Technologies

LG UltraGear OLED 27 Gaming Monitor Review: Part Beauty, Part Beast

HDR, OLED’s naturally high contrast and a 240Hz refresh rate can make games look beautiful, but this monitor’s brightness behavior may make other tasks beastly.

LG’s UltraGear gaming monitors are some of the most popular models you can buy, so the $1,000, 240Hz 27-inch UltraGear 27GR95QE-B OLED HDR model sounded like one of the most interesting monitors to launch at CES this year. And it’s certainly interesting. OLED screens have the highest contrast you can find in a display thanks to their true blacks, and their naturally wide color gamut makes them excellent for TV screens.

But because monitors are used for so many different types of tasks, OLED’s strengths can occasionally become weaknesses and some of the technology’s inherent weaknesses, like brightness, need to be finessed. LG succeeds at gaming, for the most part, but doesn’t entirely succeed at all the other things the monitor needs to do when you’re not playing. There are some things that competing technologies like Quantum Dot OLED, found in monitors such as the Alienware 34 QD-OLED models, handle a bit better.

The UltraGear OLED 27 has a curved 45-inch sibling, the $1,700 45GR95QE-B. It has similar specs to the 27-inch model, with some similar complaints, but its low resolution for its size (3,440×1,440 pixels) means it’s not great for a lot of general uses despite its productivity-friendly dimensions.

7.9

LG UltraGear OLED 27GR95QE-B

$1,000 at Amazon

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Like

Well constructed with good physical layout
A ton of features

Don’t Like

Some people don’t like the antiglare screen
Can only access all the settings with the remote control
Brightness performance issues

Design and features

The monitor’s physical design hits most of my checklist items for a «yay!» Easy to access ports: check. Easily maneuverable cable management: check. Solid build quality: check. A stand that allows the screen to pivot, swivel and adjust the height: check. Its only illumination is stripes wrapping around the electronics section the screen is mounted on, which may be too subtle for some people, but I like it. Plus, it looks like a gaming monitor without looking like every other gaming monitor.

The vents around the electronics section can be lit up.

Lori Grunin/CNET

But I hate that you can only access the full set of menu options via the remote. There are a few (like inputs) that you can get to using the hard-to-manipulate single joystick on the monitor and a few more that you can get to using LG’s OnScreen Control software, but a lot of the nitty gritty stuff — gamma and white balance choices, for example — requires the remote. And being able to maintain a slim profile with the skinny OLED screen means it’s got a huge AC adapter brick.

LG UltraGear OLED 27GR95QE-B

Price	$1,000
Size (diagonal)	26.5 in (67cm)
Panel and backlight	OLED
Flat or curved	Flat
Resolution, pixel density	2,560×1,440 pixels, 111ppi
Aspect ratio	16:9
Maximum gamut	98.5% P3
Brightness (nits, peak/typical)	1,000 (HDR)/200 (SDR)
HDR	HDR10
Adaptive sync	FreeSync Premium and G-Sync Compatible
Max vertical refresh rate	240Hz (DisplayPort and HDMI)
Gray/gray response time (milliseconds)	0.03ms
Connections	2x HDMI 2.1, 1x DisplayPort 1.4, 2x USB-A (plus USB 3.0 upstream)
Audio	3.5mm, SPDIF out; DTS:X support
VESA mountable	Yes, 100×100 mm
Panel warranty	2 years parts and labor
Release date	January 2023

It has an extensive feature set as well. That includes all the basics for gaming, plus a full-range slider for the Black Stabilizer (a necessity for OLED), LG’s Dynamic Action Sync mode, which reduces latency between the system and the screen, and HDMI 2.1 for use with variable refresh-rate supporting Xbox Series X and S, and PS5.

But it’s got a ton of color and image-adjustment options that you rarely see in a gaming monitor, like 18 steps of manual white balance. The LG Calibration Studio is a full-featured profiling tool, complete with recalibration reminders, a host of predefined target spaces (including CIE RGB, Apple RGB, monochrome and a fully user-definable one) and the ability to save two of the custom profiles as hardware presets.

The ports are not only easily accessible, but they sit on either side of the stand so you don’t have to try to tilt or rotate it to accommodate hand contortions in order to plug something in.

