Through an invitation from the Dutch tech website Tweakers.net I participated in the LG OLED monitor test panel. The goal was to test and write a review about LG’s latest OLED monitors in the UltraGear gaming line. You could choose from 3 formats of curved ultra-wides (34″ 39″ and 45″) in 1440p or a flat 32″ in 4K resolution.
I’m use a monitor mainly for productivity (work) and partially for gaming. For that reason the 32″ 4K appealed the most to me. Mainly because this screen is flat and is the only one with a 4K resolution in combination with a 240 Hz refresh.
Overall rating
During the event at the Tweakers HQ in Amsterdam all 4 models were set up to test. All monitors were connected to a Azerty gaming PC to actually experience the monitors. For the purposes I use a monitor for, it became clear that it had to be the 32″ LG UltraGear 32GS95UV. The build quality, versatile stand, text sharpness and sparkling colors were the deciding factors, despite that the gaming experience on the curved 800R ultra-wides looked incredibly good.
First use
I have been using the LG monitor for a couple of weeks now. It replaces my Dell G2724D, which is also a more gaming-oriented monitor. I am very pleased with the LG monitor so far.
Here are the things I noticed:
Pros
- Sharp text and image clarity
- Bright and vivid colors
- Deep blacks
- No visible ghosting
- Smooth scrolling
- Versatile stand
Cons
- Lower SDR brightness (275 nits) compared to current IPS monitors
- Varying brightness in standard setting (Smart Energy Saving)
- 1x DP connection
- Light fan noise in quiet room
The finish is of high quality and at the level you may expect from a screen of 1100 euros. What really matter is that the WOLED panel on 4K @240 Hz looks great. Other practical features are the well-adjustable stand and automatic input selection.
As a reference, I now have a Dell G2724D. This is equipped with a flat screen just like the LG, but with an IPS panel, 165 Hz refresh and 1440p resolution.
Main aspects of both monitors are:
| LG 32GS95UV | Dell G2724D |
| 32″ | 27″ |
| 4K 1080p (Dual-Mode) | 1440p |
| WOLED (RGWB) | IPS |
| 275 nits SDR | 400 nits SDR |
| 240 Hz @4K 480 Hz @1080p (Dual-Mode) | 165 Hz @1440p |
| 1x DP 1.4 2x HDMI 2.1 | 2x DP 1.4 1x HDMI 2.1 |
| USB 3.0 Hub | – |
| 2x 7w speakers | No speakers |
Build quality and finish
The size of the box immediately shows that this is a large monitor. The monitor incl the stand weights 9.8 KG.
The stand feels very sturdy and is made of metal. The standing part is screwed onto the base plate, which can be done without tools. The monitor is hooked onto the stand with a simple click system and is then securely attached.
The monitor can be smoothly adjusted to the ideal position, which is due to the stand that can be adjusted in 4 ways:
- Height
- Swivel
- Rotation
- Tilt
These ergonomic options make the monitor suitable for office use. Despite the fact that it is a gaming-oriented screen, it is not an overly present theme. In the OSD of the monitor, the RGB LED called “Unity Hexagon Lighting” on the back can be set to 4 fixed colors, “Cycling” or “Off” for more or less ‘gaming’ experience.
Looking at the good stand, the quality finish and narrow screen edges, this part is well done.
Connecting the monitor
After unpacking, I noticed that the power supply is external. A separate 210W (19.5V – 10.8A) adapter is included. I would prefer a built-in power supply because it looks better and makes it easier to hide cables. The box also includes a DP, HDMI and USB 3.0 (A to B type) cable.
The monitor is equipped with 1x DP 1.4 and 2x HDMI 2.1 connections. LG’s choice to provide the monitor with 1x DP port is remarkable. If you want to connect 2 devices via DP, that’s not possible. In my case, I wanted to connect a PC and laptop via DP.
My laptop is connected to the monitor via a Thunderbolt dock. The dock only has DP ports, so the PC must be connected via HDMI. As a result, the BIOS information is displayed on the 2nd monitor (connected via DP) during startup of the PC. This is not convenient because the 2nd monitor is in portrait mode. This is because the DP port on the 7800XT is considered primary and HDMI is considered secondary.
It is also strange that LG has opted for a DP 1.4 port, while DP 2.1 has been around for some time. DP 2.1 has been present on the AMD RX 7000 series GPUs since early 2023. The advantage of DP 2.1 is the higher bandwidth of 80 Gbps, compared to 32 Gbps with DP 1.4.
