LG Display has announced that its 27-inch 1440p resolution OLED panel sporting a 480Hz refresh rate, which the firm revealed at the start of 2024, is now in mass production. So, hopefully it won’t be long before a new potential candidate for our best gaming monitors list is available to buy from LG.
The big selling points highlighted by LG, aside from that jaw-dropping refresh rate – which we’ve already seen in the LG 32-inch UltraGear OLED that offers 480Hz as one option in a ‘dual mode’ setup – is an “WRGB pixel structure optimization enhances the readability of text compared to conventional screens.”
Also chuck in super-thin bezels, and a panel that has a Micro Lens Array to enhance brightness and viewing angles – and better manage reflections on the screen – plus a response time of 0.02ms, and you’ve got a recipe for a tasty 1440p gaming monitor.
There’s also the prospect of taking it easier on your eyes, because as LG notes in its press release for this monitor, its OLED panels “emit half the blue light of LCD screens, protecting users from its potentially harmful effects,” while also sporting flicker-free tech to combat eye fatigue (as many monitors do, these days).
LG hasn’t yet announced a price for this 27-inch OLED monitor.
Pushing the boundaries until it Hertz (your wallet)
LG is the only firm to offer an OLED with a 480Hz refresh rate, with other panel makers lagging behind (Samsung has a 360Hz OLED panel – and of course there are LCDs that do go faster). It’s worth noting that with this new 27-inch monitor, the company has also shaved the response time down from 0.03ms (in the 32-inch OLED) to 0.02ms, which is about as close to instant as you can get. (Or one stop away – presumably 0.01ms is the next port of call).
With this smaller 27-inch screen, we’ll hopefully see LG concoct a relatively more affordable high-end gaming monitor here, compared to the aforementioned LG 32-inch UltraGear, which is an OLED screen that’ll blow a serious hole in your wallet ($1,400 in the US, £1,300 in the UK).
Other monitor makers are set to use this 27-inch panel from LG, too, reportedly including Acer and Asus. Obviously, these kinds of monitors are aimed at competitive gamers, so are never going to be cheap. Quite simply, the average gamer doesn’t really need to spend all that cash to get one of these blazing-fast panels, if we’re honest and step back from the refresh rate race for a moment.
The tricky point with towering refresh rates is the GPU required to push more demanding games to 480 frames per second consistently – to utilize that 480Hz refresh rate – and that’s made harder in this case, as this is a 1440p panel, not 1080p (the resolution paired with the 480Hz option on LG’s 32-inch OLED sibling). You’ll need quite some gaming PC to drive this 27-inch OLED, frankly.