Lori Grunin/CNET

The calibration software can be a bit glitchy, but it’s generally well designed. I’m a big fan of being able to set all the options on a single screen, and it’s pretty straightforward to understand and use. There’s one big thing I miss, though, and that’s the choice of calibrating for a full screen (as with most calibration software) rather than just within a 10% window. In the case of the LG, it’s critically important.

Performance

Basically, in SDR the screen can hit around 200 nits for any screen coverage except full screen. At that point, it seems like it drops to a maximum of around 150 nits. That’s why it seems so dim for most general use — because most of us work on full white screens. The perception of dimness isn’t helped by the excellent antiglare treatment, and a more matte finish makes it seem like it’s lower contrast as well, despite OLED’s effectively infinite contrast. People have complained that they wish the screen was more like the typical glossy TV OLED, which tends to look brighter with more saturated colors, but, well, I loathe glossy screens for the same reasons. I’m used to swimming upstream in life.

But it also screws up calibration, because LG’s software (and presumably its factory) calibrates over an area that has different brightness characteristics than full screen, which screws up the gamma calculations. You may not have any problems with gamma oddities and a lot of profile definitions (like sRGB) are based around low peak brightness, partly because they were defined for a time when monitors tended to peak at 200 or 250 nits. However if you’re, say, doing illustrations on a paper white background, it can mess things up and certainly makes color unpredictable.

SDR Color measurements

Preset	Gamut (% coverage)	White point	Gamma	Peak brightness	Accuracy (DE2K average/max)
Gamer 1 (default)	97% P3	7,950K	2.2	205	5.3/18.4
Gamer 1 (with manual white balance setting C1)	97% P3	6,450K	2.2	188	1.9/3.58
Gamer 2	n/a	6,900K	1.2	206	n/a
FPS	n/a	6,800K	0.97	163	n/a
RTS	n/a	6,500K	0.83	139	n/a
sRGB	96% sRGB	6,150K	1.6	110	4.06/8.17
Vivid	97% P3	8,600K	0.93	139	14.6/27.13
Custom calibration: Adobe RGB (75% window)	90% Adobe RGB	6,400K	2.2	197	1.8/4.6
Custom calibration: Adobe RGB (full screen)	90 % Adobe RGB	6,400K	1.2	170 (at 95% gray), 144 (white)	5.7/12.1

That’s illustrated by the two Adobe RGB calibrations in the chart: I calibrated the monitor using LG Studio, with its 10% window, then measured the results with fractional and full-screen targets in Calman 2023. You can always use a third-party calibration utility to massage it to work, but those profiles can’t be saved as a monitor preset.

The brightness variability also results in odd results for the gaming presets which are further complicated by the Black Stabilizer settings. (OLED can render pure black, which is a case traditional gamma calculations was never meant to handle, so the ability to boost the brightness in shadow areas is essential for visibility.)

The shape of the gamma curve doesn’t really matter much for gaming; appropriate — rather than accurate — shadow detail, contrast, brightness and color matter a lot more (though game designers might disagree). DAS isn’t a pixel refresh booster (OLED is plenty fast at 1ms or less) or motion blur compensation feature so it really doesn’t affect brightness the way those can. And the 240Hz screen refresh is rock solid.

HDR mode measurements

Preset	White point	Full screen brightness (nits)	10% window brightness (nits)
Gamer 1	6,350K	146	642
Gamer 2	8,100K	159	750 (peak 883 — 938 nits in 2% window)
FPS	8,750K	145	709
RTS	6,350K	143	661
Vivid	10,000K	142	663

HDR looks great, and unlike a lot of HDR monitors this one lets you adjust settings like brightness and the gaming presets have settings for HDR along with SDR. In HDR it hits the full rated 98.5% P3 gamut coverage.

LG rates the display at a peak brightness of 800-1,000 nits for a 3% window, which it certainly hit. But it requires several seconds to ramp up to peak and can’t sustain it for more than a few. In practice, you’re more likely to see a maximum of about 700-750 nits consistently, which still looks great given the monitor’s price. The full-screen brightness is still low, but you’re far less likely to encounter situations where it matters.

If you can get away with spending $1,000 on a monitor that you’ll love for gaming but probably not so much for work, then the 27-inch LG UltraGear OLED will probably tickle your eyeballs. But if it needs to multitask while it takes up space on your desk, you may need to put a little more thought into the purchase.

