- Table of Contents
- Intro
- Our Verdict
- Video
- Test Results
- Differences
- Compared to others
- Discussions
The LG 27GL83A-B is a good 1440p IPS monitor with great gaming performance. It has a remarkably fast response time that delivers fast-moving content with almost no blur trail, and an outstanding low input lag for very responsive gaming sessions. Also, this monitor supports FreeSync variable refresh rate technology and is G-SYNC compatible, offering a nearly tear-free gaming experience. The LG 27GL83A-B can get fairly bright, suitable for most rooms, and supports HDR, although it can't get very bright in that mode. Unfortunately, this monitor can't display deep blacks in a dark room due to the low contrast ratio, so it's not a good choice for late-night gaming.
Our Verdict
The LG 2783A is a very good monitor for almost any use. It has remarkable motion and outstanding low input lag, which is great for gaming. It has wide viewing angles and great peak brightness that makes it a good choice for a bright office. Finally, its resolution and size make a great choice for those who are looking for a monitor with good performance in media creation and multimedia.
See our Mixed Usage recommendationsThis is a good monitor for office use. It has good resolution and size and favors multitasking. The viewing angles are decent, and this is good news if you often share your work with a colleague. Unfortunately, it isn't the easiest monitor to place comfortably, but on the upside, you can place it a bright office without issue.
See our Office recommendationsThe LG 27GL83A-B is a great monitor for gaming. It has an extremely low input lag and a very fast response time that displays a crisp image regardless if it's displaying fast-moving content or not. It supports FreeSync for nearly tear-free gaming, but on the downside, it may be difficult to place it comfortably due to its lack of swiveling.
See our Gaming recommendationsThe LG 27GL83A-B is a good monitor for consuming multimedia. It has great resolution and size and displays most content at its native resolution. The input lag is very low and the monitor feels very responsive. The wide viewing angles favor watching a movie together with a friend, although you might have a hard time positioning the monitor comfortably.
See our Multimedia recommendationsThis is a very good monitor for media creation. Its large resolution and size allow you to watch more of your project on your screen. Unfortunately, it'll take you a little longer to position the monitor to your ideal position, but once you do, you'll enjoy a very responsive monitor thanks to the very low input lag. Also, thanks to the wide viewing angles, the image remains accurate at the sides even when you sit up close to examine the details of your work.
See our Media Creation recommendationsThis is a decent monitor for gaming in HDR, mainly due to the great gaming performance. The low contrast ratio prevents it from displaying deep blacks in a dark room where HDR is meant to be watched. On the upside, it displays a wide color gamut in HDR, but its brightness is just decent and can't deliver highlights as it should.
See our HDR Gaming recommendations- 7.8 Mixed Usage
- 7.8 Office
- 8.2 Gaming
- 7.7 Multimedia
- 7.8 Media Creation
- 6.9 HDR Gaming
-
Exceptional motion handling.
-
Excellent low input lag.
-
Good out-of-the-box accuracy.
-
Disappointing contrast ratio and poor black uniformity.
- Update 2/4/2020: Converted to Test Bench 1.1.
Check Price
Video
Test Results
The stand supports the LG 27GL83A-B well, allowing only minimal wobble, and is very similar to other LG UltraGear monitors. It has a wide footprint and its design allows you to place small objects in front of the monitor.
The LG 27GL83A-B's ergonomics are mediocre. This is mainly because the stand prevents swiveling, making it difficult to share your work with a colleague.
The back of the monitor looks identical to the back of the LG 27GL850-B, including the red ring. There's a quick-release on the stand, and cable management is only serviced through a clip attached to the pole of the stand.
The LG 27GL83A-B's borders are thin and not very distracting. The bottom bezel is slightly thicker, just like on the LG 27GL850-B.
The LG 27GL83A-B's screen is very thin, and won't stand out when VESA-mounted. However, the stand makes the entire build look thicker.
The LG 27GL83A-B has okay overall build quality. It's mostly made of plastic but there are no gaps or loose ends.
The LG 27GL83A-B has a disappointing native contrast ratio, as expected for an IPS monitor. Unfortunately, blacks in a dark room will look more like gray.
This monitor doesn't have a local dimming feature. The above video is provided for reference only.
The LG 27GL83A-B has good peak brightness in SDR and will easily overcome glare in a bright room. Also, the brightness level remains unchanged with different content, which is great.
The LG 27GL83A-B has decent HDR peak brightness. Although it can't get bright enough to display HDR movies with bright highlights, most HDR games look good. However, very bright highlights don't stand out as much as they should.
Like most IPS monitors, the LG 27GL83A-B has decent horizontal viewing angles. The image remains accurate for fairly large angles, which is great if you want to show your work to a colleague or engage in co-op gaming.
