nit full white image the LG monitor actually falls a bit short of this but it's close it ends up with 50 watts of power consumption which is similar to some other 27 inch monitors that I've tested such as The Cooler Master gp27u and it's actually less power than the Odyssey Neo G7 but the best LCDs use about half the power so it's not an amazing result either unfortunately this LG OLED does not support backlight strobing or in the case of an OLED black frame insertion oleds are a perfect candidate for this sort of motion Clarity improving technology but for whatever reason LG has not implemented the feature here and it has been winding back support on their TVs nevertheless we can still compare the 27gr 95qe's motion Clarity to other monitors in particular the 360 Hertz IPS LCD pg27aqn even though the LCD has the higher refresh rate I think this is quite a close battle for motion Clarity looking at the UFO specifically their trade blows the OLED has a bit less blur behind the yellow cockpit but the pg27 aqn better handles the fine black lines in the red UFO body running an OLED at 240Hz is a clear step up on the 175 Hertz aw3423dw and it's obviously much faster than the Odyssey G7 as well which is among today's fastest V8 LCDs however when we look at the deluxe UFO test that includes text and a few other elements we start to see the strengths of the 360 Hotel city which ultimately I believe still has the edge in motion Clarity the text in particular is easier to read on the LCD in motion due to its 50 higher refresh rate at the same refresh rate though the OLED smokes the pg27aqn with clearly Superior results moving now to look at color performance the 27 gr95qe is your standard DCI P3 wide gamut monitor with 97 coverage of that color space so this is right in line with LG's other W OLED panels delivering a total Rec 2020 coverage of 73 these days with the emergence of quantum dot panels This is a rather middling result for example the aw3423dwf has nearly 80 coverage but it's still sufficient for gaming LG doesn't do a great job of calibrating this display at the factory with a strong blue tint giving the monitor a cold color temperature gamma performance isn't instant deal either and this varies depending on the window size tested leading to poor Delta ease for grayscale saturation and color Checker results are mediocre as well and there is no gamut clamp enabled by default in the SDR mode which does lead to some oversaturation when Rec 709 colors are expanded up to fill DCI P3 you'll see here in our comparison chart that the 27 gr 95qe is really no different in grayscale to how LG calibrates their OLED TVs at the factory while color Checker results are in the mid to lower parts of the chart nothing hugely special LG does include an srgb mode which is more accurate although the level of accuracy again changes depending on the sort of window size we're looking at testing with the 10 APL shows quite good results but gamma is much more wonky at a 90 APL so tuning could be a bit tighter here on this OLED depending on average Picture level with that said the gamut clamp in the srgp mode is effective leading to no oversaturation and better Delta ease though in general this is only an average srgb mode in terms of performance and I wouldn't describe this as especially well color calibrated luckily for those that own a Colorimeter LG do support Hardware calibration for this monitor which uploads its results into it for more accurate performance first off I used my i1 display Pro for a basic calibration using LG's app this is representative of what a normal user might get with a fairly basic and affordable calibration tool when measuring the results afterwards using my professional spectrophotometer it's a small Improvement on the built-in modes in particular the srgb mode but it's not especially accurate certainly I wouldn't say this is a top-notch calibration and I do believe better results should be possible using a Colorimeter like this possibly the LG app isn't using the right correction profile for the tool which needs a specific set of Corrections to work accurately with W OLED panels I then recalibrated the monitor using LG's app and my Pro spectrophotometer Tool which was surprisingly supported by the app that hasn't been the case with some previous Hardware calibration apps I've used anyway the results here are more in line with what I'd see through a calman calibration but as this requires a tool that costs well over five thousand dollars U.S I'm not sure how accessible these results are and really I'd have been hoping for closer from the Colorimeter ultimately the best way to calibrate the monitor is through a full software calibration we use Cowman for this and the results are generally pretty good as this monitor has a great range of capabilities that make it suited to calibration particularly for say srgb however software calibration is less versatile than Hardware calibration as it only works in supported applications whereas Hardware calibration Works in any app as it's applied after the input reaches the display one of the more contentious aspects to the 27 gr95 QE is its peak brightness for SDR content I've seen some people calling this monitor very dim which I don't think is an accurate representation of what this display can do however while it's not very dim it's also not very bright either with low brightness similar to other LG oleds like the C2 after calibration I recorded brightness of 189 nits for a full screen white window which was down around 10 nits from the bang on 200 nits the monitor can do in its Factory calibrated State this puts brightness 23 percent lower than that of the aw3423dwf there's good and bad news here the good news is that in the sgr mode there's no automatic brightness limiter meaning you get a consistent 189 nits in all situations the older LG C1 TV had quite an annoying abl for desktop use but this has been resolved with subsequent releases so most OLED monitors I've tested in the last year have either no abl or the ability to disable it through a uniform brightness type of setting the bad news is that the monitor will not be bright enough for some users who like to crank up their screen for sgr Content or are using the monitor in an especially bright environment personally I like to have my monitors at 200 nits so the 27 gr95qe isn't too bad for that and obviously this will also be fine for the 100 and 150 nit fans out there which there are many but if you're coming from an LCD where you're using it at say 80 to 100 brightness usually that's brightness levels above 250 nits maybe even as high as 400 nits so this OLED will appear dimmer in comparison this is definitely an area where oleds need to improve over the next few years as even the Cutie OLED screen brightness is on the dim side compared