LG 27GL850-B Monitor Review

The 27GL850 has the same look as most other LG UltraGear monitors. It's mainly black with a red circle on the back, but it doesn't illuminate like the 32GK850G.

Like the 27GL650F, the stand supports the monitor well but still wobbles a bit.

This monitor has disappointing ergonomics. It has a decent height adjustment and it can rotate to portrait orientation, but its tilt range is limited and it can't swivel.

The back of the monitor is very similar to other UltraGear monitors. There's a quick-release on the stand, but only very basic cable management through a clip attached to the stand.

The bezels are very thin on three sides, and they aren't very distracting.

The display portion of the 27GL850 is thin, and looks great VESA-mounted. Even when mounted on the stand, the setup doesn't stick out much.

The 27GL850 has decent overall build quality. The outer casing is almost entirely made of plastic, but there aren't any obvious points of concern.

The 27GL850-B has a disappointing contrast ratio. Although IPS monitors usually have low contrast, this is worse than most, and blacks appear gray when viewed in the dark. If you're looking for a similar monitor but with a VA panel, displaying deeper blacks, then check out the AOC CQ27G1.

This monitor doesn't have a local dimming feature. The above video is provided for reference only.

Good SDR peak brightness. It remains consistent with different content and there shouldn't be any issues overcoming glare in a bright room.

Unfortunately, the 27GL850 has mediocre HDR peak brightness. It can't get bright enough to show off small, bright highlights in HDR content.

Note: While trying to measure the HDR real scene peak brightness, we encountered a bug, and the monitor started to flicker. We don't know why this happened, and we didn't encounter it with our other HDR tests.

The 27GL850 has great horizontal viewing angles, which is expected from an IPS panel monitor. The image remains accurate when viewed from the side.

Decent vertical viewing angle. The edges of the screen are darker if you sit close to it and you lose image accuracy if the monitor is mounted above or below eye level.

Excellent 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. This might vary between units, so let us know if you get a unit with better black uniformity.

The 27GL850-B has okay out-of-the-box color accuracy. There are a few noticeable color errors and the color temperature is extremely close to the 6500K target. Gamma doesn't follow the target curve well, though, so most scenes aren't displayed at the proper brightness.

After calibration, this monitor has outstanding accuracy. Colors are displayed almost perfectly, and any remaining inaccuracies aren't noticeable.

You can download our ICC profile calibration here. This is provided for reference only and should not be used, as the calibration values vary per individual unit even for the same model due to manufacturing tolerances.

This monitor has an outstanding SDR color gamut. It can display the entire sRGB color space used in most content. It also has impressive coverage of the wider Adobe RGB color space, great for professional photo editing.

Outstanding SDR color volume. It's mainly limited by the disappointing contrast ratio, as it can't display dark, saturated colors very well.

The 27GL850 has a decent HDR color gamut. It has good coverage of the DCI P3 color space used in most HDR content but limited coverage of the wider Rec. 2020 color space.

Decent HDR color volume. It's limited by the low native contrast, as it can't display the full range of colors, and can't display dark, saturated colors very well.

There are no signs of temporary image retention on the 27GL850, even immediately after displaying our high-contrast, static test image for 10 minutes.

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

There's some extremely minor vertical color bleed, but this isn't at all noticeable with regular content.

The 27GL850 has good reflection handling. It performs best in rooms with moderate amounts of light, such as most office environments.

Text clarity is okay. It can be improved by using ClearType (top photo), which makes the diagonal lines on the letters R and N clearer.

The 27GL850 has an outstanding response time at its max refresh rate of 144Hz. The recommended Overdrive setting is 'Fast' as it has the least amount of motion blur, but there's still some overshoot in darker transitions. If that bothers you, the 'Normal' setting performs very similarly, but the response time is slower in all transitions, resulting in a bit more blur.

Incredible response time at 60Hz, better than most 144Hz monitors, which is great news for console gamers. Unlike the Overdrive setting at its max refresh rate, the recommended setting is 'Normal'. It has significantly less overshoot than the 'Fast' and 'Faster' settings and motion looks the clearest.

The backlight is flicker-free, which helps reduce eye strain.

Note: We encountered a bug while testing the HDR real scene peak brightness that caused the screen to start flickering at 60Hz. We don't know why this happened, and we didn't notice it at any other time.

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

The 27GL850 has an excellent 144Hz refresh rate. It supports AMD's FreeSync variable refresh rate technology, but it's also certified by NVIDIA as G-SYNC compatible, so it works automatically with a recent NVIDIA graphics card.

Over HDMI, the 27GL850 only supports FreeSync up to 100Hz.

If you're looking for a similar monitor with a 165Hz refresh rate, then check out the ViewSonic Elite XG270QG.

Outstanding low input lag, even with FreeSync enabled or in HDR. The 60Hz input lag is higher, though, which might disappoint console gamers.