Product Review: The LG 27GR95QE-B a Worthy Monitor, or a Swing & a Miss?
This monitor was tested thoroughly as well as used PERSONALLY every day to complete this full in-depth review. Here is what I found after this process...
Pros:
240Hz Refresh Rate
Extremely Low Ghosting & Input Lag
Great Build Quality
Infinite Contrast Ratio
Wide Color Coverage
Cons:
Low Brightness
Terrible Matte Finish
Text Fringing
Size, Resolution, & Panel Type
The LG 27GR95QE-B is a 26.5 inch gaming monitor with a 2560 by 1440p resolution. This brings the PPI, or pixels per inch, how crisp and clear the image is actually going to appear to your eye, to about 111 pixels per inch. This means images, games, and movies all appear crisp and clear.
That being said, text shows visible pixelation with the smaller sizes. Also, due to this panel's subpixel layout not being the traditional RGB layout, you will have pretty bad fringing in Windows. This is very noticeable with larger bolder text as well as smaller text. While this isn't technically the panels fault, as the issue is optimization for different subpixel layouts, this would be a no-go for any creative style work for me due to this issue.
As for the panel type, this is an OLED.
The Matte Finish
Like I mentioned before, the 27GR95QE is an OLED, which typically have a glossy finish. This monitor, however, has a matte finish.
This is the single worst matte finish I have ever seen on a monitor.
Most really bad matte finishes degrade image quality and give a dirty screen affect similar to when you talk on the phone and afterwards your screen has oils from your face on it. That being said, most of the time this is really only noticeable in desktop usage on brighter areas of the screen. However...this one was so bad that it was even distracting during gameplay, which I’ve literally never experienced before. Huge let down here.
Refresh Rate & Variable Refresh Rate
The LG 27GR95QE-B hits 240Hz which is the first OLED to hit that refresh rate.
As for VRR, this has FreeSync Premium and is compatible with G-Sync. That being said, this can have VRR on with HDR on, meaning that this would actually be FreeSync Premium Pro, although that is not what this monitor’s specs say it has.
Brightness & HDR
The LG 27GR95QE is rated for 200nits of brightness which is very dim. After testing, this reached right around that.
In SDR, brightness is lacking hugely. All curtains need to be closed, all lights must be turned off, and even desk ambient RGB needs to be turned off to really enjoy this experience. Now, even though the black levels and colors are on point, not having a high brightness removes the vibrancy of the image, not to mention the matte coating.
In HDR, this has a very wide color gamut to take advantage of, OLED black levels, and a claimed 1000nits of peak brightness. So does the overall brightness change? Yes. In HDR, this gets substantially brighter overall. As for the 1000nits of peak brightness, which is only the highlights, you will probably not achieve this most of the time.
The downside to this is that this is a monitor that you're realistically only going to be using in HDR and probably will not enjoy using in SDR. This becomes a problem when you’re playing games that don't support HDR. Overall, even though the brightness is significantly better in HDR, the matte finish still plagues the overall experience to a massive degree.
Colors & ACCURACY
The LG 27GR95QE-B has a wide color gamut covering 98.5% of the DCI-P3 color gamut.
This would normally mean that it would be a great choice for professional video or photo editing, but the bad fringing due to the subpixel layout and it being only 1440p makes it not the best choice by far.
This is a gaming monitor. It only really does gaming and content consuming well. Anything besides this, not so much.
This also comes factory calibrated from LG and does have ability to store calibrations on the monitor itself, which is really cool. As far as accuracy out of the box, in HDR it was very accurate, which we do expect from LG as their track record with factory calibrations is one of the best.
Lastly, this can output 10 or 12 bits of color at full 240Hz.
Contrast Ratio
As for contrast ratio, the LG 27GR95QE-B is an OLED which means it essentially has an infinite contrast ratio since the pixels that are 100% black will be turned off.
Response Time, Ghosting, & Input Lag
The 27GR95QE hits a claimed 0.03ms GTG response time. How does that translate into ghosting? Well, there is basically none. This is a huge pro with OLEDs in general, but I also do think it’s slightly overdone by the general reviewing crowd.