to most LCDs minimum brightness is very good though so those wanting to use this OLED in dark rooms will be able to run it without eviscerating your eyes contrast is also obviously fantastic as the display is capable of true zero black levels leading to an effectively infinite contrast ratio which is unmatched from LCDs Dark Shadow content looks amazing on this monitor viewing angles are also excellent on this OLED as we've come to expect from this technology you can basically view this display from any angle and get a great experience plus it's a flat panel so there's no issues arising from the Curve uniformly though was a bit less impressive while an OLED cannot suffer from say backlight bleed or IPS glow my unit did have a bit of a dirty screen effect when viewing gray content which is where you can see some gray uniformity issues viewing mid dark tones relative to an LCD that shows these tones in a more consistent even fashion while white uniformity overall was pretty good the 27 gr95 QE isn't that good for apps that have dark gray backgrounds which is surprisingly quite a few of them as with other OLED monitors I've tested the 27 gr95qe is an excellent HDR display as it's an OLED each individual pixel is self-lit providing the best contrast ratio possible from a modern display technology it has an effective Zone count of 3.7 million zones which dwarfs the best LCDs of today that typically top out around 1200 for gaming monitors or more around 576 zones when discussing 1440p HDR screens in practice this leads to no blooming or haloing when viewing HDR content that has bright and dark areas on screen at the same time any pixel that needs to be black is fully switched off so even the most punishing HDR scenes like starry nights or small lights on a dark Street look perfect and amazing even the best hjl series of today like the Samsung Odyssey Neo G7 can struggle with blooming in certain areas despite a high native contrast ratio and lots of dimming zones oleds always look perfect in all conditions you'll never have to worry about blooming and it can be a significant difference at times which leads to excellent image quality in HDR content you also don't have to worry about some of the other annoyances associated with some HDR LCD such as backlight flickering there is some light pwm Behavior to this OLED panel but I didn't find it noticeable while gaming it may appear on camera but again didn't see that in gaming and as well some LCDs have high input latency the OLED panel works the same in the sgr and HDR modes so there's no increase in input latency in its HDR mode compared to full array mode quickly dimmed LCDs that typically see over 5 milliseconds of processing lag when HDR is enabled like when discussing contrast in the SDR section of this review there's not much Point showing HDR contrast graphs as this OLED is able to achieve infinite contrast even in checkerboard tests where the Neo G7 tops out around a 20 000 to 1 contrast ratio that LCD is definitely very good and gets the closest to an OLED in terms of Shadow detail and black levels but the 27 gr95 QE and other oleds is a step above again those that care most about black levels and Shadow detail should strongly consider an OLED the major downside to this monitors HDR performance is brightness like most oleds this is not a very bright monitor for example with full screen HDR brightness the 27 gr95 QE while similar to other lgw OLED panels is quite far behind the QD OLED aw3423dw which is 93 brighter and the Cutie OLED is still low in the charts once we start talking about fald LCDs like the Neo G7 or Cooler Master gp27u where well above that level again in brightness for 10 window brightness the LG fares better in fact it outperforms the aw3423dw series at this sort of size however performance is no better than the LG C2 which was one of the weaker monitors in our testing this display is simply incapable of high levels of brightness that match a typical LCD with many of the best exceeding 1000 nits in this test when we look at brightness versus window size the 27gi 95qe typically delivers the exact same levels of brightness as the LG C2 though for smaller window sizes the new 27 inch model is slightly brighter as such like the C2 it trades blows with the aw3423dw depending on the window size brighter in the 10 to 25 Zone but dim it elsewhere especially at small window sizes curiously while LG advertises a minimum of 800 nits Peak brightness at a 3 Apo in the HDR mode I was only able to achieve around 700 nits best case under similar conditions perhaps I just wasn't using the right settings but I don't think 800 nits or a thousand nits is especially realistic for this panel and that's shown in real scene brightness measurements in scene 1 which is a YouTube HDR video the 27 gr95qe does a mid-level job of brightness reporting in around 450 nits which was actually higher than the LGC to an Alienware qdo LEDs however it fell behind the pg-42 uq and several of the LCD options but it can depend significantly on the LCD at Samsung's Odyssey Neo monitors were poor in this test in scene 2 of 4K HDR movie the results weren't as impressive the 27gr 95qe topped out at just 611 nits here well below the aw3423dw with its 800 nits of brightness and also below the LGC to its 607 units while not a horrible result the best LCDs typically were also in the 800 nit range then for gaming we also saw real scene brightness max out around 600 nits in our gaming test while the aw3423dw reached 1000 nits and I think this showcases well the differences for two to five percent window sizes the LG monitor isn't substantially different to the LG C2 but it's on the poorer end for Peak brightness in this scene these days I would class 600 nits as really the minimum for HDR brightness and while this 1440p 240Hz OLED can achieve that it just can't produce the same sorts of dazzling bright highlights as other HDR monitors HDR accuracy though was quite solid especially for eotf tracking which I tested at multiple window sizes and found good results the 10 Window performance is shown here brightness roll off occurs at a good spot and dark level tracking is decent meaning Shadow detail is going to be pretty accurate from this monitor saturation tracking is also pretty good limited by the color gamut of the monitor but nothing too unusual here so you should expect games and HDR videos to look as they should final section of this review is the Hub Essentials checklist LG does well in the first section accurately advertising HDMI 2.1 and DisplayPort capabilities they also score well for color performance and while 200 nits wasn't achievable after calibration it did hit basically exactly 200 hits from the factory hence I gave it a borderline result however despite advertising the monitor as color calibrated I don't