LG UltraGear QHD 27-Inch Gaming Monitor 27GL83A-B - IPS 1ms (GtG), with HDR 10 Compatibility, NVIDIA G-SYNC, and AMD FreeSync, 144Hz, Black

The screen had backlight bleeding on arrival. Its very distracting and a bit disappointing.

Tl;dr: fantastic monitor monitor for colorful content, fps games, and photo editing but not for dark content like stealth games or dark (as in color not content) movies. PROS: • Outstanding color reproduction • TN levels of pixel response time. No visible motion blur at 144hz • good ergonomics and stable stand • easy to navigate menu • Joystick for OSD responsive and works well • Visual presets are all useful (sRGB mode looks best) • Adaptive sync compatible with nvidia cards (I used a GTX 1080) • anti-glare coating well balanced, removes 90% of glare without ruining colors or adding visible crosshatching CONS: • Unacceptable amounts of Back Light Bleed • Aggressive IPS Glow • Poor Contrast (compared to other IPS monitor) • Compression artifacts in some 1080p content Overview: I wanted to keep this monitor, I really did, but a few glaring issues made it unusable for me. It’s all plastic and is lightweight but doesn’t creak when in use (from heat build up) or wobble when you interact with it or move stuff around on your desk. Playing bright colorful games like BOTW, Valkyria Chronicles 4, or Dragon Quest XI everything looks fantastic, the colors pop off the screen in way you have to see to fully understand, if anyone was to compare this monitor side by side to any TN the difference would be obvious. There is no visible screen tearing thanks to adaptive sync compatibility, I played Metro 2033 on this and I couldn’t see any ghosting or motion blur even when looking for it. Unfortunately that’s where the positives end. The monitor has problems when it comes to displaying dark content like the black stripes you see in movies (on the top and bottom of the screen due to movies being in 21:9 aspect ratio) and in games with dark environments. In games like Metro 2033 when going through pitch black rooms the IPS Glow, Back Light Bleed, and poor contrast become evident; corners of the screen will have what looks like white and orange clouds on them, the low contrast results in a Black Crush effect where most of the black content blends together in to a blob removing key details from the scene. This applies to movies as well, I watched Skyfall (2012) on this monitor and in some parts of climax scenes in Bonds family home the orange glow was present enough to be distracting, also the Black Crush effect causes sections of the screen be so dark as to make some details hard to see. The actual IPS glow is drastically lessened by sitting at least 3.5 feet from the screen (~1 meter) to the point that it’s not visible to the naked eye and the back light bleed is also lessened (but still visible). Also, the problems with glow, contrast, and BLB are only evident in really dark scenes in games and movies, for example in BOTW even when on Hyrule Bridge at night the effect can’t been seen with the naked eye, it’s only in really dark scenes like stealth sections in the Metro games where the effect is visible. I’ve included photos of what the screen looks like in both dark and well lit rooms. PLEASE NOTE, the effect is nowhere near as bad as my camera makes it out to be but is still visible. Take what see and reduce the effect by 60% in the dark room pics and by 30% in the well lit room pics for a good idea of what it actually looks like. I have tried two of this exact same model, I bought one back in October 2019 only to return it due to the bad BLB then tried again in February 2020 hoping that one from another batch would be better, both had the same problems to the same degree.

Good value. No problems so far.

Unsustainable packaging. This thing comes in a massive amount of styrofoam. I would have thought LG would spring the extra few dollars for a product at this price point, to use a responsible cardboard packaging option.

Mine came with a single stuck pixel thats really noticable against white or light colors. otherwise great monitor.