Testing

All measurements are performed using Portrait Display’s Calman 2023 software using a Calibrite ColorChecker Display Plus (formerly X-Rite i1Display Pro Plus) and a Murideo Six-G pattern generator for HDR testing where necessary, or the Client3 HDR patterns within Calman, where possible. How extensive our testing is depends on the capabilities of the monitor, the screen and backlight technology used, and the judgment of the reviewer. For a complete description of our testing procedures, see How CNET Tests Monitors.

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Technologies

iOS 17 Cheat Sheet: Your Questions on the iPhone Update Answered

Here’s what you need to know about new features and upcoming updates for your iPhone.

Apple’s iOS 17 was released in September, shortly after the company held its Wonderlust event, where the tech giant announced the new iPhone 15 lineup, the Apple Watch Series 9 and the Apple Watch Ultra 2. We put together this cheat sheet to help you learn about and use the new features in iOS 17. It’ll also help you keep track of the subsequent iOS 17 updates.

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Make sure to check back periodically for more iOS 17 tips and how to use new features as Apple releases more updates.

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Technologies

Get Ready for a Striking Aurora That Could Also Disrupt Radio Communications

Don’t expect the storm to cause a lingering problem, though.

A geomagnetic storm is threatening radio communications Monday night, but that doesn’t mean you should be concerned. In fact, it may be an opportunity to see a colorful aurora in the night sky.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has issued a geomagnetic storm watch after witnessing a coronal mass ejection from the sun on Saturday. The watch, which was issued over the weekend and will expire after Monday, said the onset of the storm passing over Earth on Sunday night represented a «moderate» threat to communications. As the storm continues to pass through, it could deliver a «strong» threat on Monday night that could cause radio communications to be temporarily disrupted during the worst of it.

Even so, NOAA said, «the general public should not be concerned.»

A coronal mass ejection occurs when magnetic field and plasma mass are violently expelled from the sun’s corona, or the outermost portion of the sun’s atmosphere. In the vast majority of cases, the ejection occurs with no real threat to Earth. However, in the event the ejection happens in the planet’s direction, a geomagnetic storm occurs, and the Earth’s magnetic field is temporarily affected.

In most cases, geomagnetic storms cause little to no disruption on Earth, with radio communications and satellites affected most often. In extreme cases, a geomagnetic storm can cause significant and potentially life-threatening power outages — a prospect that, luckily, the planet hasn’t faced.

Switching poles

Every 11 years, the sun’s magnetic poles switch, with the north pole and south pole swapping positions. During those cycles, the sun’s activity ramps up as it gets closer to pole-switching time. The height of its activity is called solar maximum, and scientists believe we either may be entering the solar maximum or may be already in it.

During periods of heightened solar activity, sunspots increase on the sun and there’s an increase in coronal mass ejections, among other phenomena. According to NOAA, solar maximum could extend into October of this year before the sun’s activity calms and it works towards its less-active phase, solar minimum.

Even when geomagnetic storms hit Earth and disrupt communications, the effects are usually short-lived. Those most affected, including power grid operators and pilots and air traffic controllers communicating over long distances, have fail-safe technologies and backup communications to ensure operational continuity.

But geomagnetic storms aren’t only about radios. In most cases, they also present unique opportunities to see auroras in the night sky. When the storms hit, the plasma they carry creates a jaw-dropping aurora, illuminating the night sky with brilliant colors. Those auroras can be especially pronounced during the most intense phases of the storm, making for nice stargazing.

If you’re interested in seeing the aurora, you’ll need to be ready. The NOAA said the «brunt of the storm has passed» and even if it lingers into Tuesday, there won’t be much to see after Monday night.

Technologies

Last Total Solar Eclipse for 20 Years Is Coming: How to See and Photograph It

It’s your last chance until 2044.

Get your eclipse glasses ready, Skygazers: the Great American Eclipse is on its way. On April 8, there’ll be a total eclipse over North America, the last one until 2044.

A total solar eclipse happens when the moon passes between the Earth and the sun, blocking the sun and turning an otherwise sunny day to darkness for a short period of time. Depending on the angle at which you’re viewing the eclipse, you may see the sun completely shrouded by the moon (called totality) or some variation of it. The more off-angle you are and the further you are from the path of the eclipse, the less likely you’ll be to see the totality.

The 2024 total solar eclipse will happen on Monday, April 8. The Great American Eclipse will reach the Mexican Pacific coast at 11:07 a.m. PT (2:07 p.m. ET), and then traverse the US in a northeasterly direction from Texas to Maine, and on into easternmost Canada. If you want a good look at it, but don’t live in the path of totality, you shouldn’t wait much longer to book accommodation and travel to a spot on the path.

