LG - UltraGear 45” OLED Curved WQHD 240Hz 0.03ms FreeSync and NVIDIA G-Sync Compatible Gaming Monitor with HDR10 - Black

If your anything like me you have been scouring reviews for many hours trying to find the perfect gaming monitor. This might be it (at least for me). This size is perfect. The 34" ultra wide monitors are just too small. 45" ultra wide monitors are really perfect. The super ultra wide (like Samsung G9) are super wide, but the aspect ratio is just wrong. Why not have additional screen real estate above and below such a narrow long screen? The size and aspect ratio of this LG 45" OLED are a much better compromise. This is an excellent gaming monitor. I was using a 27" IPS LCD with 165Hz, 300 nit brightness before this purchase. This is significantly clearer and the HDR (High Dynamic Range) is fantastic. No dead pixels. I find the screen more than bright enough and always have it turned down. The motion playing PC games is so much better it is amazing. My old LCD looks like a blurry mess during motion compared to this thing. The curve is perfect for this size. Coming from a flat screen I wasn't sure about an 800R curve like this, but its perfect and I won't go back. The curve really increased the immersion. The color is very very good and of course the inky perfect void black blacks contrasted with super bright self emitting pixels (no back light on OLEDS, the pixels make their own light) is so very nice. One other huge pro is you can update the firmware; they already fixed a bug I experienced with SDR (Standard Dynamic Range) colors. All you have to do is make sure your monitor is plugged into your PC using the provided USB cable and download the "OnScreen Control" application from the LG website. It will automatically tell you if your monitor needs to update. One minor gripe is that it took about an hour for the firmware to install, but I don't mind. I think the minor negativity this monitor sometimes receives about low PPI (pixels per inch) is completely overblown. The PPI is not an issue with this monitor. You really have to lean in much too uncomfortably close to notice. I sit about 30inches from the monitor, and there is no issue. I also don't see any weird color shading around text like some other brands of OLEDs that use different panels. The lower PPI is even an asset in a game like Digital Combat Simulator where you scan the sky for planes miles out and they may only render as one pixel at very long distances. The one pixel is noticeable on a big monitor like this with such good contrast. I also like how the monitor looks. It has a very nice build quality and feels very premium. I do have it mounted on the included 100x100 Vesa bracket to an arm, but the monitor feels very nice. The included remote is nice too. Seems to have plenty of options to prevent OLED burn in that are all automatic, but certain pixel refreshing features can be activated manually if you want to for any reason. I haven't had a single issue with image retention and have never seen even very slight retention and am very sensitive to it. (I had a plasma TV years ago that did have it). The modern OLEDS don't have this problem with normal use and are not comparable at all to how the old plama TV's used to get this. I mainly use it for PC, but this monitor does have HDMI 2.1 max bandwidth, so consoles like Xbox and PS5 are fully compatible with max resolution and max refresh rate with HDR and VRR that the consoles support.

In these 3 pictures, I also have my 16" 16:10 laptop for scale just to show you how deranged this monitor is! Pros: 45" 21:9 display is massive. Playing 21:9 games and watching 21:9 movies is an automatic dumb smile, especially with the 800r curve. It's about as close to VR as you can get with a desk monitor. It's probably the most optimum panel size and shape I can think of. I also enjoy doing work on here because of this. OLED, with its deep blacks and vibrant colors, is the cherry on top. And 240hz? In what earthly scenario would you ever need more? Cons: Not exclusive to this monitor, OLED panels have inherent issues. Small risk of burn-in (which hasn't happened in the 8 months I've owned this) and vertical banding on grayscale backgrounds to varying degrees. Still would rather have this over LCD and IPS, though. And the popular negative on this monitor, the PPI, although surprisingly not as bad as I thought it would be, still leaves a bit to be desired. I personally got quite used to this, though. Just don't put your face like one foot away and you won't tend to notice it. Quick tip: Don't forget to test both the included HDMI 2.1 and the DisplayPort 1.4 cables to see which is better for your situation. I cluelessly went with DisplayPort 1.4 cable the first few weeks thinking it would be good enough and when I switched to HDMI 2.1, video games ran significantly better. HDMI 2.1 has 48 gbps bandwidth while DisplayPort 1.4 has only 32.4 gbps bandwidth.

This monitor is almost perfect. I was using a Samsung CRG49 and loved it. I work remotely part time and game from the same space. It provided me with all the screen space I needed for work, and was pretty good for gaming, though it was almost too wide given the small curve. I opted for this because OLED monitors are finally getting to where I am comfortable using one as my main PC monitor. I wanted the faster refresh rate and the better HDR performance that OLED would give me. This monitor also has HDMI 2.1 which I needed to connect my Xbox Series X for the best performance. The other big perk that has simplified my setup is the SPDIF out that goes to my Creative Katana v2. Instead of switching between 3 different audio inputs I can have everything go through optical. It's a small thing that has saved some of my sanity. The color and performance on this monitor are just next level. Some games that I play where they do not have high refresh rates, I would experience tearing, but this is smooth. And the colors pop. I've always disliked HDR mode with the CRG49 and Windows in general, but HRD mode in Windows finally feels like I am not seeing wildly different image quality based on SDR or HDR. Resolution is where I am giving this 4 instead of 5 stars. In my opinion, going from the Samsung CRG49 to this, I have lost a lot of text quality. Since I work on this monitor as well, it's very noticeable given the Excel, Word, Slack messages and emails I am interacting with. I knew I would lose width for my large Excel files, but I am okay with that sacrifice. The text quality though does really make me question if I want to keep the monitor. The curve makes you want to be enveloped in this monitor, but it is not crisp enough for text. In games though it isn't nearly as bad. The resolution also lets me crank up details since it's less wide than the CRG49. When games are moving I have not really noticed the resolution issue. One small annoyance is the remote that must be used to change some settings. There really should be a nipple style controller tucked into the underside of the monitor so I do not have to pull out the remote for all settings. Overall I am happy with this monitor and I think I will be keeping it. The text quality is pretty bad but if your main use case is gaming or media consumption, this may be the perfect monitor.