The LG 27GL83A-B has good vertical viewing angles. This means that even when you sit up close, it's unlikely that you'll notice uniformity issues at the edges.
The LG 27GL83A-B has excellent gray uniformity. There's very little vignetting, as the corners do look slightly darker. The overall image, however, is clear from dirty screen effect, and nothing is noticeable in normal content.
The LG 27GL23A-B has poor back uniformity. Just like most IPS monitors when watching a very dark scene in a dark room you might notice some backlight bleed and significant clouding. This, however, isn't noticeable in normal content and also varies by unit.
The LG 27GL82A-B has good pre-calibration accuracy. There are a few color errors that'll be most visible to enthusiasts, but the errors in the grays might also be noticeable to less trained eyes. The color temperature is slightly colder than the calibration target and gamma doesn't follow the sRGB target curve, so most scenes aren't displayed with the proper brightness.
After calibration, the LG 27GL83A-B's accuracy is excellent. Any remaining errors can only be observed with the aid of a colorimeter and aren't noticeable in normal content. Gamma follows the target curve almost perfectly, and the color temperature is almost spot on the 6500K target.
You can download our ICC profile calibration here. This is provided for reference only and shouldn't be used, as the calibration values vary per individual unit even for the same model due to manufacturing tolerances.
s.RGB Picture Mode: Gamer 1 (calibrated)Adobe RGB Picture Mode: Gamer 1
The 27GL83A-B has an exceptional SDR color gamut. It displays almost the entire sRGB color space, used by the majority of current SDR content. The coverage of the wider Adobe RGB color space, used for professional photo editing, is simply good.
s.RGB Picture Mode: Gamer 1 Adobe RGB Picture Mode: Gamer 1
Excellent SDR color volume. The monitor can display its color gamut well in most luminance levels, limited mainly by its poor contrast ratio. Because of this, it can't display dark, saturated colors very well.
DCI P3 Picture Mode: Gamer 1 Rec. 2020 Picture Mode: Gamer 1
Good HDR color gamut. The LG 27GL83A-B covers the DCI P3 color space, used by most HDR content, well. The coverage of the wider Rec. 2020 color space is only decent.
This monitor performs slightly better than the LG 27GL850-B, but this could also be attributed to panel variance.
DCI P3 Picture Mode: Gamer 1 Rec. 2020 Picture Mode: Gamer 1
Decent HDR color volume. This monitor can't display a full range of colors limited by its low contrast ratio and its color gamut. Dark, saturated colors aren't displayed very well.
There are no signs of temporary image retention on the LG 27GL83A-B, even immediately after displaying our high-contrast, static test image for 10 minutes.
The LG 27GL83A has remarkable gradient handling. If you look hard enough, you might spot some slight banding in the darker shades of blue, but this certainly isn't an issue for the majority of people.
The monitor displays an extremely minor vertical color bleed. It's unnoticeable with regular content.
The LG 27GL83A has decent reflection handling. If you place it in a very bright room, glare might become distracting, but this shouldn't be the case for most people. It looks very similar to the LG 27UD58-B and is just slightly worse than the LG 32GK650F.
| Mode | Response Time Chart | Motion Blur Photo |
| Off | Chart | Photo |
| Normal | Chart | Photo |
| Fast | Chart | Photo |
| Faster | Chart | Photo |
The LG 27GL83A has a remarkable response time. It's one of the best we've measured so far, visually identical to the 27GL850-B and much better than the Pixio PX7. Fast-moving content is displayed with almost no blur trail.
There are four levels of overdrive that you can choose from. We recommend the 'Fast' level as it performed the best. 'Faster' has significant overshoot, shown in the corresponding photo on the above table.
The monitor uses a completely flicker-free backlight at all luminance levels, which is great. There's no option to insert flicker to make motion look crisper, but this isn't an issue in this monitor since the response time is so fast and the image is already very crisp.
The LG 27GL83A has a remarkable 144Hz refresh rate. It supports AMD's FreeSync variable refresh rate and it's certified by NVIDIA as G-SYNC compatible. You shouldn't have any issues using it with a recent NVIDIA graphics card.
Over HDMI, the 27GL83A only reaches 120Hz at the monitor's native resolution of 1440p due to bandwidth limitations.
The monitor has an outstanding low input lag. The input lag remains low even when in HDR or with variable refresh rate enabled. The 60Hz input lag, however, although still low, is slightly higher than most monitors. This isn't ideal for console gaming.
If input lag is important to you and you want the best gaming experience possible, check out our recommendations for the best gaming mice.
The 27" screen and the 1440p resolution favor multitasking and can display most details of your favorite game.
