LG UltraGear QHD 27-Inch Gaming Monitor 27GL850-B, Nano IPS 1ms (GtG) with HDR 10 Compatibility and NVIDIA G-SYNC, 144Hz, Black

I write this review as the former owner of 3 Asus PG279Qs and one PG279QZ. I was drawn to this realm of the monitor market because I do not believe that 4K displays are worth it at this particular point in time. As far as I see it, the majority are a compromise as the bandwidth requirements for running 4:4:4 chroma subsampling, an extended color gamut, a refresh rate of 144 Hz and beyond, and a resolution of 3840x2160 all at the same time will be much better served by DP 1.5 or HDMI 2.1 (proper HDR wouldn't hurt either). Although it could be argued that achieving 144 frames at 1440p is more resource intensive than 60 frames at 2160p, I believe the experience to be the most immersive, at least until 144+ frames becomes viable at 4K. Unfortunately, based on the price to performance ratio trend of the current generation of graphics cards (Nvidia’s in specific), it is going to be a long, long time until that is achievable at a reasonable price. All things aside, I can state with confidence that I’ve found my sweet spot for monitors in the form of LG’s 27GL850. It has addressed all of the quality control concerns that I’ve experienced throughout my quest of trying to obtain a high refresh rate, 1440p IPS-type display. Seeing as this is an LG product, the monitor can rightfully be referred to as having an IPS (In-Plane Switching) panel as this is their proprietary term for the technology that produces the wider color gamut and viewing angles. I did not buy this display because I am a hardcore gamer; I bought it because I wanted a quality monitor with good color reproduction, a uniform panel, and good response time. My purchase was based solely on the off chance of LG producing a monitor where quality control wasn’t an after-thought. Now that it has finally arrived, I am proud to report that this monitor delivers. The display has zero backlight bleed and excellent uniformity, contrast, and response time. White uniformity is even across the entirety of the screen while the factory calibrated colors appear accurate even next to my calibrated Dell. Outside of sRGB mode, the colors do come off as over-saturated, although some may prefer the added vibrancy of the Nano IPS technology (I did not). Black levels are on par with most other IPS-type displays that I’ve used despite the specified measurement coming in at a somewhat lower figure than similar displays. As for response time, it seems universally accepted by the monitor community that the fast setting is adequate in preventing overshoot. The faster and fastest settings produce undesirable artifacts known as coronas. Despite this monitor not having variable overdrive, I have had no perceivable issues when it comes to gaming as I do tend to binge on CS:GO from time to time. If I had to nit-pick, and I do because this is a review where transparency informs prospective buyers, I will say that the strength of the presence of IPS glow on my display falls on the moderate end of the spectrum. This could be due to the fact the panel is 27 inches, which is a decent amount of real estate for this phenomenon to occur. It is also important to keep in mind that this is something that varies on a per panel basis. Without a doubt, it is a consequence of choosing to utilize an IPS panel for one’s computing purposes. Regardless, it is nothing unexpected or anything that cannot be addressed by adjusting the brightness level as well as the viewing distance, height, and angle. Besides simply turning down the brightness, placing the monitor further away is one way to remedy the matter. Another way to minimize the glow is to position the screen in such a way that one’s gaze meets the center of the screen as IPS-type displays fare better when the height of the top bezel is of equal height or greater in relation to one’s eyes. A final tip is to manipulate the screen’s tilt angle as oftentimes angling it upwards reduces glow. By applying these adjustments, I can easily say that this is overall the best monitor that I’ve used to date. I will not sit here and bash Asus’ most recent iteration of their high refresh rate, 1440p IPS-type display, the PG279QZ, as one can refer to the top review of the PG279QZ to see what types of problems plague those monitors. What I will say is that it’s a breath of fresh air to see that quality control still exists in consumer-grade monitors. Realistically, no manufacturing process is going to produce near perfect monitors all of the time; however, this purchase has instilled confidence in me when it comes to the LG brand. I imagine that this model will provide all disillusioned monitor buyers a glimmer of hope when it comes to having a fighting chance at obtaining a quality monitor in this realm of the market. ***As per a request in the comments, I've attached pictures of the monitor at brightness of zero, 50%, and 100%. I also managed to track down another monitor from Micro Center, so I posted the same array of shots for this sample too. The results were very similar; however, a small circular area of bleed does exist in the top left corner. It is somewhat noticeable on a black screen unless I increase the height of the stand. To identify the pictures of the second monitor, please see the pictures without the headphones in them. Despite trying several approaches and platforms, the photo uploader refuses to retain the sequence in which I had originally ordered them).***

