LG 32GN600-B Monitor Review

The LG 32GN600 has a flat, 32 inch panel. It has a clean and simple design, and it looks a lot like the other LG UltraGear monitors we've tested. It's a basic model with no RGB bias-lighting, and the stand is very simple, with almost no ergonomic adjustments.

The stand is different from the one included with the LG 32GN650. It has a similar overall design, but the v-shaped base lays flat on the desk and takes up quite a bit of space. The stand is simple, but it supports the monitor well.

Unfortunately, the LG 32GN600 has terrible ergonomics. It has an okay tilt range but no height or swivel adjustments, and it can't rotate to portrait orientation.

The back of the monitor is simple, with a red circle similar to the other LG UltraGear monitors but with no RGB lighting. Unfortunately, there's no cable management.

The borders are thin on three sides and aren't at all distracting.

As this is a very basic monitor, it's extremely thin, even with the stand.

The LG UltraGear 32GN600 has decent build quality, very similar to the other LG UltraGear monitors we've tested. It's entirely plastic, and there's very little flex to the panels, but it feels pretty basic. Although there's nothing that stood out as problematic to us, it doesn't stand out, either. We took a few closeup shots as well, to showcase a few extra details:

• Stand closeup
• Vents on the back

As expected for a VA panel, the LG 32GN600 has great contrast, so blacks look black in a dark room. These results are about what we expect from a VA panel, and they're very close to LG's advertised typical contrast ratio of 3000:1, but it can vary between individual units.

Unfortunately, the LG 32GN600 doesn't have a local dimming feature. We still capture this video, so you can see how the backlight performs and compare it to other monitors that may have a local dimming feature.

The LG UltraGear 32GN600 has just decent peak brightness in SDR. It's bright enough for most viewing conditions, and there's no variation in brightness with different scenes, which is great. These results are lower than LG's advertised typical peak brightness of 350 nits but still within expected range, as LG advertises a minimum peak brightness of 280 nits. Their advertised brightness might be with a different, less accurate picture mode.

We measured the SDR peak brightness after calibration in the 'Gamer 1' Picture Mode with Brightness set to max. Other picture modes might be brighter but aren't as accurate.

Unfortunately, the LG 32GN600 has mediocre peak brightness in HDR. It's not bright enough to deliver an impactful cinematic experience in HDR, as small highlights don't stand out at all. It's bright enough for some games to look a bit better in HDR, but overall it's a minor difference over SDR.

We measured the HDR peak brightness in the 'Gamer 2' Picture Mode with HDR enabled and Brightness set to max. Other picture modes might be brighter but aren't as accurate.

As expected for a VA panel, the LG 32GN600 has disappointing horizontal viewing angles. As you move off-center, the brightness decreases, gamma shifts, and black levels rise, causing the image to appear washed out. It can be an issue even if you're sitting too close directly in front of it, as the sides of the screen can appear non-uniform.

Unfortunately, as expected for a monitor with a VA panel, the LG UltraGear 32GN600 has poor vertical viewing angles. The image on-screen washes out very quickly as you move off-center. This monitor isn't a good choice if you often share your screen with someone standing beside you.

The LG 32GN600 has excellent gray uniformity. The sides of the screen are noticeably darker than the center, and there's a bit of dirty screen effect. Uniformity in near-black scenes is much better, with very little deviation but a bit of dirty screen effect. Uniformity can vary between individual units, but unlike TVs, it's rarely an issue on modern monitors.

The LG UltraGear 32GN600 has decent black uniformity. There's some backlight bleed along the top edge of our unit and a bit of cloudiness, but very little blooming. It can vary between individual units, though.

Out of the box, the LG 32GN600 has outstanding accuracy, but this can vary between individual units. Gamma is close to the sRGB target curve, but dark scenes are crushed a bit. The white balance is outstanding, with no noticeable issues, and color accuracy is excellent overall, but some colors are oversaturated, including pure greens and yellows. The color temperature is a bit cool, but it's not off by much. Unfortunately, there's no sRGB mode to clamp colors to the sRGB color space, which may disappoint some users.

After calibration, the LG UltraGear 32GN600 has outstanding accuracy, with no noticeable issues at all. Gamma is extremely close to the sRGB target curve, and the color temperature is very close to our target. Colors are far more accurate, and they're no longer oversaturated.

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 due to manufacturing tolerances, even for the same model.

The LG 32GN600 has an excellent SDR color gamut. It can display the entire sRGB color space used by most desktop and web content, as well as most games. Coverage of the wider Adobe RGB color space is good but might be too low for professional users.

The LG 32GN600-B has superb color volume in SDR. Despite the relatively high contrast ratio, it still can't display dark saturated colors very well but otherwise fills out most of its color volume. In Adobe RGB, it's mainly limited by the incomplete color gamut.

