LG 32-Inch UltraGear OLED: one-minute review
I’ve been waiting a long time for a monitor like the LG 32-Inch UltraGear OLED. With a brilliant OLED display and a gorgeous 4K resolution, backed up by an ample 240Hz refresh rate and brilliant picture quality, this LG monitor makes OLED technology a must-have for anybody who plays PC games or bases their home life around their computer desk.
There’s a noticeable quality difference between OLED and IPS monitors when playing cinematic and competitive games alike on a computer, and with this thing sitting on your desk you’re bound to get bang for your buck on the picture quality front.
But while we can celebrate LG for bringing the cost of an OLED monitor down with the 32GS95UE-B, let’s be honest with ourselves – $1,199 / £1,199 / AU$2,399 is still expensive for a monitor no matter how impressive the tech is.
Those looking more greater image depth and HDR performance may also want to look elsewhere, as the LG's peak brightness doesn't reach the retina-searing heights of similarly priced Samsung and Alienware models. My biggest bugbear though? Surely we can give peripherals better names than difficult to understand numbers and letters.
LG 32-Inch UltraGear OLED: price and availability
- How much does it cost? $1,199 / £1,199 / AU$2,399
- When is it available? Available now
- Where can you get it? LG directly and technology retailers in the US, UK and Australia
It’s tough to find a cheap 32-inch gaming monitor – especially one with an OLED panel (with prices often starting well above $800 / £800 / AU$1,000) – but the LG 32-Inch UltraGear OLED offers a sensible price-to-cost ratio for enthusiasts. It’s kind of a rarity, considering that it ditches an ultrawide profile and a curved screen for a more standard design, while most OLED monitors elect to have at least one of the aforementioned traits.
Similar monitors are available from Gigabyte and Alienware with significantly lower costs, with the closest competitor being the Samsung Odyssey G8 OLED G80SD (with a listed price of $1,299 / £1,099 / AU$1,999).
LG 32-Inch UltraGear OLED: Design
Screen size: 32-inch
Resolution: 3,840 x 2,160
Brightness: 275 nits full screen, 1,300 nits max HDR
Color coverage: 98.5%
Response time: 0.03ms
Refresh rate: 240Hz (4K) / 480Hz (1080p)
HDR: DisplayHDR True Black400, HDR10
Features: FreeSync Premium Pro, NVIDIA G-Sync, Dual Mode, Pixel Sound, 1 x HDMI, 1 x DisplayPort, 1 x Headphone out, 1 x USB-A upstream, 1 x USB-A downstream
An achilles heel of many gaming displays is the design – thick bezels, beefy stands and a focus on big, obvious branding offen make a monitor look cheap and overdesigned. This is in no way a problem for the LG 32-Inch UltraGear OLED.
It’s tempting to head this section off with ‘it’s a big black rectangle with a pentagonal stand’ but we can entertain the monitor more than that. It’s a premium design language that LG and Samsung alike have been leaning into with their high end monitors.
It’s mature to the point of only having the ‘UltraGear’ and ‘LG’ brand signifier in the front of the pentagon stand, without any branding on the actual display bezels. There’s RGB lighting on the back, allowing you to shine numerous colors onto the wall behind. If you know this feature isn’t for you, it’s easily turned off through the monitor settings.
Cables can be fed through the back of the monitor easily thanks to a neat cable management system, and you’re able to raise the panel quite high up off the base.,It would be nice if it could go lower, but we’re being quite picky. The monitor can swivel, tilt and pivot as well if you want to adjust the pitch of the display.
The panel is extremely premium, too. It’s polished with an anti-glare coating that only shows a warped reflection at most in low-light or reflective light situations. This is quite remarkable for an OLED display, as the technology, inherently, can’t go particularly bright. This means it can occasionally suffer in bright rooms, but as I found during testing in my office-bedroom – which is filled with light at all times during the day – I was able to play games with little issue.
LG 32-Inch UltraGear OLED: Features
The big sales pitch of the LG 32-Inch UltraGear OLED is its ‘dual mode’ functionality. At the press of a hotkey (located conveniently under the monitor), this monitor can switch between 4K 240Hz to 1080p 480hz. The first is more ideal for those after more cinematic, graphically beautiful gameplay, albeit at a lower framerate, while the second is intended for high octane competitive gamers after smooth frames.