I went back forth for a while on what type of monitor to get. I was coming from a 4k display, but a pretty cheap 60 Hz TN panel that I got on a Black Friday sale years ago. High-refresh 4k panels are too pricey (and I don't think my graphics card could cut it), but I wasn't sure if I wanted to commit to trading resolution for framerate. My initial impression after using the 27-GL850-B for a couple of hours is that I absolutely made the right decision. The picture quality blows my old monitor out of the water — the better colors and viewing angles more than compensate for the lower resolution. I have to really lean-in and look hard to notice the pixel edges, and I sit fairly close to the screen. Movies/shows/videos look amazing, as well. >99% of the content I watch isn't available in 4k, anyway, so for those things the monitor is just an improvement in every way over my old one. Screen real-estate is obviously less, though, which, depending on what you do, can impact productivity (which is why I brought the old 4k monitor to the office!). Initial impressions for the high-refresh are very positive. I'd never gotten to use a high+variable refresh rate monitor for an extended period of time, and honestly didn't think the difference would feel as stark as it did. Games like CS:GO are lightning-quick, and even moving the cursor across the screen feels buttery smooth compared to the 60 Hz (probably garbage input lag) panels that I have as my secondary and tertiary displays. Even for non-competitive or not-as-fast-paced games, I appreciate the snappiness over a 60 Hz display. Variable refresh works great out of the box (on Windows 10, at least — intending to test with Arch Linux soon, and might update this review). Some other reviews have mentioned the recessed VESA mounting point being a problem. This recess is 12cm x 12cm and roughly ~0.65 cm deep. I was worried that I was going to run into an issue here, but my monitor stand's (Monoprice #15708) VESA mounting brackets just barely cleared and were able to fit into said recess. I strongly suspect that, even if one's VESA mounting bracket is too large, as long as it is symmetrically so, then one could just use longer M4 screws than the ones provided (this will put extra radial torque on the screws, which screws aren't really designed to handle. In theory, the monitor is light enough that it should be fine, but don't blame me if you break something). Some minor complaints: * Every "preset" other than the default "Gamer 1" preset grays-out many picture options except brightness. For example, if I want to use the clamped-gamut sRGB mode (which is accessed as a "preset" in the OSD), then I'm prevented from adjusting the white point. * I/O (particularly the DisplayPort) is along the vertical center of the monitor, which results in interference between DP cable/plug and my monitor stand. Mine might be an uncommon situation, but it still could've been avoided. * "HDR" support is token.

Se ve de maravilla, yo tenía el 24GL600F y la verdad es un mundo de diferencia, los colores son mucho mas vivos y la calidad de imagen también es muy buena. No todo es bueno, hay detalles. El monitor tiene diferentes tiempos de respuesta y el FASTER que viene siendo 1 ms, no lo recomiendo, lo dejaría en FAST que creo son como 3-5ms. También por lo que entiendo es que es compatible con G-Sync pero en si no tiene el hardware para hacerlo. Entonces en teoría tiene 1ms, G-Sync y HDR pero no funcionan al 100%. Que aun sin eso el monitor es excelente la verdad. Para mas información, hay una reseña de LinusTechTips sobre este monitor menciona a todo lo bueno y malo de este modelo.

Just like you, I have been taking my sweet sweet time watching and reading reviews from both sponsored and non-sponsored content creators. Also visited reddit to validate everything I know about this monitor. Long story short, it all comes down to gaming preference. Do you have a powerful GPU card and have the resources to buy a 4k gaming monitor? This is not for you. Do you have a powerful GPU card and have the resources to buy an Ultrawide 1440 gaming monitor? This is not for you. Do you want to upgrade your gaming experience and you have a GPU that can run the games you play in 1440p with frames higher than a 100hz? Then this is for you! Gone are the days where you have to get a TN panel to enjoy shooters and RTS games. This is an IPS panel with a high refresh rate! It's great for all game genres and I mainly play DOTA 2, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. Even before calibration the colors are great and vibrant but after calibration, it is way better. Search in Reddit for suggest color calibration which you can then download and manually configure in the monitor's menu. This is my best purchase for this year and I would highly suggest gaming monitors from LG! They're great and sturdy! I did not notice any backlight bleed or issues from my panel. Happy kid here. :) Edit 14-Sep-2021 A year after and I am still enjoying this monitor a lot. After upgrading to RTX 3080, I now can appreciate games more when played with Ray Tracing and it is very noticeable on this monitor. 4k monitors are still costly so sticking to this resolution will be my norm for maybe 2-3 more years. No issues with the monitor, still great. I highly recommend!

