When LG announced the 45GR95QE back in August 2022, it was the subject of many discussions on forums catering to ultrawide enthusiasts – but not without controversy.
A giant ultrawide OLED monitor with good HDR has long been considered the “endgame” monitor for many enthusiasts, but the idea of pairing a “low” resolution of 3440×1440 on a 45″ monitor made many question this monitor’s value. Like others I was also skeptical of this unit’s practicality – after all 84 PPI (pixels per inch) is barely better than that of a 27″ 1080p monitor, and I’ve used 27/34″ 1440p monitors with 109 PPI for years.
At CES, LG invited me to visit their booth and check out their latest OLED monitors and upcoming OLED Gram series laptops with RTX 40xx series GPUS. It was there I first saw the 45GR95QE.
I had a few moments to test the monitor, where I was allowed to play the game shown above. I was also allowed to open notepad and a HDR video in YouTube. In that time I realized everyone who thinks “but the PPI!” when they think about this monitor is completely “missing the point” about this monitor – you’re literally looking at it wrong. I’ll get back to that in a bit.
After CES, LG kindly sent me a sample of this unit. I’ve been using it for about two months now, and I’d like to quickly cover some of the highlights of the 45GR95QE and my experience using this monitor.
The Good Stuff
I’m not going to go into extreme technical detail in this article. If that’s what you’re looking for, I kindly invite you to check out TFTCental’s review of Corsair’s Xeneon Flex 45WQHD240.
HDR with per-pixel dimming
For the past year, I’ve been using Nixeus’ EDG27240x which features a 240z 1440p Fast IPS panel. Amongst other things, I appreciated the vibrancy of its colors and the minimal amounts of ghosting/trailing while gaming. I had considered it to provide one of the better gaming experiences on the market, but I had never used an OLED monitor.
Having used LG’s 45GR95QE, my standards for what I now consider a good monitor have changed, using my Nixeus monitor almost feels like using an ancient computer in comparison.
Let’s start with the reproduction of dark and black colors – it is literally perfect. The darkness of the darkest black scenes is indistinguishable from the bezels of the monitor thanks to per-pixel dimming. The same scenes displayed on other monitors feel grey in comparison, even on quality VA panels.
As an example of how deep and accurate the black reproduction is of a panel like this, take a look at the image below. Look at the black hair of the person on the right, and compare it to the bezel of the unit. One can scarcely tell where the video ends and the bezel begins!
With HDR 1000 and a rated 1,500,000:1 contrast ratio, playing games and watching HDR videos on this monitor is a joy. Because it has per-pixel dimming, the lighting on HDR content is extremely vivid without any sort of blooming or other issues which plague lower quality “HDR” monitors.
If you’re trying to obtain 21:9 HDR content via streaming services, you might encounter problems depending on the service you use. YouTube and Amazon Prime are great sources for 21:9 streaming media. Some streaming services will try and send you a 16:9 video with hard coded black bars on the top on bottom. If you run into this issue, that can be fixed using a plugin called UltraWideo.
The best source of properly formatted media content is by obtaining a physical UHD Blu-Ray disc – or “alternative” sources on the high seas.
No Ghosting, Nearly perfect image clarity
The OLED panel with a rated response time of 0.03ms GtG (Grey to Grey) means that ghosting and trailing is essentially non-existent – significantly improving the gaming experience.
It’s hard to explain in words how perfectly crisp the motion clarity of this monitor is, and how significantly this can impact your game play experience. One example I can give you is from Dragon Age: Inquisition. When playing this game on older monitors, the act of opening a door looked somewhat blurry.
While connected to LG’s UltraGear 45GR95QE the act of opening a door in Dragon Age : Inquisition caused me to perceive frames of the animation in perfect clarity – to the extent I realized the frames of the animation were rendered at a lower frame rate than the rest of the game.
Viewing angles aren’t a concern on a panel like this, the image will look just as good looking directly at the monitor as it will if you look at it from an extreme angle.
Extremely low input lag
This monitor has extremely low, inperceptible input lag. /u/ParkGGoki on Reddit measured 2.9ms using the monitor’s “FPS” preset.
What everyone gets wrong about the 45GR95QE
The first thing commented in almost every discussion of this monitor is it’s lower PPI. If that’s what concerns you – you’re probably thinking about productivity work, and in any case you are literally looking at it wrong.
You don’t need to sit closely to the 45GR95QE
You’re probably accustomed to sitting closely to a monitor, which is fine for smaller screens – but with a larger screen size like this, you don’t sit quite so close. To obtain the same perceived pixel density as a 34″, you’ll want to sit back further from the 45GR95QE.