Display Stream Compression (DSC)
Choosing DP 1.4 has no visible effect on the performance of the monitor. 4K @240 Hz and 1080p @480 Hz are possible via both DP and HDMI. The required bandwidth to display uncompressed 4K @240 Hz and 1080p @480 Hz is higher than DP 1.4 (32 Gbps) and HDMI 2.1 (48 Gbps) can handle. To solve this, Display Stream Compression (DSC) is used for both types of connections.
DSC is a visual (near-)lossless compression technique, where only in extreme test situations (e.g. black/white checkerboard patterns at maximum resolution and refresh) minimal events can be visible. By applying a 3:1 compression, DSC makes higher resolutions and refresh possible. Without DSC, a maximum of 4K @120 Hz (sometimes 144 Hz) is possible.
Connecting my desktop
As mentioned before, my desktop has a AMD 7800XT GPU, which can handle the monitor just fine via DP and HDMI. 4K @240 Hz and 1080p @480 Hz are available without issues.
Connecting my laptop
My laptop is connected to the LG monitor via a Thunderbolt (TB) 3 dock. Because TB3 only supports DP 1.2 (and a 2nd 1440p @60 Hz monitor is connected to the dock), the LG can display a maximum of 4K @95 Hz. This is because TB3 uses DP 1.2 (21.6 Gbps) and therefore does not support DSC.
Office use
For (home) office use, the monitor is perfectly suitable. Compared to my other 1440p monitors the text sharpness of the LG is very good. Everything remains sharp and clear, even while moving windows and scrolling through documents or web pages. This is mainly due to the 4K resolution and 240 Hz refresh.
Due to the 5″ extra diameter (compared to my existing 27″) and scaling set to 150%, the size of the text is good and there is sufficient space on the desktop.
Improved sub-pixel layout
An important improvement that LG has made compared to the previous 32″ model and the 27″, 34″, 39″ and 45″ versions of the UltraGear OLED monitors, is the change of the sub-pixel layout from ‘RWBG’ to ‘RGWB’.
The 32″ model is the first to have the new ‘RGWB’ sub-pixel layout that largely prevents color fringing. This is a good improvement, especially for office use.
In the Tweakers.net preview (in Dutch language) of this model, editor Friso Weijers wrote:
The deviations that I sometimes saw on woled screens with the old layout around the display of graphic elements, for example a white border around the green pattern in our Best Buy banner, are also much less obvious on the 32GS95UE. The higher pixel density of the 32″ WOLED panel further contributes to a sharper display. With this screen, you will probably want to use 125% or 150% image scaling so that the fonts don’t become too small and each character therefore consists of more pixels.
Compared to a QD-OLED monitor like the ASUS ROG Swift OLED PG32UCDM (left), you can see a light purple / green colour fringing on the top and bottom of the text, compared to the LG (right).
Brightness adjustments
On the PC I use the tool ‘Monitorian‘ to easily adjust the brightness of the monitor without having to dive into the OSD menu. On the laptop (Mac) I use a combination of ‘MonitorControl‘ for setting the brightness and “Magnet” for convenient desktop layout. On both platforms these tools continue to work fine because the LG supports brightness adjustments via the DDC channel.
Gaming
In terms of games, I tested Fortnite and Read Dead Redemption 2 (RDR2). In both games, the 4K resolution, vibrant colors, low response time, low input lag and high refresh makes gaming even more fun. For games like Fortnite, the Dual-Mode feature can be beneficial. More on that later.
HDR
In Fortnite I couldn’t get HDR to work, unlike RDR2. In the first chapters of RDR2 HDR already came into its own with the scenes in the snow and the first shootings in the dark. HDR is convincingly displayed by the peak brightness of 1300 nits. Partly due to the DisplayHDR True Black 400 certification, HDR is good for gaming.
Using HDR for desktop mode in Windows and MacOS is not an improvement. When turning on HDR, you miss some of the brightness. Perhaps HDR adds value with suitable YouTube or Netflix content.
Dual-Mode
For those unfamiliar with Dual-Mode; The monitor can be changed to 1080p @ 480 Hz in full screen, 27″ or 24″ format using a hotkey. This feature can be useful if your GPU doesn’t handle 4K gaming or you want more FPS.
If you’ve tried 4K gaming and go back to 1080p, that’s usually a no-go, but at least you have a choice. If you use Dual-Mode, I find it most convincing in full screen. The image is sharp because the monitor scales well by using 4 pixels for each 1080p pixel. In the 27″ and 24″ mode, good scaling is not possible, which makes the image look grainy.
Variable refresh
The monitor supports Adaptive-Sync for DP and VRR for HDMI. For both types of connections, NVIDIA® G-SYNC® and AMD FreeSync™ Premium Pro are supported for a smooth gaming experience.