Gorgeous picture quality while still retaining snappy response times. For a primarly MMORPG player, there is no better monitor in this price category. 1440p gives you a large overview of the scenery/battle area, while the IPS keeps that scenery looking gorgeous instead of washed out. Meanwhile the response times are still good enough for most FPS gamers, and the 144 HZ refresh rate is also good enough for most gamers as well (hugely noticeable difference from 60fps). My only caveat is, now that I've gone from 60-144 HZ, I'm thinking if I one day change monitor in future, I think 240 HZ might very well be worth it. However, I enjoy my picture quality too much to switch to an TN panel just yet. Regarding choosing a 1440p monitor over a 1080p monitor, keep in mind that older graphics cards may struggle to give high FPS on a beefy 1440p monitor. However, the latest generation models (2060-2080, or 1070-1080 NVIDIA cards) should have no problems running 100+ fps on most games in high or ultra high graphics for this monitor. The stand is quite nice to use. Super adjustable. Looks decent. Does what it needs to do lol. You've probably been asking yourself for days, TN or IPS panel? And probably you just can't make up your mind. And after doing a lot of my own research, I finally crystalized my thinking on it, and perhaps what I concluded can help you too. Your choice will depend on the type of gaming you prefer. If you are a *primarily* FPS-gamer, I'd stay with mid to upper-range TN panels for now. Sure, the colors will be a little more washed out, but those super-low response times and input lag combined with 240HZ (or better) will be what you want. However, if you play a mix of FPS and adventure/mmorpg/other games, and/or you want to watch videos/pictures/etc and have them look amazing, this particular IPS panel is fantastic. The colors are undeniably better than TN panel with the performance coming startlingly close to that of a TN panel---perhaps close enough that only a professional FPS player might be able to tell the difference. And finally, if you don't play FPS at all, then this monitor is also suitable, though perhaps even more than what you need. (As a non-gamer, you might consider VGA for the most true-to-life color representations, though the response times/input lag make them not really that suitable for gaming). Hope that helps. Do recommend this monitor, though not to those on a budget. But I consider it worth the money I spent. If you are on the fence, try shopping for it around Black Friday/Cyber Monday and see if you can snap up a deal! Picture shows new monitor in middle, 27''. On right is an old, 18.1'' alienware laptop screen for comparison. On left is meshify S2 computer case.

I've had the 27GL850 for about a month and it has been largely excellent, a massive improvement over my previous old Dell pack-in monitor. The panel is gorgeous, with excellent colour accuracy and viewing angles, and the build quality is top notch. After testing, my model came with no dead pixels and minimal IPS glow (although IPS glow varies panel to panel, so I may have just got lucky). Performance-wise, this thing is the ultimate all-rounder for the price. While it is advertised as having a 1ms response time speed, this is only with the "Faster" overdrive mode turned on, which causes a lot of inverse ghosting. Keeping it in the "Fast" setting completely eliminates ghosting but reduces the response speed to around 4ms. This is still excellent, much faster than my gaming skills can take advantage of. Typically with an IPS panel like this one, you're sacrificing some reaction time performance you'd get with a typical TN panel that most gamers end up selecting. But the LG's 4ms response time is still pretty much unheard of for an IPS panel, and more than fast enough to keep up with its 144hz refresh rate. A hardcore gamer could go with an ultra-fast 1080p 240hz TN panel in this price bracket with a 1ms response time, but you'd be sacrificing a lot of colour accuracy and overall picture quality in order to do so, and the difference between 4ms and 1ms is pretty much imperceptible to 99% of people out there. It wouldn't be worth it. It comes with plenty of handy features. The clickable joystick located on the bottom of the panel is MUCH easier to operate for navigating through the monitor's options menus then your typical buttons are. The menus themselves are easy to navigate, with several pre-set screen profiles to pick from, as well as two fully customizable profiles you can save. It has a black stabilizer feature that improves visibility in darker games as well as a customizable crosshair overlay for gamers with a slightly less than pure con . It is both FreeSync and G-Sync compatible (nice), has two HDMI ports, a DisplayPort 1.4 input, headphone jack, and dual USB 3.0 ports. The stand is very solid. It's nice and heavy, the height adjustment is buttery smooth, and the screen can pivot 90° into portrait mode. If I had to nitpick, there are two drawbacks to this panel. The first is that screen brightness is only 350 nits, and the contrast levels are 1000:1, which isn't going to touch a VA panel monitor. No VA monitor comes close to reaching this LG's performance however. In conclusion, this is the best all-around monitor in it's price range by a pretty significant margin. It's well built, it has a gorgeous display, and runs as smooth as a good TN panel without sacrificing performance as a result. The only competition really out there close to it in price is the Aurus AD27QD, which while brighter, doesn't have quite as good colours and a slower response time while currently being priced higher.

Outer box seems to have dropped, but the monitor seems OK and it’s working perfectly (hopefully).