when steve jobs unveiled the original iphone back in 2007 the year i graduated
high school he pitched it as a music player a phone and an internet
communicator all rolled into one are you getting it
and the crowd went nuts because who wants to buy three devices when one
device can do it all fast forward to today and we're seeing similar
convergence in the world of monitors case in point the lg 27 gn 950 a 144hz
variable refresh rate monitor for gamers that's also a color accurate 4k monitor
for creatives but can it compete with samsung's 240hz
g7 and can you compete with this slippery segue to our sponsor private
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my first impression of the 27 gn 950 was that it was basically just a 4k version
of 2019's immensely popular 27 gl 850.
that monitor was the first ips to advertise one millisecond pixel response
time but it was only 1440p but is that
the whole story just decide if the higher resolution is worth an extra 300
bucks to you and call it a day not quite as the 950 addresses a couple
of our gripes from last time around namely upping the brightness to achieve
a vasa display HDR 600 certification and
most importantly adding RGB
another upgrade comes with display stream compression a feature of
displayport 1.4 that allows this monitor to run at 3840 by 2160 resolution at 144
hertz with 10 bit color and no chroma
sub sampling something that was not possible on even the best monitors just
a short while ago the catch you need either a 20 series NVIDIA
graphics card or an AMD one from 2019 onward or else it's just not gonna work
and as far as we can tell you'll be relegated to 95 hertz
big buyer beware there companies should just be more direct
LTT Store.com but assuming you're using it to its full
potential gaming on the 950 is a great experience it's snappy clear and offers
a great deal of flexibility with g-sync compatible and freesync premium pro
designations and the high resolution gives you the freedom to crank the
details in sightseeing games or drop down to 1440p or even 1080 if you
absolutely need as many frames as possible and hey if you're hoping
NVIDIA's upcoming 30 series graphics cards are gonna let you run 4k at 120
FPS and beyond then this monitor will have you covered for a fair few years in
that respect too also get subscribed so you don't miss our coverage of those
gpus when they arrive but what about lg's claim about one
millisecond pixel response time can this ips panel really game at 144 hertz
without turning into a smeary mess to find out we set up a pursuit camera
to photograph the display's inherent motion blur that's motion blur that's
not due to the persistence of vision in your brain on the default fast setting
it looks pretty good with very little smearing on the trailing edge and while
the pictures don't look materially different with the slower normal and
offsetting selected in real life you can actually see a difference lg has made
this easy to test since the settings change in real time without the screen
going black between toggles nice
it's also nice that lg lets you choose whatever overdrive setting you want even
when adaptive sync is turned on something we did not see in our recent
review of the samsung odyssey g9 back to the lg in order for them to get that one
millisecond sticker on the box though they definitely use the faster setting
where aggressive pixel overdrive introduces garish inverse ghosting or
coronas that are really distracting in game with
no real benefit in my humble opinion i will definitely be keeping it on fast
so yes the 27 g950 is great for gaming
but this monitor is 4k it probably makes the most sense for gamers who also are
creators and it delivers there too out of the box
the color accuracy on our unit was squarely in professional territory with
deviations below what's detectable by the human eye it covered over 97 of the
dci p3 color gamut and a respectable 74
of rec 2020 it also offers hardware calibration as long as you have lg's
calibration studio software installed which should be available soon for free
from their website okay so the 27 g950
is a worthy upgrade to last year's 850
but a lot has changed in that year what about compared to arguably the hottest
displays of 2020 samsung's odyssey lineup the g7 is 50 cheaper 5 inches
bigger and runs at 240hz instead of 144.
it too has great color accuracy thanks to a quantum dot enhancement film but
it's only 1440p not 4k if you lean more
gamer than creator though the g7's higher refresh rate definitely
contributes to better motion clarity but with more smearing and dark scenes due
to the va panel's poorer handling of dark to dark transitions additionally
though the g7 has a motion blur reduction strobing mode
but that introduces image doubling due to crosstalk you're also going to have
to be okay with narrower viewing angles and a tight 1000r curve so it's
definitely a more gamer focused less versatile display than the lg 950 which
above all has more RGB
it does but you know just kidding but i do really like how it's implemented in
addition to the regular lg nipple stick for controlling the SSD there's also a
click wheel that lets you adjust the brightness and select effects without
installing any extra software very convenient and intuitive the bezels
have been improved on this monitor since last time around with a narrower d
branded chin bar there's no logo here and it's sharp but not too in-your-face
stand offers 16 centimeters of height adjust 20 degrees of tilt and 90 degrees
of rotation still no swivel though
which brings us to the monitor's shortcomings
HDR while the 27 gn 950 does have an
appreciated and noticeable vasa display HDR 600 certification the difference
between HDR and sdr isn't that crazy and
there's a lot of daylight between what this monitor can do versus one that
shines at a thousand nits overall it's a
nice to have just don't buy this monitor for HDR
similarly the backlight is a bit weird
i'm not miffed that this monitor doesn't have full array local dimming with
hundreds of zones because i'm generally not even into
fault really but this monitor doesn't not have local
dimming either it's somewhere in the middle what lg calls active dimming the
de facto result isn't as bad as it looks on this test pattern but i'm still a
little on the fence about it i mean i guess it's making some scenes darker but
if you're looking for it it can be noticeable sometimes so ah
probably not that big of a deal so should you buy this monitor
only maybe if you don't have enough GPU power to
game in 4k at high refresh rates maybe save some money and go with the 1440p
27gl 850 instead or save a little less
money and check out the 240hz samsung g7
but if you're a gamer who also dabbles or even works in photo editing or video
editing or if you have a multi-monitor setup or if you just really prefer 4k
displays then this is a fantastic monitor that almost does it all speaking
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guys if you like this video you might also like our recent review of the samsung odyssey g9 it's like the g7 but
it's 49 inches super ultra wide 240hz that's insane
go go watch it lions hosted it i wrote it