While the ghosting is crystal clear, the gains when compared to high-end modern IPS panels are not as large as much of the reviewing crowd makes it seem and doesn't gain you potentially any competitive advantage. The differences do get much greater with faster whips, but it overall is a small difference that is blown out of proportion by the general review crowd. That being said, it should not be underappreciated that there is essentially no ghosting or smearing at all, even with rapid movement.
As for input lag, this is exceptionally low. When you use a monitor with this low of a overall system latency, it feels telepathic.
Menu System & Controls
The 27GR95QE has LG's updated menu system, which I personally think is the best in the industry: everything is aesthetically pleasing, the animations are great, and all settings are easy to find and change with no learning curve.
As for the controls, they took something great and messed it up. LG previously used a single joystick for all their monitor’s controls, which was perfect. On the LG 27GR95QE-B, the joystick was removed and replaced with a remote that is powered by a disposable battery. You also need a tiny little screwdriver provided in the box to open the battery compartment unlike most remotes where the back cover just slides off.
When the battery inevitably dies, you won't be able to change most of the settings and will have to get a replacement battery. If LG is going to force me to use a remote, they should at least do what Samsung did and make the battery rechargeable with a USB Type-C.
The remote itself, however, works great. It’s very responsive and has great range, but overall I'm not happy with the direction they took the controls. It’s a small usability thing but a massive inconvenience when the battery eventually dies.
VESA Compatibility
As for VESA compatibility, this is compatible with 100mm by 100mm VESA mounts with screws preinstalled, which is nice.
Connectivity & Ports
Ports include: two HDMI 2.1, one DisplayPort 1.4 with Display Screen Compression, one USB Type-B upstream, two USB Type-A downstreams, a digital audio out, and a 3.5mm audio out with DTS Headphone:X.
On a next-gen type monitor like this, it would've been great to have DisplayPort 2.0 and was shocking to see no USB Type-C.
Stand & Build Quality
Stand and build quality is really good here.
The bottom part of the stand is solid metal, and the top section is the same as the LG GQ950 and 850, which is not a bad thing. For adjustibility, there is height, tilt, swivel, and rotation going vertical but only to one side.
Cable management is also good. It's not the best in the game, but it is easy to hide the cables.
As for RGB, I personally think this the best implementation of RGB lighting on any monitor I’ve used. The rear RGB gets bright enough to hit the wall and there is also a super bright light on the bottom middle chin that shines down on your desk which is a very nice touch.
Burn In
This isn’t confirmed, but I can almost guarantee that this panel is going to have burn in: it’s just going to happen.
OLEDs are a panel type that inevitably degrade overtime. From my knowledge there is nothing to date that has been developed to stop burn in from happening. This means that when you buy this monitor, your chances of selling it on eBay after you’re done with it are low. This only increases the cost of owning an OLED when compared to an IPS or VA panel monitor which, in most cases, can be sold after ownership.
Price & Value
I believe that there are two main different types of people that will be interested in buying the LG 27GR95QE-B. The first type is interested in buying it for the speed, competitive gaming, and the advantages that this OLED gives over a 360Hz IPS panel. The other type is someone searching for a beautiful OLED gaming monitor.
For the person who wants speed, this still doesn’t have as low latency as 360Hz IPS panels, and while it does have basically zero ghosting, new IPS panels are so fast at this point that the difference is negligible. For the latter person, this monitor honestly doesn’t give the traditional wowing OLED experience since the image is so dim that you can’t fully appreciate the insane contrast ratio as well as the matte finish completely ruining the amazing clarity of this OLED panel.
So personally, I would never buy this monitor for myself. However, I urge you to take into account the points that I’ve addressed here and make your own buying decision based on your personal needs and wants in a new display.
Overall Verdict
So overall do I recommend the LG 27GR95QE-B? Personally, no. Two monitors that I would recommend over this for SPEED would be either the ASUS PG27AQN, although I haven’t personally reviewed that one yet, or the Alienware AW2723DF which has 280Hz and wide color coverage. If you just want a beautiful display with deep blacks, I would recommend the Samsung Neo G8, but if you want an IPS panel, I recommend the LG 32GQ950-B. I would personally buy any of these panels over this monitor. OLED tech is in its infancy and isn’t ready yet.