Density isn’t as important for gaming
While I prefer a higher pixel density when doing office work, I don’t consider perceived pixel density to be as important while gaming. The other attributes of this monitor – motion clarity, HDR quality, etc. are much more important. I’ll usually sit closer to the panel while playing video games for a more immersive experience, and sit back further while doing work.
You can use it with friends!
With a typical 34″ monitor, you can technically use it for a shared experience with others – but it’s not quite ideal due to how close both users will need to be for ideal viewing conditions.
That’s not a problem with the 45GR95QE – LG’s behemoth 45″ panel is large enough that you can sit back on a couch and share the experience with others at the same time. It’s great for watching HDR video content with friends and family or even playing PC games that support multiple controllers on PC like Lego Star Wars.
Office usage & Burn-In
You wouldn’t buy a monitor like this only for work – this is a gaming monitor. However, I used this monitor for office work for two months to see if burn in would occur. I’m happy to report that no burn in has been noticed.
If you do plan on using this monitor for office work, you’ll want to make a few customization to make the experience more ideal. The first thing you’ll want to do is to lower the brightness, using it at maximum brightness outside of consuming media (i.e. movies and games) will result in eye strain. If you sit closely to the monitor, you’ll also want to enable display scaling to offset OLED text fringing. Finally, you’ll want to do is run ClearType optimizations via windows.
Included Components
The monitor arrives with everything you’ll need to use the monitor.
- 45″ 240hz OLED HDR Ultrawide 3440×1440 Panel
- Height Adjustable Stand
- External Power Brick + Cord
- DisplayPort Cord
- HDMI Cord
- USB Cord
- Cable Management snap-on
- Remote Control
- Battery for the remote control
- Screwdriver for the remote Control
Remote Control + OSD Features
The OSD can be accessed via a button on the bottom of the monitor, but it’s far more convenient to use the included remote control to access it.
Image Quality Presets
The OSD shows 6 image presets one can choose from, but you can only actually use 5 of them. I found the default setting, Gamer 1, to have the best balance of settings. It wasn’t quite clear what exactly each mode changes, but they appeared to impact color balances and contrast levels. I particularly disliked the vivid mode, as it made many things seem washed out.
Adaptive Sync and other settings under Game Adjust
Under the Game Adjust settings, one can access settings for Adaptive Sync, Crosshair, and a FPS Counter which you can set to any corner of the screen.
As noted in the on screen display, there are a few scenarios where one can encounter brightness flickering with variable refresh rates (adaptive sync) enabled. In the games that I played, brightness flickering was only apparent in two situations: loading screens in God of War and a few other titles, and during certain parts of Civilization V when there is a popup displayed.
The options you can choose from in the picture adjust menu are limited to brightness and sharpness – or less , depending on the game mode chosen.
Picture in Picture (PiP) options – connect two video sources to one screen!
With the PiP mode, you can connect two different video inputs and assign each a part of the monitor’s real estate to them. For example, you could game on a console on one side and use the other to browse the web via a PC.
Anti Burn In features
LG included a variety of features to prevent burn in on the panel. From time to time, the image cleaning function will engage when you turn off the unit – and the monitor will warn you not to turn it back on for a while in order to insure it can complete the process without interruption. You can also manually engage pixel and image cleaning functions
Other features included to prevent burn in are automatic display off after extended inactivity and a screen moving feature, both enabled by default. The screen moving feature has a few different option, but it’s not apparent how those different options impact operation.
Miscellaneous Features
Other features included in the OSD are the ability to change the lighting from the back of the monitor and DTS Audio options for headphones connected to the monitor.
LG OnScreen Software
In addition to control of the monitor via the remote and OSD, LG also offers the OnScreen software suite. In addition to the normal settings available via the OSD, it also offers screen splitting software and shows more information on what settings the preset profiles change.
One can also use the OnScreen software to update the monitor’s firmware, when firmware updates are available.
Height adjustable stand
The included stand is height adjustable, so you can raise or lower it to your preference.
Massive 45″ Display
While 9″ might not sound like a huge difference on paper, the difference in size between a typical 34″ monitor and LG’s 45″ model is HUGE. How big is this monitor? The box it arrived in is wider than a typical dining table.
The 45GR95QE makes a typical ultrawide monitor look positively small in comparison!
Final Thoughts
Initially, I was extremely skeptical about this monitor due to it’s lower PPI – but this panel’s quality is outstanding and has raised the bar for what I consider a good monitor. With pitch perfect blacks, great HDR, zero ghosting, and crisp motion clarity – this monitor is only a resolution bump and a price drop away from being “endgame”.
This monitor is currently available for $1699 at LG’s website.
LG is also hosting a giveaway of this monitor, see below for details:
