LG 27GR83Q-B  Monitor Review

The LG 27GR83Q-B has a gamer-oriented aesthetic with a dark gray body and some branding elements on the back. Unfortunately, there's a silver reflective strip underneath the bottom bezel, which can be distracting if you have a bright light source in your room.

The build quality is good. It's mainly made of good-quality plastic, and there aren't any obvious issues. The monitor wobbles a bit on the stand, but it stabilizes quickly. The bottom bezel isn't perfectly flush with the entire screen either, but that isn't an issue unless you're really looking for it.

The ergonomics are good, but you can't swivel the screen to show it to someone next to you. You can only rotate into portrait mode in a clockwise direction, which means the inputs are always on top. The stand also has a clip for cable management.

The stand features V-shaped feet, with enough space to put your peripherals between them. The stand supports the screen well, but there's still wobble.

There's a single joystick underneath the center of the screen to control the on-screen display.

• DisplayPort cable
• HDMI cable
• USB-B cable
• Power supply
• Mouse bungee clip
• User documentation

The LG 27GR83Q has a mediocre contrast ratio, making blacks look gray in dark rooms. It doesn't have a local dimming feature to improve it. If you want a 240Hz monitor with higher contrast, then check out the Samsung Odyssey G6/G65D S32BG65D.

This monitor doesn't have a local dimming feature. Although it has a Variable Backlight setting, it only boosts the contrast level in HDR and doesn't turn off any dimming zones. We still film these videos on the monitor so that you can compare the backlight performance with a monitor that has local dimming.

The SDR brightness is impressive. It easily gets bright enough to fight glare and maintains its brightness consistently across different content. That said, its minimum brightness is a bit high, which is disappointing if you want to use it in a dark room and are sensitive to bright lights. These results are from after calibration in the 'Gamer 1' Game Mode with the Brightness at its max.

The LG 27GR83Q-B has decent HDR brightness. While it gets bright, small highlights don't pop against the rest of the image because it lacks a local dimming feature. It struggles with EOTF tracking as dark scenes are overbrightened, and it has an early roll-off, so highlights don't get the brightest they could. These results are in the 'Gamer 1' Game Mode with the Brightness at its max.

The gray uniformity is very good, and there are minimal issues throughout the screen.

The LG UltraGear 27GR83Q-B has disappointing black uniformity. As it lacks a local dimming feature, blacks look blue, and there's backlight bleed throughout, particularly from the top right corner to the bottom left.

The LG 27GR83Q-B has good accuracy before calibration in the sRGB mode. It isn't perfect, though, as there are inaccuracies in the white balance and colors, and even gamma is off. Luckily, the color temperature is good, as it's only slightly on the cold side, but not enough to be noticeable. Unfortunately, the 'sRGB' Game Mode locks many settings, including Response Time, so if you want to use any of those settings, you'd have to use another picture mode that has more oversaturated colors, as you can see here.

The accuracy after calibration is fantastic. There are minimal inaccuracies, and you can use any of the settings that were locked out in the sRGB mode.

The SDR color gamut is incredible. It has perfect coverage of the common sRGB color space and good coverage of the Adobe RGB color space used in publishing. However, it oversaturates most colors in that color space, except cyans and greens, which are undersaturated.

This monitor has a great HDR color gamut. It has great coverage of the DCI-P3 color space, with good tone mapping, but most colors are slightly off. The coverage in the wider Rec. 2020 color space is more limited, as it undersaturates most colors.

The HDR color volume is decent. It's limited by its incomplete color gamut, limited HDR peak brightness, and low contrast ratio, so it can't display bright and dark colors well.

The horizontal viewing angle is good. It's a great choice if you need to share your screen with someone sitting next to you, as they'll see a consistent image from the sides.

The text clarity is good, and enabling Windows ClearType (top photo) improves the clarity. These photos are in Windows 10, and you can see them in Windows 11 with ClearType on and with ClearType off.

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

This monitor does a great job at retaining its black levels the same in a bright environment. However, because of its low contrast ratio, blacks still look gray in a bright room.

There's a lot of reflected light on this monitor, as it both spreads it out and reflects it straight back. This means visibility is an issue in well-lit rooms.

This monitor has remarkable gradient handling. There's almost no banding in areas of similar color.

To reach the monitor's max refresh rate with 10-bit signals over DisplayPort, your graphics card must support Display Stream Compression (DSC), which any NVIDIA 16 Series or AMD RX 5000 Series and newer graphics card supports. You can switch Input Compatibility Version to '1.4' if you don't want to use DSC and still get the max refresh rate with 8-bit signals.

On top of supporting FreeSync VRR and G-SYNC compatibility, this monitor also supports HDMI Forum VRR.

The LG 27GR83Q-B has good motion handling across its VRR range. Motion looks sharp for the most part, but using the 'Fast' Response Time overdrive setting results in inverse ghosting at lower refresh rates. If that bothers you, the 'Normal' setting has more consistent motion handling across its VRR range. The 'Faster' overdrive has such a high CAD below 120Hz that it passes the limits of the chart, and you can see an alternative chart here.

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

The CAD at the max refresh rate of 240Hz is good. Motion looks sharp, but there's still blur and even some smearing. The 'Fast' overdrive setting has the fastest total response time, and it has a lot less inverse ghosting than 'Faster'.

The CAD at 120Hz is good. Although the 'Fast' overdrive setting doesn't have the fastest total response time and has some overshoot, motion still looks sharp. However, if the inverse ghosting bothers you, the 'Normal' setting is also a good choice.

The CAD at 60Hz is good. Unlike at higher refresh rates, the recommended overdrive setting is 'Normal' because 'Fast' and 'Faster' have too much inverse ghosting. This means you may have to change the setting if you change games or sources.

This monitor has no optional backlight strobing feature to reduce persistence blur.

This monitor has minimal VRR flicker with changing frame rates. Although there's a bit more noticeable flicker in dark areas in person than in the video, it's hard to see and isn't too distracting.

The backlight remains flicker-free at all brightness levels, which helps reduce eye strain if you're sensitive to it.

This monitor has extremely low input lag for a responsive feel while gaming.

The LG 27GR83Q-B supports HDMI 2.1 bandwidth to take full advantage of the PS5. It even downscales 4k signals, which results in a more detailed image than native 1440p.

Thanks to its HDMI 2.1 bandwidth, this monitor can take full advantage of the Xbox Series X|S. It even downscales 4k signals, which is an advantage because the Xbox only supports HDR with 4k signals.

The 3.5mm audio output serves as a combo jack with audio out and mic in, but you need to have the USB-B cable connected to your computer to fully use it. It also comes with DTS Headphone:X to simulate surround sound audio.

The LG 27GR83Q-B works well with macOS. You can reach its full refresh rate with VRR and HDR on any type of connection. With a USB-C to DisplayPort cable, there's a bug with VRR where a gray bar appears on top, which causes VRR to stop working. You need to exit the full-screen mode and go back in for it to work properly again. If you're using a MacBook, windows return to their original position when you put it to sleep and wake it up again, but not when you close the lid.

This monitor has a few extra features, including:

• Black Stabilizer: Adjusts the gamma so that it's easier to see opponents in dark areas.
• Crosshair: Adds a virtual crosshair that your game's anti-cheat tool won't detect, giving you a competitive advantage.
• DFC: Changes the contrast based on the content.
• Variable Backlight: Boosts the contrast level in HDR, but it isn't a local dimming setting.