LG 27GL850-B/27GL83A-B  Monitor Review

The LG 27GL850 has the same look as most other LG UltraGear monitors. It's mainly black with a red circle on the back, but it has no backlighting.

The build quality is decent. The outer casing is almost entirely made of plastic, but there aren't any obvious issues.

This monitor has good ergonomics. Besides not being able to swivel, you shouldn't have many issues placing it in an ideal position for yourself. The back of the monitor is very similar to other UltraGear monitors as it has cable management through a clip attached to the stand.

The stand supports the monitor well, but the screen still wobbles a bit.

Like most modern LG monitors, it has a joystick underneath the monitor to control the on-screen display.

• HDMI cable
• DisplayPort cable
• USB-B cable
• Mouse bungee clip
• Power adapter and cable
• User guides, including CD

This monitor has a disappointing contrast ratio. Blacks look gray next to bright highlights, and it doesn't have a local dimming feature to improve it. If you're looking for a similar monitor with a VA panel displaying deeper blacks, check out the AOC CQ27G1.

This monitor doesn't have a local dimming feature. We still film these videos on the monitor so you can compare the backlight performance with a monitor that has local dimming.

The SDR brightness is good. It remains consistent with different content, and it gets bright enough to fight glare in a well-lit room unless you have the sun directly on the screen. These results are from after calibration in the 'Gamer 1' Game Mode, which is the picture mode setting, with the Brightness at its max. If you want something that gets even brighter, check out the Gigabyte G27Q.

The HDR brightness is okay. It can't get bright enough to make small highlights pop against the rest of the image. The EOTF also doesn't follow the target PQ curve well, as there's a slow roll-off, so highlights don't get the brightest they could. These results are in the 'Standard' Game Mode in HDR with the Brightness at its max.

This monitor has good gray uniformity. There's some very slight vignetting and a bit of dirty screen effect in the center, but neither of these are very noticeable with normal content.

Unfortunately, this monitor has poor black uniformity. There's noticeable backlight bleed and clouding throughout, and it lacks a local dimming feature to further improve it.

This monitor has decent accuracy before calibration. It has a dedicated sRGB mode, so it limits colors well to the sRGB color space, but it still has inaccuracies, particularly with the white balance. Even the color temperature is cold, resulting in a blue tint, and gamma doesn't follow the sRGB curve well as dark scenes are too dark and bright scenes are over-brightened. The sRGB mode also locks many settings, including Response Time, and other picture modes that don't lock out any settings have oversaturated colors, as you can see here.

After calibration, this monitor has exceptional accuracy. It displays colors almost perfectly, and any remaining inaccuracies aren't noticeable. Calibrating it also allows you to use any of the picture settings that are locked out in the sRGB mode.

This monitor has an incredible SDR color gamut. It can display the entire sRGB color space used in most content. It also has great coverage of the wider Adobe RGB color space used in professional photo editing, but not all colors are accurate in that color space.

The LG 27GL850 has an excellent HDR color gamut. It has fantastic coverage of the DCI-P3 color space used in most HDR content, but it has some tone mapping issues and more limited coverage of the wider Rec. 2020 color space.

The HDR color volume is decent. It has trouble displaying bright and dark colors very well.

The LG 27GL850 has a great horizontal viewing angle. The image remains consistent when viewed from the side.

Text clarity is decent but not as good as other 27-inch, 1440p monitors. It can be improved by using ClearType (top photo), which makes the diagonal lines on the letters R and N clearer.

The direct reflection handling isn't bad. The matte coating absorbs most light and spreads out the remaining, but it still has some mirror-like reflections.

This monitor maintains its black levels consistently in a bright room. However, because of its low contrast ratio, blacks still look gray in a bright room.

The screen has a lot of light reflected off of it. While the coating spreads light out, most of it remains close to where the light source appears on the screen. This means you should avoid placing it opposite a sunny window.

The LG 27GL850 has remarkable gradient handling. Any banding isn't noticeable with most content.

Although the monitor has a max refresh rate of 144Hz over HDMI with VRR disabled, the refresh rate is limited to 100Hz over HDMI once you enable VRR.

The LG 27GL850 has good motion handling across its VRR range. The 'Fast' Response Time is consistently the best, and while it has worse motion handling at lower refresh rates, it's still better overall than the 'Off' and 'Normal' settings. The CAD of the 'Faster' setting is so high that it passes the limits of the chart, but you can see an alternative chart here.

The refresh rate compliance is decent. Its response time isn't fast enough to make full transitions before the monitor draws the next frame with fast frame rates, but it's better at 60 fps.

The CAD at the max refresh rate of 144Hz is decent. The 'Fast' response time has the lowest CAD with the fastest total response time and less overshoot than 'Faster,' but there's still some noticeable blur.

The CAD at 120Hz is decent. There's a bit of motion blur, but it isn't overly distracting, either. It performs similarly to its max refresh rate, with the 'Fast' overdrive setting having the fastest total response time and a lot less overshoot than 'Faster.'

The CAD at 60Hz is decent. Although the 'Fast' overdrive setting has the lowest CAD, it has some noticeable inverse ghosting caused by overshoot, so it's better to use the 'Normal' setting if that bothers you and you don't mind changing settings.

There's no optional black frame insertion feature on the LG 27GL850. If you want something similar with that, look into the ASUS TUF Gaming VG27AQL1A.

This monitor has no noticeable VRR flicker with changing frame rates, which is excellent.

The backlight is flicker-free, which helps reduce eye strain if you're sensitive to it.

The input lag is low enough for a responsive feel while gaming. Although it increases a bit at 60Hz, it isn't a significant difference.

This monitor can't take full advantage of the PS5, and you need to make sure to turn off Adaptive Sync on the monitor for any signal to work with the console, including 1440p.

This monitor works with the Xbox Series X|S, but for 1440p @ 120Hz to work, you need to disable Adaptive Sync on the monitor. The console doesn't support HDR with 1080p and 1440p signals, so you need to use a downscaled 4k signal to get HDR.

You can adjust the volume through the onscreen menu.

The LG 27GL850 variant has two USB-A ports that you can use to connect devices, but the 27GL83A-B variant doesn't have that.

Unfortunately, this monitor doesn't work well with macOS. HDR looks terrible with tone mapping issues. The VRR feature is completely unusable as it flickers noticeably, and even the max refresh rate of 144Hz doesn't work properly with a fixed refresh rate. It works okay at 120Hz in SDR, with no major issues. If you're using a MacBook, Windows return to their original positions after the computer wakes from sleep, but not if you just close the lid.

There are very few additional features on this monitor. Like other UltraGear monitors, it can display a virtual crosshair on any game. There's also a 'Black Stabilizer' feature, which adjusts the gamma in dark scenes, making it easier to spot objects in the shadows.

If you want a monitor with more extra features, look at the Gigabyte AORUS FI27Q.