LG 34GK950F-B Monitor Review

The LG 34GK950F-B has a fairly simple design. It has thin bezels on all sides, and its wide V-shaped stand doesn't take up a significant amount of desk space. There are some red accents on the stand and on the back monitor, but it's fairly minimal and won't look out of place in a professional office environment.

The stand supports the monitor but there's still a bit of wobble when nudged. The feet are fairly thin, leaving you more desk space.

The stand has a decent height adjustment and adequate tilt range, but it has a bad swivel range. Due to the wide format, curved screen, it can't rotate to portrait orientation.

The back of the monitor is plain. The red circular accent doesn't light up and there's basic cable management through a clip on the back of the stand.

The borders are thin on all four sides, and they aren't very distracting.

Due to the curvature of the screen, the LG 34GK950F-B is a bit thicker than most, even when VESA-mounted.

The 34GK950F-B has a decent build quality overall. The external panels of the monitor are almost entirely made of plastic, but we didn't notice any potential weak spots or areas of concern. If you want a monitor with better build quality, take a look at the Dell Alienware AW3420DW.

As is expected of most IPS panels, the contrast ratio is sub-par. This makes blacks look like gray, especially in dark environments.

The LG 34GK950F doesn't have a local dimming feature. The above video is provided for reference only.

Very good peak brightness. Visibility shouldn't be an issue in most rooms, but it may not be enough if there's light shining directly on the screen. It's remarkably consistent when displaying different content, which is great.

The 34GK950F-B has a decent peak brightness in HDR mode. There's almost no variation in peak brightness with different content and it's bright enough to deliver a decent HDR gaming experience, but not for HDR movies.

The 34GK950F-B has excellent horizontal viewing angles. The black levels remain relatively constant, and the brightness drop is very gradual, so the image doesn't appear washed out until a very wide angle. Colors also remain accurate to a moderate angle but lose accuracy before the brightness decreases.

This monitor has a decent vertical viewing angle. Colors lose accuracy at a minor angle, but the brightness doesn't decrease as quickly, and the black levels remain relatively flat.

Excellent gray uniformity. The sides are a bit darker; however, the center of the screen is very uniform, with almost no dirty screen effect. In dark scenes, uniformity is equally excellent.

Like most IPS monitors, this display has bad black uniformity. There's noticeable backlight bleed, which may be distracting in dark scenes in a dark room. There's worse bleed from the corners of the display, but due to the curvature of the monitor, the image is partially cropped, so it looks worse in person than the image suggests.

The LG 34GK950F has an impressive color accuracy out-of-the-box. The sRGB picture mode is the most accurate, but unfortunately, the only setting you can adjust in this mode is the brightness, so most people will want to use something else.

In sRGB mode, gamma follows the target curve well for brighter scenes, but dark scenes are over-darkened significantly. Colors have great accuracy, and most people won't notice any issues.

After calibration, this monitor has outstanding accuracy. Almost all inaccuracies are corrected, except for pure blue, which is still slightly inaccurate. Gamma almost follows the target curve perfectly, and the color temperature is very close to the calibration target of 6500K.

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.

The LG 34GK950F can display the entire sRGB color space, and has excellent coverage of the wider Adobe RGB color space, great for professional photo editing.

Outstanding SDR color volume. It can't display dark, saturated colors very well due to the limited contrast, and it can't display very bright blues, but this is normal for most LED displays.

Good HDR color gamut. It has excellent coverage of the DCI P3 color space used by most current games and movies, but only decent coverage of the wider Rec. 2020 color space.

The LG 34GK950F has a mediocre HDR color volume. It's limited by the HDR color gamut, and it can't display dark, saturated colors very well due to the limited contrast. Pure white is much brighter than colors in HDR.

The LG 34GK950F-B shows no signs of temporary image retention, even immediately after displaying our high-contrast static test image for 10 minutes.

This monitor has outstanding gradient performance. There's almost no noticeable banding in any shade.

There's some very slight color bleed, but this shouldn't be noticeable with most content.

The LG 34GK950F-B has mediocre reflection handling, although it isn't as bad in person and visibility can be improved by increasing the monitor's brightness.

Text clarity is good. With ClearType enabled (top photo), diagonal lines look much better and text look bolder overall.

The LG 34GK950F has an excellent response time. The best overdrive setting is the 'Fast' mode, as it delivers clear motion with a very short blur trail, no noticeable overshoot, and only a bit of undershoot in some transitions. 'Faster' delivers a slightly faster response time, but there's significant overshoot in some transitions, especially in dark scenes.

Great response time at 60Hz. It's slightly slower than when playing at maximum refresh rate, resulting in a bit more motion blur. The best overdrive setting for playing at 60Hz is 'Normal', although there's still some overshoot. The 'Fast' setting is good too, as the overshoot and undershoot don't look as bad in person.

The backlight is completely flicker-free at all brightness levels.

There's an optional black-frame insertion feature that can help reduce the appearance of motion blur and it can flicker at either 120Hz or 144Hz to match the refresh rate. This feature is only supported over DisplayPort.

The LG 34GK950F has an excellent refresh rate over DisplayPort. Over HDMI, it's limited to an 85Hz refresh rate, which is decent, but in this mode, it's limited to 8-bit color. It can display 10-bit color over HDMI, but only at 60Hz. It supports FreeSync variable refresh rate technology over both HDMI and DisplayPort, but due to the limited refresh rate over HDMI, the VRR range is limited over HDMI. Over DisplayPort, the VRR range is outstanding, delivering a nearly tear-free gaming experience, even in extremely demanding scenes.

If you want a monitor with an even higher refresh rate, the LG 34GN850-B's refresh rate can be overclocked up to 160Hz.

Update 06/04/2020: We've retested the input lag as we've noticed some inconsistencies. All the results are still within margin or error, except when playing with VRR@60Hz, which has increased. The score has been adjusted accordingly.

Update 08/14/2019: We've retested the input lag after updating the monitor to the latest firmware. The scores and text have been updated.

The LG 34GK950F-B has outstanding low input lag. The input lag remains low even with FreeSync or HDR enabled. With the optional black frame insertion feature enabled, the input lag is slightly higher but still great. The 60Hz input lag is quite a bit higher, which isn't great for console gaming.

When you first receive this monitor, it's very important to update the firmware, as the factory firmware has very high input lag. To update the firmware, the monitor has to be connected to your computer with the included USB adapter, and LG's OnScreen Control software must be installed. When you open the software with the monitor connected, it should automatically detect that a new firmware is available. If it doesn't, your monitor might already have the newest version. If you want a monitor with an even lower input lag, take a look at the Nixeus EDG 34.

The LG 34GK950F has a large, high-resolution screen that's great for multitasking and provides an immersive gaming experience. If you want an even larger screen, check out the LG 38GL950G-B.

There's an analog audio out port, and the volume can be controlled through the monitor's OSD.

The 34GK950F has only a few additional features, including:

• Crosshair: Puts a crosshair on screen for shooter games.
• Black Stabilizer: Helps make objects more visible in dark scenes.

Like most LG monitors, the controls consist of a single joystick nub located under the monitor, in the center. This control works well, and the UI is easy to navigate.

• Quick setup guide
• USB-B cable
• HDMI cable
• DisplayPort cable
• Power adapter and cable
• Driver CD