The monitor has just a few additional features that can come in handy in games. It has a 'Black Stabilizer' that adjusts the gamma in dark scenes and makes it easier to spot objects in the shadows. You can also add a virtual crosshair in any game and can lock the On-Screen-Display.
Differences Between Sizes and Variants
We tested the 27" 27GL83A-B, which is the only size available. There are other models in LG's UltraGear lineup, some of which are listed in the table below.
If someone comes across a different type of panel or if their 27GL83A doesn't correspond to our review, let us know and we'll update the review. Note that some tests, such as gray uniformity, may vary between individual units.
| Model | Size | Resolution | Refresh Rate | Notes |
| 32GK650F-B | 32" | 1440p | 144Hz | FreeSync |
| 32GK650G-B | 32" | 1440p | 144Hz | G-SYNC |
| 27GK750F-B | 27" | 1080p | 240Hz | FreeSync |
| 27GL83A-B | 27" | 1440p | 144Hz | FreeSync, NVIDIA certified |
| 27GL850-B | 27" | 1440p | 144Hz | FreeSync, NVIDIA certified |
| 32GK850F-B | 32" | 1440p | 144Hz | FreeSync |
| 32GK850G-B | 32" | 1440p | 144Hz | G-SYNC |
| 34GK950F-B | 34" | 3440x1440 | 144Hz | FreeSync |
| 34GK950G-B | 34" | 3440x1440 | 120Hz | G-SYNC |
The 27GL83A-B we tested was manufactured in September 2019.
Compared to other monitors
The LG 27GL83A-B is a great gaming monitor with remarkable motion handling. It has worse ergonomics than most comparable models, but if this isn't an issue, it's a great choice. See also our reviews for the best gaming monitors, the best 144Hz monitors, and the best 27 inch monitors. See also our recommendations for the best gaming mice and the best gaming keyboards.
The ASUS TUF VG27AQ is better than the LG 27GL83A for mixed usage. Though they both have an IPS panel, the ASUS has a much better contrast ratio and black uniformity. Ergonomics are also significantly better on the ASUS, but the LG has a faster response time and better color accuracy out of the box.
The LG 27GL83A-B is marginally better than the BenQ EX2780Q in most uses. They're both very similar in terms of performance, but the LG has much better motion handling and it has a better HDR color gamut. Out of the box color accuracy is also better on the LG, but its black uniformity is significantly worse than the BenQ.
The LG 27GL850-B and the LG 27GL83A-B have very similar overall performance and any differences can be attributed to panel variance. The 27GL850-B has better inputs as it incorporates two USB 3.0 ports, while the 27GL83A-B has no USB ports.
The LG 27GL83A-B is better than the ViewSonic VX2758-2KP-MHD. The LG has a much better stand, with a decent height adjustment range and the ability to rotate to portrait orientation. The LG supports HDR, although this doesn't add much. The ViewSonic, on the other hand, has an optional black frame insertion feature for clearer motion, and the unit we tested has better black uniformity.
The LG 27GL83A-B and the Pixio PX7 Prime are very similar overall. The PX7 Prime has a slightly faster refresh rate, and slightly better ergonomics. The LG 27GL83A-B has a faster response time, resulting in slightly clearer motion, but most people won't notice much difference.
The LG 27GL83A-B is much better than the Dell S2719DGF. Since the LG uses an IPS panel, it offers much better viewing angles. Black uniformity is also significantly better on the LG, and it supports HDR, while the Dell doesn't. However, ergonomics and reflection handling are much better on the Dell and they both perform similarly in terms of motion handling.
The ASUS ROG Swift PG279Q is slightly better than the LG 27GL83A-B. The ASUS has much better ergonomics, supports G-SYNC, and has a black frame insertion feature that can help improve the appearance of motion. The LG, on the other hand, supports HDR, supports FreeSync, and has a 10-bit panel and better gradient.
The LG 27GL83A-B and the ASUS VG279Q have very similar performance overall but have also significant differences. The LG has a higher resolution screen, and it supports HDR, while the VG279Q has much better ergonomics and an optional black frame insertion feature to help with the appearance of motion. The LG has a faster response time and delivers extremely clear motion, with almost no blur behind fast-moving objects.
The LG 27GL83A-B is slightly better than the Acer Predator XB271HU. The LG has a significantly better color accuracy and gradient performance, and it supports HDR, while the Acer has much better ergonomics and has a black frame insertion feature to reduce motion blur. The Acer also has a better contrast ratio, but it can't get as bright as the LG.
The Gigabyte Aorus AD27QD is marginally better than the LG 27GL850. The AD27QD has better ergonomics so you can easily place it comfortably, an optional black frame insertion feature, and many additional gaming features. The LG, on the other hand, has slightly faster response time and displays crisper motion.