The LG 32GN600 has an okay color gamut in HDR, and it can't display a wide color gamut. It has good coverage of the most common DCI P3 color space, which is good for most current HDR content, but coverage of the wider Rec. 2020 color space is sub-par.

Unfortunately, the LG 32GN600 has mediocre color volume in HDR. It's mainly limited by the incomplete color gamuts in both DCI P3 and Rec. 2020.

There are no signs of temporary image retention on our unit, but this can vary between individual units.

The LG UltraGear 32GN600 has fantastic gradient handling. There's very little banding in any shade, which is great. It can accept and display a 10-bit signal, but there's no way to know if it's a native 10-bit panel or if it achieves this through dithering, also known as FRC.

There's a little bit of vertical color bleed on our unit, but it's very hard to spot with regular content. It can vary between individual units.

The LG UltraGear 32GN600 has decent reflection handling. The matte finish absorbs direct reflections, reducing their intensity by spreading the reflection out a bit. Although it has just decent peak brightness in SDR, glare shouldn't be an issue in most viewing environments.

Unfortunately, due to the relatively low pixel density, the LG 32GN600 has just okay text clarity. There are some noticeable issues on curved edges and diagonal lines even after running the ClearType wizard on Windows (top photo).

The LG 32GN600 has a great response time at the maximum refresh rate of 165Hz. Like most gaming monitors, you can adjust the pixel overdrive, and we recommend the 'Faster' Response Time setting at the max refresh rate. It delivers the best overall performance, but there's a bit of overshoot. If inverse ghosting bothers you, 'Fast' has slightly slower transitions, but basically no overshoot.

Unfortunately, like most VA monitors on the market, it's a bit slow to transition out of dark scenes, causing black smear behind fast-moving dark objects. It's noticeable even on the fastest overdrive setting and gets a bit worse on slower modes.

The LG 32GN600 has a decent response time at 60Hz, but it's a bit worse than at the max refresh rate. Unlike at higher refresh rates, we recommend the 'Normal' Response Time setting, as it delivers the best results overall. Unfortunately, there's terrible overshoot in higher settings, so even though the rise/fall time is faster in each setting, we don't recommend them. This is a bit disappointing, as the overdrive behavior isn't consistent across the refresh rate range, so you'll have to change settings each time you change your refresh rate or pick an overdrive setting based on the frame rate you can maintain in-game. There's still noticeable black smear behind fast-moving dark objects with the 'Normal' setting, but unlike at the max refresh rate, it's significantly better with 'Fast' or 'Faster'.

This monitor has a completely flicker-free backlight at all backlight levels, which is great.

The LG UltraGear 32GN600 has an optional backlight strobing feature, commonly called black frame insertion (BFI), to improve the appearance of motion. Unfortunately, it's only available in the upper range of refresh rates, and the timing is a bit off, causing some duplications. Like most monitors, you can't enable it at the same time as the variable refresh rate feature. Note that our scoring is only based on the refresh rate range supported by this feature and doesn't currently reflect how well the feature performs.

The LG 32GN600 has a fast native refresh rate, which should please most gamers. It supports AMD's FreeSync variable refresh rate technology, and although it's not officially supported, we also found it to work well with NVIDIA's G-SYNC compatible mode, but only over DisplayPort. It supports a wide refresh rate range for both VRR formats, but over HDMI, it's limited to a maximum refresh rate of 144Hz.

The LG 32GN600 has fantastic low input lag, resulting in a very responsive gaming experience. Enabling the variable refresh rate feature causes the input lag to increase slightly, but it's not noticeable.

Note: We couldn't measure the input lag with a 10-bit HDR signal, as the maximum refresh rate of this monitor isn't supported over HDMI, and we can only measure HDR input lag over HDMI.

The 32 inch, 1440p screen is great for multitasking, but the relatively low pixel density might disappoint some people, as it results in just okay text clarity.

The LG 32GN600 has two HDMI ports, but they're limited to HDMI 2.0. Unfortunately, it doesn't support HDMI 2.1 for console gamers.

The LG UltraGear 32GN600-B comes with a few extra features, but it's not as well-equipped as the higher-end LG UltraGear monitors.

• Crosshair: Adds a virtual crosshair as an overlay to any game. Unlike software crosshairs, this virtual overlay can't be detected by the game.
• Black Stabilizer: Adjusts gamma to make it easier to spot objects/players in dark scenes without adjust bright scenes.

Like most LG monitors, the LG 32GN600 has a single joystick that you use navigate the on-screen display. It works well and is very easy to use.

• Power supply
• DisplayPort cable
• Mouse bungee hook
• User guides
• User guides (CD)