think the results shown from the factory are sufficient to claim this unfortunately for some bizarre reason LG decided to advertise this monitor as having 0.03 millisecond response times this is a very fast OLED but 0.03 milliseconds is a bit unrealistic on average based on our testing which showed more like 0.2 millisecond results that's still very fast and could easily have been advertised as even a 0.1 millisecond product so I don't think 0.03 milliseconds was necessary as for HDR performance this is a true HDR product although the 800 nit Peak HDR brightness figure quoted in the spec sheet is kind of overestimating the true capabilities of the product the final section covers issues and defects while I didn't spot any flickering or scan line problems the rwgb subpixel layout does have implications for text Clarity and there is a risk of burning however I was pleased to see that while this monitor does have active cooling it's effectively silent during operation and I only noticed there was a fan when I put my ear right up to the top vents on the rear so that's a lot of testing results lots of data on this latest monitor from LG But ultimately would I recommend you buy the LG 27gr 95qe the new 1440p 240Hz OLED monitor I certainly think this is a very good product for gaming and contact consumption there is a lot to like about this product but it has also been hyped to a significant degree and I think prospective buyers need to cool their expectations a bit on what the first OLED like this can do in 2023 I think this display is worth buying it's a great display but it's not the ultimate product that can do absolutely everything that you might want strengths here are plentiful and when This Ole panel does something well it tends to do something really well Motion Performance is one example we get Lightning Fast Response times and a high refresh rate of 240 hertz which combined leads to excellent motion Clarity I ultimately had it falling just short of the super fast 360 Hertz IPS looking at motion stress tests but it gets remarkably close despite a lower refresh rate and it absolutely demolishes any other 240 hertz LCD on the market this combined with a very low input lag makes it really well suited to competitive multiplayer gaming again it's not the overall Champion I expect some people to still prefer the pg-207 aqn or a strobe TN LCD like the xl2566k but the 27gr 95qe is a much more versatile gaming launcher and that's because it supports true HDR gaming on top of excellent motion Clarity for multiplayer this means that if you also want to play visually stunning single player games the 27gr 95 fqa equips you with all the tools for a great HDR experience it is per pixel dimming so blooming is a non-issue excellent black levels and acceptable brightness in some conditions there is simply no other monitor on the market right now that combines this level of HDR with this level of Motion Performance in the one package it's unmatched for those that enjoy a wide variety of games there's several other strengths here too such as support for Hardware calibration a wide P3 color gamut outstanding viewing angles and some PC specific OLED Comforts like DisplayPort and no automatic brightness limiter in the sgr mode issues you can face buying an OLED TV for gaming instead of a monitor it also has proper HDMI 2.1 so no limitations there however like other oleds I would not recommend the 27 gr95 degree for desktop use or productivity work this display has low SDI brightness is at risk of permanent burning from long periods of static usage and has a flawed rwgb subpixel layout that affects text Clarity and it's especially noticeable on this sort of display size and resolution you're not going to have too many issues using this for the occasional bit of web browsing but I would far prefer an IPS LCD for any sort of serious work or for long stints in desktop apps there's also only a mediocre two-year warranty here I would have liked more peace of mind surrounding burn-in from such an expensive monitor there's a few contentious issues with this display as well that will affect your experience depending on what you're after the brightness for example even in HDR situations is unimpressive it's not bad it's just not a super bright Monitor and its HDR strengths are more around black levels and Rich Shadows CUNY OLED panels like what we saw in the aw3420 DW are typically much brighter so if that matters to you cutie OLED might be a better option there's also the matte screen coding which I thought was pretty good and perfectly fine for my usage environment but naturally if you are a matte screen hater or have a different sort of setup you probably won't like this experience bite some of these downsides I still think there's plenty of reasons to buy the 27 gr95qe and I definitely recommend it as a high-end 1440p hjr gaming monitor is really the only normal sized OLED gaming module on the market today I think you just need to be aware of what you can and can't do with it if you want it for gaming or content consumption you'll have a great experience if you're after something that can do everything an LCD can do it may have a few drawbacks the pricing as well I feel is quite fair at a thousand dollars US that makes it cheaper than products like the Odyssey Neo G7 from Samsung and the Alienware aw3423dwf but it had more expensive than the LG c2s typical asking price these days it's obviously an expensive monitor but a thousand dollars Feels Right For What It's offering and that'll do for this monitor review quite a long one here as there is obviously a lot to go over when we get these new OLED monitors with all the different screen Coatings to talk about the subjects are layout and obviously HDR performance as well hopefully in the next couple of days I'll also be doing a more in-depth comparison looking at how this monitor compares to the Cutie OLED Alienware that we've been talking about throughout this review a bit of a more of a head-to-head we'll look at some of the things side by side see how it fares as I imagine a lot of Gamers out there will be tossing up between those two particular moments as both of them are great but they do have different strengths and weaknesses so we'll touch more on that in a future video so subscribe to monitors unboxing if you are interested in getting that video in your inbox and and yeah if you want to support our independent testing we do have links in the description below so yeah sign up to our patreon floor plan accounts get some cool bonuses and all that sort of thing so really appreciate all the people that are signed up and support our testing in that way so thanks for watching this video it's been a long one if you've made it to the end I really do appreciate it and I'll catch you in the next one [Music] foreign