We can err on the critical side with this feature and note that 4K 240Hz gameplay, at its height, would be difficult for even the most expensive gaming computers to reach in gorgeous single player games like Cyberpunk 2077 and Star Wars Outlaws. I would even go as far as to say that 240Hz is not just difficult to attain but is also very much overkill – 144Hz will suffice for a story-rich game.
The flipside of the feature makes much more sense to me – 1080p gameplay at 480Hz for fast-paced games where you want to see more frames rendered in a second. I can see the benefit of this in a game like Counter Strike 2 and League of Legends – but those high frame rates may even be seen as unnecessary by a competitive gamer. Leveling with you, dear reader, that’s not me – I prefer a pretty picture to a consistently smooth one (though I do like my frames to be above 60FPS). The monitor has a smart cleaning process for when it doesn’t detect an input, refreshing the pixels to avoid burn-in – a common issue with OLED monitors.
The monitor also comes with FreeSync Premium Pro and Nvidia G-Sync. It has a Display Port, HDMI, headphone jack, USB (downstream) and USB (upstream) ports, with support for a 100 x 100 mm wall mount. Satisfying me as someone who likes to watch stuff on their computer in bed, the monitor also has built-in speakers and comes with a Displayport and HDMI cable in the box.
LG 32-Inch UltraGear OLED: performance
The LG 32-Inch UltraGear OLED’s display is matte – not glossy like you’d expect from most displays. The extreme blacks and darker shades that the OLED pulls off in use – and when turned off – are so deep that you’ll at most see a rough reflection of yourself, but not enough to ruin the experience.
That’s an OLED panel’s entire deal and it leads to better performance on every front – deeper blacks equals better contrast – the difference between the darkest and brightest parts of an image.
And at the 32-inch size, I’ve found this monitor to be the best way to experience a lot of cinematic games. Star Wars Outlaws and Warhammer 40K: Space Marine II both play exceptionally well on the monitor and look much more gorgeous on the OLED screen than my previous 32-inch Gigabyte M32Q monitor.
TV shows like The Acolyte and The Bear look equally impressive – particularly The Bear for its attractive use of color sharpness in central objects amid a bland palette. The LG 32GS95UE-B aces it on color clarity.
The speakers are pleasantly surprising, too. I was expecting sound that peaks too readily and sounds washed out, but the 32GS95UE-B performs just about as well as any TV without a separate speaker system. This can be chalked up to LG’s ‘Pixel Sound’ feature, which provides a directed sound experience without any external speaker system.
The monitor performs relatively well on brightness and HDR – though both could be better at this pricepoint. The maximum brightness (1300nits) and enhanced darkness clarity doesn’t fare much better for content than just using the display with HDR disabled (275nits standard luminosity).
And while it doesn’t fit into any other category in Techradar’s review format, I’ve just got to say it – this name, the LG 32GS95UE-B, is just letters and numbers. They have meanings obviously but it’s extremely difficult to communicate to a customer – so much so that LG just calls the display the ‘32" UltraGear OLED Dual Mode 4K UHD’ on its website, and hence why we’ve been naming it interchangeably throughout this review. Less letters and numbers please.
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LG 32-Inch UltraGear OLED: Report Card
How I tested the LG 32-Inch UltraGear OLED
As soon as I received this monitor, I got to work unpacking it and setting it up. Pulling it out of the box was easy, as was the process of putting the stand together (no tools were needed, as everything slots and screws into place by hand). As my main space in my home is my bedroom-office, this monitor was switched on at almost all hours whenever I was home. To avoid burn-in, the panel was often turned off for cleaning when not being used.
The main use of the monitor was for gaming using a separate headset. I played a variety of games, including Caravan SandWitch, Team Fortress 2, What The Car, Star Wars Outlaws, Warhammer 40K: Space Marine 2, Forza Motorsport and Forza Horizon 5.
I also used the monitor for watching Twitch streams, YouTube videos and lots of TV shows, including The Bear and The Acolyte.
- First reviewed September 2024