Features and practical use
OSD control
There is a joystick for the OSD control and a hotkey for Dual-Mode present on the monitor. When you go to the “Settings” menu in the OSD, a handy overview of the current settings is displayed, such as:
- Refresh (Hz)
- Adaptive-Sync (VRR) (On / Off)
- HDR (On / Off)
- Dynamic Action Sync (DAS) Mode (On / Off)
In addition to the standard settings, there are also a number of settings in the OSD that deserve extra attention.
| Setting | Description or Option |
| Gaming | FPS Counter (On / Off) Crosshair (. or + in Red or Green) |
| Game Mode | Gamer 1/2 FPS (Suitable for very dark FPS games) RTS Vivid Reader (Optimized for document reading, SDR only) HDR Effect (SDR only) sRGB (SDR only) Calibration 1/2 (For use with LG Calibration Studio) |
| Adaptive-Sync (VRR) | Adaptive-Sync (DP), VRR (HDMI). Supports G-SYNC and FreeSync Premium Pro |
| Black Stabilizer | Control black contrast for better visibility in dark scenes |
| Peak Brightness | High, Low, Off (Adjust panel peak brightness) |
| OLED Screen Move | Moves the screen at regular interval to prevent panel noise |
| OLED Screen Saver | Turns screen off when no movement is detected |
| OLED Image Cleaning | Corrects screem problems after long use (takes approx. 10 min to complete). Executes in Power Saving mode and after turning off the screen manually, 4 hours after last cycle |
| Hexagon Lightning (RGB) | Static 1/2/3/4, Cycling, Off |
| Smart Energy Saving | High, Low, Off (Save energy by using luminance compensation) |
Smart Energy Saving
While using the monitor for office purposes I noticed that every few minutes the brightness of the screen was adjusted by the Smart Energy Saving feature. By default this is set to “High”, but for my taste it is too aggressive in adjusting the brightness. Therefore I set it to “Low”.
Burn-in prevention
With OLEDs, burn-in is a concern for many. LG offers a 2-year warranty on burn-in, which I find limited for a monitor in this price range. To prevent burn-in, there are a number of options in the OSD. These are:
OLED Screen Move
OLED Screen Saver
OLED Image Cleaning
For more information about the features, see the description in the table above.
Speakers
The monitor is equipped with a set of built-in speakers. The speakers are sufficient for a basic expectation of sound. For a good sound with films or music they are (in my opinion) not suitable due to the lack of low and shrill reproduction of mid / high tones. The speakers are therefore more suitable for office use or video meetings.
Fan noise
When the monitor is turned on, a fan also turns on. The sound of the fan is not audible under normal circumstances, but is softly present in a quiet room. I myself have no problems with it, for some this may be different.
Brightness
The SDR peak brightness of the monitor is 275 nits. This is partly made possible by the MLA+ panel in the monitor. MLA+ is a technique that is also used in the recent OLED TVs from LG to increase overall brightness. Compared to other IPS gaming monitors in the RTHINGS 4K Monitor Best Buy, you can see that the brightness is on average between 350 and 400 nits. If you use the monitor a lot in a bright room, an OLED monitor may not be the best choice.
For my use, 275 nits is sufficient. When it gets darker outside, I often set the brightness lower than 100%.
Energy consumption
The monitor has an Energy Label F for SDR and a G label for HDR. This corresponds to 32 and 36 kWh respectively at 1000 hours of use.
In addition, the higher refresh can also result in higher consumption of your device. I myself could observe a difference of 15W on my PC between 4K @240 Hz and 60 Hz.
To conclude
Alltogether, the LG is a fantastic monitor, with a good and sharp display of text. Add to that the high resolution and refresh and it is well suited for office use. For gaming (in HDR) the monitor convinces with fast response (0.03 GtG), vidid colors and variable refresh with G-SYNC and FreeSync Pro support.
Due to the lack of a USB-C connection with power delivery (PD), ethernet and KVM functions and the addition of RGD LED lighting, you can see that it is a gaming-oriented monitor, which in my opinion can convince in both environments if you use a separate dock.
If you’re okay with the lower than average brightness, single DP 1.4 port, potential for burn-in, fan noise and basic speakers is different for everyone.
With a price around 1100 EUR it is a lot of money for a monitor. If it fits your budget and you value the 32″ LG 4K WOLED MLA+ panel, RGWB sub-pixel layout, sparkling colors, deep blacks, high refresh and low response / input lag, then this could be the monitor you are looking for.
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