Received monitor in a timely fashion, but it doesnt work as advertised. Claims to work at 144hz refresh rate, but glitches out with green/white/blue lines across the screen when running at 144hz. The screen will also go blank for as little as 3 seconds to up to 30 seconds making games unplayable when it occurs. When switching down to 120hz cap on refresh rate, monitor works fine, but that isnt what I purchased the screen for. Wanted to get a replacement through Amazon but they refused to give me a replacement, only offered to refund me which I did not want a refund since I got the monitor on a discounted deal. Now I am trying to get LG to repair the monitor but they arent capable of sending a shipping label to my email when they say I should be receiving it. I am now on my third attempt trying to get a repair shipping label from LG since they said they cannot send them immediately, it should be sent by the end of the day. Worst experience with both Amazon and LG ever. Would not recommend either since neither are willing to replace the monitor. Update: Was able to send the unit for repair through the LG website. This has been the worst experience I have ever had to deal with. First it took 5 attempts to get their support staff to send an email with the shipping label which took over a week of back and forth them telling me to wait and then me complaining that it shouldnt be this difficult to send me a shipping label. Though the repair took about 1 week after the allotted shipping time which was quick. The downside was the unit was not fixed at all, it still had the same issue where it would get a line glitching across the screen and then goes blank for up to 30 seconds. So now the day I got it back I am now being asked to wait for another shipping label for them to repair my unit again, this time I asked for a new unit as replacement but they refused since they demand I have to send it in at least 3 times for repair before that can be an option. LG make terrible products and I will actively tell others to avoid their garbage products and support. Update 2: Just received the monitor from repairs from LG, they sent it without the power cable and am now waiting to hear back about what they can do for me. Cant even test the monitor if it has been properly fixed until I get a new power cable. Very disappointing and extremely frustrating experience dealing with their support services for repairs.

This product functions very well and I am highly satisfied with the purchase, although my only problem is that with the way the border around the monitor is, it would make you think that the border is the small black strip around the edges, but there is actually black gap between the edges and the actual screen, but a good purchase anyways.

Excellent!

This monitor gets the job done EXACTLY the way I need it to. I bought this monitor since I wanted to upgrade my picture quality from 1080p to 4K for a few years now and lately I have been putting my screens in grayscale to prevent myself from allocating too much time on activities that shouldnt be prioritized during certain times of the day and week; however, this monitor doesnt have a preset grayscale setting, so if you want to create one like I did then go to one of the premade settings, select Picture Adjust, and turn all of the Six Color settings to zero and hit save. I also setup another premade setting to be exactly like my custom grayscale setting but with color so I can easily and quickly switch between both modes.

Im just going to keep this brief, Im not sure how consistently well this works on a desktop PC but I can say Ive had a mountain of problems using it on my Gaming laptop (Asus Rog Zephrys 2020 model) when plugging into ANY docking station. Most laptops do not have a DP port built-in usually an HDMI so what you will need is an adaptor to get the full 144hz out of this. Ive gotten it to get 144hz and 1440p on certain games but I had to troubleshoot for several hours to get it working without tearing or lagging. With the same docking station and the same cables my second monitor works perfectly fine, but this monitor does not like docking stations or USB hubs at all. The problems mainly only happen with DP cables. when I plug in an HDMI it causes significantly less issues, but still has problems every once in a while (low frame rate without reason, no signal) even when I plug it in directly to the laptops HDMI port instead of a docking station. Regardless this monitor really hates docking stations. Ive tried 3 different laptops and 3 different docking stations, same issues. The other big issue I have with this monitor, is the colors seem very off and HDR looks very poor, below average at least. For the most part thats not an issue for gaming but if you like picture quality this is not what to get it for. The last issue I have, and this is more of my own fault for not checking, is there is only ONE DP port and TWO HDMI ports, neither are HDMI 2.1. Dont buy this if you have a next-gen console and are looking for 4k 120hz because it is not compatible. My intention was to plug in a next-gen console to this and my gaming laptop so I can switch back and forth, but I sadly did not read the description thoroughly. I believe all of the other reviews saying they had no issues because they most likely had a Desktop PC with DP ports built into it, but If you have a computer that does not have a DP port built-in you will be going through a lot of troubleshooting to get this at 144hz.