Channel: Monitors Unboxed

Views: 188,766

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Id: 2YBJFYGtmQk

Length: 35min 34sec (2134 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 14 2023

Reddit Comments

[u/mives]

TLDW: It's not perfect, but it's unmatched in its versatility in content consumption. It's super fast so e-sports/competitive gamers would love it, it's true HDR so single player games would look absolutely stunning/beautiful. Not great for work/productivity.

[u/Jetcat11]

It was an awesome video review but I’m surprised they didn’t talk about any of the preset modes or DAS.

[u/InstructionSure4087]

There's really no reason that an i1DP calibration should be that bad, it's a fairly accurate colorimeter. Hopefully there will be a way to use DisplayCAL instead and upload that LUT or something to the monitor instead of having the LG app itself do the calibration, because I suspect the LG app is the weak link in the chain there.

[u/LA_Rym]

Note: this monitor comes without warranty*.

*While the warranty it comes with covers the usual issues, OLED main issue, burn in, is NOT covered by the warranty. Furthermore, the initial warranty for this particular product was 12 months, this was later extended to 2 years likely due to legal obligations.

[u/bites_stringcheese]

I'm using mine for work right now in a room with TONS of natural light. It's perfectly usable. Not ideal, but if you're working by day and gaming by night it's all around a fantastic monitor. Only thing is the anti glare coating does make it look dirty. But it's only really noticeable on white content like web pages.

[u/Nemo64]

Every review is missing a detail.

Here: you can apparently fix the font rendering by disabling ClearType. That was not possible with the QD-OLED.

But I’ve seen reviews were people didn’t figure out that you need to use the remote to configure it. Or in which the energy saving wasn’t disabled.

It is definitely a monitor where you have to know what your are doing. My order is out and I’m excited.

[u/daedroth28]

I've been eyeing this monitor this it was announced, to replace my small 24" Dell S2417DG 1440p 144Hz monitor. I have a LG C2 55" TV, which I've had my PC hooked up to for gaming and I'm struggling to go back to the Dell monitor, because of how poor it looks in general compared to the TV. However, the TV is not convenient to use for general gaming and that's why I've been waiting for this.

From the review, it ticks all the boxes I thought it would and the downsides aren't really an issue for me (like brightness). Though as it's a first generation product, with first generation pricing - I'm not sure I can justify £1000 for a new monitor, so it's put me in a right moral pickle.

[u/Untinted]

I'm looking for a great gaming monitor as well as a productivity monitor (coding) and it's sad that this doesn't seem to be the solution I'm looking for.

If burn-in risk and RWGB wasn't an issue, I'd really be interested in it as a work-from-home/gaming solution.

[u/Skizim1702]

Bought this and compared to my qd oled if you don’t mind the ultrawide aspect ratio the qd oled is alot more impressive