Disappointed. That’s the one word summary of how I feel. Don’t get me wrong, this is a really good BUDGET gaming monitor but that’s really ALL it’s good for. For day-to-day use, the 15 year old Samsung BX3431 that I’m replacing is an overall “better” experience.

I use my screen several hours every day for general office/desktop use and I’ve actually reverted to using the old monitor for that as it’s more relaxing on the eyes. The UltraGear just feels harsh and ‘in-your-face’ and that’s after a month of tinkering with the settings - turning everything WAY down from default to try to get some control. I run it at brightness 50%, contract 56% and custom colour settings all turned down to around 40% of default. Even then, I still feel tired after staring at it for more than an hour.

As far as gaming goes, yes this gives a sharp, bright, colourful and fast image and I’ve no complaints in that department although I still keep everything turned down really low to avoid searing my eyeballs too much.

Watching TV is where this monitor REALLY falls down badly. The IPS bleeding from the corners is woefully bad! It almost renders very dark scenes unwatchable. See the attached photos. Again, my old budget monitor was MUCH better in that respect. Also, unless you sit around 80cm to 90cm from the screen, the colours vary from one side to the other due to the change of viewing angle. I guess this is true of many larger monitors, but this is NOT a screen for the serious photo editor (which I am, unfortunately). AGAIN – the colour reproduction of my old monitor was far superior – more accurate and at least consistent across the whole screen!

Another niggle is that the overall useable screen area nowhere near covers the full panel. LG make a point of “no bezel” design but that’s of little meaning when the edge of the screen is not used anyway. There is a 6mm gap at each side, 5mm top and 4mm bottom. Thus the diagonal size of the screen is actually just over 26.5 inches (674mm to be exact). I know they're always a LITTLE smaller than advertised, but with no bezel, I didn't expect this much loss.

The stand is good at least – solid and easy to adjust. The controls and user-interface are “OK” – not the worst I’ve used but far from the best.

I promised myself I would wait a month before writing a review, but my initial thoughts all still prevail. This isn’t bad enough to actually return, but I wish had had chosen something else, or simply saved my money and stayed with my trusty 15 year old Samsung.

COLORS - VIEWING ANGLES
The screen is decent. The colors can be brought to correct ratios with proper calibration where they are vibrant, but the mediocre contrast of the screen, which ranges from about 850:1 to 900:1, does not provide the black tint that it deserves. The contrast could certainly be better, and the blacks appear a bit gray in darker areas. The IPS glow is somewhat annoying, with the two right corners covering a spectrum of dark brown that is not bothersome, but both left corners are white, which is more bothersome on a dark background. The viewing angles are good, especially from left to right, but vertical is not good, not bad. The brightness stability is at good levels, and there are no significant fluctuations at various points on the panel, meaning it is relatively uniform. However, the brightness range, with a maximum of 300 nits, will satisfy, but in bright places, it may not be enough, as the monitor is not very bright. There are, however, some modes separate from game mode 1,2 that can increase brightness for relatively bright spaces in particular.

ERGONOMICS - FUNCTIONALITY
As for ergonomics, you won't have any particular problems. The screen raises and lowers comfortably but cannot swivel left or right. At the bottom of the screen is a joystick with red lighting that can be turned off and is excessively comfortable. It has the basic ports with two HDMI 2.0 and DisplayPort 1.4 with a power cable that plugs directly into the outlet. The packaging includes the DisplayPort 1.4, the power cable, and the jack. However, be careful because with the stand, the screen reaches 24 centimeters and takes up quite a bit of space, so if you have a small desk, definitely get a stand; otherwise, rip. The screen has many settings and a capable UI to customize everything to your liking. The monitor also has G-Sync compatibility and AMD FreeSync. Specifically, the energy-saving setting is enabled by default, which causes less brightness and displays flickering. In any case, turn it off.

RESPONSE TIME - REFRESH RATE
In terms of speed, the 180 Hz makes everything smoother compared to 144 Hz, and the difference is quite noticeable. 180 Hz is its native, and 200 Hz will require overclocking, which works with the monitor's G-Sync. It works excellently with the adaptive sync modes with relatively low blur, but at lower frequencies, it will show distinctly more, e.g., below 100 fps. It does not cause dizziness and is not tiring; it is excessively comfortable and is not nano IPS but IPS. (In Asia, the panel is in nano IPS while in the West it is in IPS). The input lag is also low for immediate response.

FINAL
In conclusion, it is a strong monitor mainly for gaming but also generally with relatively fast response times and notable colors; however, it does not perform as well in Adobe RGB, with some ratios being a bit off. It is hard not to be satisfied unless you exclude three things. 1) A bit of its blacks, especially in dark areas, as the black uniformity is mediocre, 2) the gamma settings change colors in the different modes it has and do not maintain color stability, and 3) the IPS glow on the left side a bit more; however, this specific one is an upgrade from the 75GR27Q-B with a better refresh rate and smoothness and less blur. Ssd1 vs ssd2 panel. It is also flicker free, has hdr 400 nits not something great and does not have speakers + Vesa 100x100.
SETTINGS
-So, for the settings now.
Because you are all superstars and deserve the best. Of course, some will be a bit relative but some not so much. These are the settings I have.
It has two modes for saving,
Game mode 1 or 2.
- response time fast or normal for low fps that is 90-, but mainly fast in general.
-The power saver should remain off.
To make g-sync work better, download the drivers from the nvidia site because without them, it does not recognize the monitor as g-sync compatible.
-Rgb 50 red, 48 green, 52 blue. Because with these settings the saturation is above the normal limit (certainly some will like it more), you can minimize it a bit via amd radeon software and Nvidia digital Saturation respectively, otherwise from the monitor all colors, but not the hue.
-At the same time if you have Nvidia don’t forget to set output dynamic range to full from limited if it’s not already.
-Gamma mode 3
-Brightness 100.
-Contrast 70.
-Black stabilization 55-60.
-Sharpness 80.
-Saturation green 52 and saturation blue 51. The green at least is weaker and appears as light green rather than the intense dark green seen in other models, however, the reds of this monitor are superior.
- If you need something brighter, gamma 4 almost with the same settings, and if not then gamma 1 but the colors become particularly washed out.
Ultra Edit: The problem with Gamma mode 2 is that it increases the red tint more and the lighting tends towards red rather than yellow or white, as it noticeably reddens the whites.
If you also want the best blacks, the best setting is gamma mode 3 with black stabilizer 50. If you increase the black stabilizer, the black worsens and simultaneously boosts the ips glow. That is, if you need better contrast increase the brightness and leave the black stabilizer at 50. The problem is in some dark scenes the black can 'eat' detail. If you go to a different gamma I wouldn’t recommend increasing it above 50, e.g. mode 1,2,4 if you are particularly interested in black although the panel is lottery.