LG UltraGear 32GN600-B - LED-Monitor - QHD - 80 cm (32")

Product Information

Note that we turned ‘Smart Energy Saving’ mode off in the OSD before these tests so that brightness and measurements were not impacted. Everything else was at factory defaults to evaluate the out of the box performance.

The market is seeing a real push in this space for 32” 1440p displays and they are winning us over we have to say. The text and font size are still perfectly comfortable to use and sharp even at this larger screen size for general and office uses, and certainly no issue for gaming and multimedia.

Clearer, Smoother and Faster

Input has these options….. And General has 17 Languages… HDMI Compatibility Mode may work with sources better that only use HDMI 1.4, DisplayPort Version is grayed out if using HDMI, Buzzer- there’s a beep when you turn on the monitor, and Information gives you your resolution. The net result of this is that the improvements you get normally in motion clarity from that extra 45Hz refresh rate are basically wiped out by the slower response times and their failure to keep up. We have captured some pursuit camera photos which show that actually the 120Hz mode probably looks a bit better overall in practice as there is none of this added smearing because the response times can’t keep up with the frame rate.

For office work the pixel pitch and font size is identical to a 24” 1080p resolution display which is comfortable and easy to use, without being to large that it loses clarity. It might not look quite as sharp as a 27” 1440p display, but it’s perfectly usable and many people may even prefer it. Movies and HDR At the maximum refresh rate of the screen we will also include our familiar more detailed response time measurements, which includes a wider range of transition measurements as well as some analysis of things like the refresh rate compliance. This identifies how many of the measured pixel transitions were fast enough to keep up with the frame rate of the screen. Ideally you’d want pixel response times to be consistently and reliably shorter than this refresh rate cycle, otherwise if they are slower it can lead to additional smearing and blurring on moving content. And for camera usage, the LG 32GN600-B does accept 4K at 24 frames, popping up a dialog to tell you about the resolution mismatch which we really appreciate. This is great for reviewing footage in an emergency, we tested this with a Lumix G9. While HDR10 handling is advertised for this LG 32GN600-B, the reality is that monitors deliver SDR at the cd/m2 or nits the panel is rated for, and then boost to get the added brightness for HDR, usually by 100 nits or more. LG on the other hand, lowers overall brightness and shows full white just a bit above original brightness. This shows LG’s incompetence with HDR implementation in this monitor, so don’t buy this if one of the primary reasons is watching HDR. We have also included some measurements using our recently updated ‘gamma corrected’ response time method, which provides measurements that are even more closely representative of perceived motion performance. These were taken at 120Hz refresh rate and in the ‘Faster’ response time mode. As we discussed earlier it is arguable that the screen looks sharper and clearer at 120Hz thanks to the better response times and better refresh rate compliance, avoiding the added smearing you get at 165Hz because the response times can’t quite keep up with the frame rate. This is probably the optimal setting to use for gaming.The results of this response time behavior though is that above about 120Hz, the G2G response times start to get a bit too slow to keep up with the frame rate demands and you start to see some additional smearing added to the moving images, especially in darker shades. At 120Hz, 83% of the measured transitions were within the refresh rate window, i.e. they were fast enough to keep up with 120 frames per second being sent to the screen. This was a good result. However, at 165Hz only 43% of the transitions were within this window (165 frames per second now) which leads to a bit of added smearing in practice. This 31.5 inch 165 hertz edge lit VA panel has a matte non-reflective surface with a 1 millisecond response time, 5 gray to gray, HDR10 handling (ha!) and 10 bit color, which is likely 8-bit plus FRC as LG would likely advertise this as a native 10 bit panel if it was. Contrast is over 3200 to 1 versus the listed 3000 to 1, and the max power draw is 63 watts. So TLDR, the LG 32GN600-B is a flat 1440p VA 165 Hertz panel, having excellent low input lag, and 1 millisecond response with 5 Gray to Gray. The SDR colors are outstanding out of the box, and perfect after calibration. Supporting FreeSync Premium and working with G-Sync over DisplayPort only, the menu is snappy, and the 8 mm pixel to air is pretty good. For gaming, the Response Time or Overdrive setting of Faster does best at 165Hz, and Normal does best at 60 Hertz.