Or how about booking a seat in the sky? Delta Airlines made headlines for offering a flight that allows you to see the entire path of totality. Its first eclipse flight, from Austin, Texas, to Detroit sold out quickly. But as of Monday, Delta has added a second flight from Dallas to Detroit, which also covers the path of totality. The airline also has five flights that will offer prime eclipse viewing.

Not everyone can get on one of those elusive eclipse-viewing flights. Here’s a look at other options to nab a chance to see this rare sight and what to know about it.

Total solar eclipse path

The eclipse will cross over the Pacific coast of Mexico and head northeast over mainland Mexico. The eclipse will then make its way over San Antonio at approximately 2:30 p.m. ET on April 8 and move through Texas, over the southeastern part of Oklahoma and northern Arkansas by 2:50 p.m. ET.

By 3 p.m. ET, the eclipse will be over southern Illinois, and just 5 minutes later, will be traveling over Indianapolis. Folks in northwestern Ohio will be treated to the eclipse by 3:15 p.m. ET, and it will then travel over Lake Erie and Buffalo, New York, by 3:20 p.m. ET. Over the next 10 minutes, the eclipse will be seen over northern New York state, then over Vermont. By 3:35 p.m. ET, the eclipse will work its way into Canada and off the Eastern coast of North America.

Best places to watch the Great American Eclipse

When evaluating the best places to watch this year’s total eclipse, you’ll first want to determine where you’ll have the best angle to see the totality. The farther off-angle you are — in other words, the farther north or south of the eclipse’s path — the less of an impact you can expect.

Therefore, if you want to have the best chance of experiencing the eclipse, you’ll want to be in its path. As of this writing, most of the cities in the eclipse’s path have some hotel availability, but recent reports have suggested that rooms are booking up. And as more rooms are booked, prices are going up.

So if you want to be in the eclipse’s path, and need a hotel to do it, move fast. And Delta’s eclipse-viewing flight from Dallas to Detroit has just four seats left at the time of publication.

Eclipse eye safety and photography

As with any solar eclipse, it’s critical you keep eye safety in mind.

During the eclipse, and especially during the periods before and after totality, don’t look directly at the sun without special eye protection. Also, be sure not to look at the sun through a camera (including the camera on your phone), binoculars, a telescope or any other viewing device. This could cause serious eye injury. Sunglasses aren’t enough to protect your eyes from damage.

If you want to view the eclipse, you’ll instead need solar viewing glasses that comply with the ISO 12312-2 safety standard. Anything that doesn’t meet that standard or greater won’t be dark enough to protect your eyes. Want to get them for free? If you’ve got a Warby Parker eyeglasses store nearby, the company is giving away free, ISO-certified solar eclipse glasses at all of its stores from April 1 until the eclipse, while supplies last.

If you don’t have eclipse viewing glasses handy, you can instead use indirect methods for viewing the eclipse, like a pinhole projector.

Read more: A Photographer’s Adventure With the Eclipse

In the event you want to take pictures of the eclipse, attach a certified solar filter to your camera. Doing so will protect your eyes and allow you to take photos while you view the eclipse through your lens.

There’s also a new app to help you both protect your eyes and take better photos of the eclipse on your phone. Solar Snap, designed by a former Hubble Space Telescope astronomer, comes with a Solar Snap camera filter that attaches to the back of an iPhone or Android phone, along with solar eclipse glasses for protecting your eyesight during the event. After you attach the filter to your phone, you can use the free Solar Snap Eclipse app to zoom in on the eclipse, adjust exposure and other camera settings, and ultimately take better shots of the eclipse.

2024 eclipse compared to 2017

The last total solar eclipse occurred in 2017, and many Americans had a great view. Although there are plenty of similarities between the 2017 total solar eclipse and the one coming April 8, there are a handful of differences. Mainly, the 2024 eclipse is going to cover more land and last longer.

The 2017 eclipse started over the northwest US and moved southeast. Additionally, that eclipse’s path was up to 71 miles wide, compared with a maximum width of 122 miles for this year’s eclipse. Perhaps most importantly, the moon completely covered the sun for just 2 minutes, 40 seconds in 2017. This year, maximum totality will last for nearly four-and-a-half minutes.