LG 38GN950-B Monitor Review

The LG 38GN950-B is very similar in design to its predecessor, the LG 38GL950G-B. Like other 2020 UltraGear monitors, the stand has been redesigned slightly. The column is wider at the bottom, and the wide V-shaped feet are elevated so that they only make contact with the table at the tips. There are still some red accents and RGB lighting on the back.

The stand is plastic but sturdy, and the screen doesn't wobble much. The feet are relatively thin, so you can still use the space between them to put other things.

The LG 38GN950 has poor ergonomics. It can't rotate to portrait mode due to its ultrawide format, which is normal. However, it doesn't swivel at all, and the tilt range is pretty narrow.

The back is similar to the LG 38GL950G-B, except that the LG branding has been replaced with the UltraGear logo. The RGB lighting strip can be controlled through software or with the wheel at the bottom of the screen. The small cutout in the stand is for cable management.

The LG 38GN950-B has thin borders that aren't distracting, which is great for multi-monitor setups.

The screen and the stand are both thick, so you need a fairly deep desk to put it on.

The LG 38GN850's build quality is decent. The all-plastic construction feels basic but solid, and there are no obvious gaps or loose parts. There's a bit of flex around the RGB lighting, although it's not bad enough to be of concern. The stand supports the monitor well, and there's very little wobble. Unfortunately, the cable management cutout on the stand feels pretty flimsy.

Like most IPS panels, the LG 38GN950 has a sub-par contrast ratio, which makes blacks appear gray when viewed in the dark. It's slightly below the advertised 1000:1; however, contrast may vary between individual units. The local dimming doesn't improve the contrast at all because our test pattern triggers all the local dimming zones. We measured a part of the screen that wasn't lit during our local dimming test and got a 5634:1 contrast. However, this rarely happens in real content because all the zones are on most of the time.

The LG UltraGear 38GN950 has a terrible local dimming feature. It's edge-lit, and the dimming zones are huge. It doesn't do much in most content because all the zones light up even when there's just a tiny object on the screen. Subtitles and small stars also make the entire screen light up. Zone transitions are very visible, but again, it rarely happens that a zone is off when displaying real content.

The LG 38GN950 has excellent SDR peak brightness. It's very consistent across different content and more than bright enough to overcome glare, even in well-lit, sunny rooms.

We measured the SDR peak brightness after calibration in the 'Gamer 1' Game Mode (picture mode) with Brightness set to max.

The LG 38GN950 has impressive HDR peak brightness. It gets pretty bright, exceeding the brightness requirement for its DisplayHDR 600 certification, but there's some frame dimming in some of the sustained windows. Overall, It's bright enough to deliver a great HDR gaming experience, and it's very decent for HDR movies as well.

We measured the HDR peak brightness in the 'Gamer 1' Game Mode with HDR enabled.

The LG 38GN950 has good horizontal viewing angles, similar to the LG 38GL950G-B. Although our black level results are very different between the left and right side, the difference is actually very minor because the left side stays below our 3% threshold while the right is only slightly above. Overall, you shouldn't see much loss in image accuracy when viewing from the side.

The LG 38GN950 has decent horizontal viewing angles. The image looks dimmer and washed-out when viewing from above or below.

Gray uniformity is excellent; however, this varies between individual units due to manufacturing tolerances. The corners and sides are a bit darker on ours, but there's almost no dirty screen effect in the middle. Uniformity is much better in dark scenes.

Black uniformity is okay. The whole screen looks gray, and there's visible backlight bleed at the top corners. There's no difference between having local dimming enabled or disabled because our test pattern seems to trigger all the local dimming zones. This picture from our local dimming video shows the difference between the zones that are on and the ones that are off. Note that black uniformity varies between units.

The LG 38GN950-B has impressive accuracy out of the box. Most color and white balance inaccuracies are difficult to spot. The color temperature is very close to our 6500K target. Gamma follows the sRGB curve well, but some dark scenes appear darker than they should and some bright scenes are a little over-brightened. Note that accuracy can vary between units.

Accuracy is superb after calibration. The remaining color and white balance inaccuracies aren't visible to the naked eye. The color temperature is a bit cooler but still within the same ballpark and close to our target. Gamma is much improved, although some very dark and very bright scenes are a bit too bright.

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 38GN950 has an exceptional SDR color gamut. It covers the entire sRGB color space used in most content, and it has excellent Adobe RGB coverage, which is used for photo editing.

Exceptional SDR color volume. It only has trouble displaying dark colors due to its low contrast ratio.

The LG 38GN950 has a great HDR color gamut. It has outstanding coverage of the DCI P3 color space used in most HDR content, and the tone mapping is absolutely superb. However, its coverage of the wider Rec. 2020 is much more limited.

Our DCI P3 measurement is lower than the advertised 98%. This is normal and due to the way that we measure DCI P3. We measure it by sending a Rec. 2020 signal, but we limit the colors to the DCI P3 primaries. This results in a lower but arguably more accurate measurement.

Great HDR color volume. It mostly has difficulty with dark colors due to its low contrast. It has trouble with bright blues too, but that's typical for LCDs.

There are no signs of image retention, even after displaying a high-contrast image for 10 minutes. However, this may vary between individual units.

The LG 38GN950 has superb gradient handling. You shouldn't see any banding in most content.

There's no color bleed on the LG 38GN950.

The LG 38GN950's reflection handling is just okay. It should be fine for most lighting conditions, but it may struggle with direct sunlight. That said, the screen gets bright enough to compensate, so you shouldn't have visibility issues in most instances.

The LG 38GN950-B has good text clarity. Windows' ClearType (top photo) makes diagonal lines appear bolder, like on the R and N, but some vertical lines look thinner.

The LG 38GN950-B has an exceptional response time at its max refresh rate, resulting in clear motion with only a short blur trail behind fast-moving objects. The best Overdrive setting is 'Fast' because it has the quickest response time while keeping overshoot at an acceptable level.

The LG 38GN950's response time at 60Hz is outstanding, but some transitions are very slow, especially the 0-20%, 0-40%, and 0-60%, causing slight dark level smearing behind fast-moving objects. The best Overdrive setting is 'Normal'. The 'Off' option is very similar; it's slower overall but faster in the dark transitions. The 'Fast' and 'Fastest' options are slower and have significantly more overshoot.

The LG UltraGear 38GN950's backlight is flicker-free at all brightness levels, which helps eliminate image duplication and reduce eye strain.

The LG 38GN950 doesn't have a Black Frame Insertion feature.

The LG 38GN950 has a 144Hz refresh rate that can be overclocked up to 160Hz to make motion appear smoother. Enabling Overclock also turns on Adaptive Sync. FreeSync works over DP and HDMI; however, the maximum refresh rate over HDMI is 75Hz. G-SYNC only works over a DisplayPort connection. The advertised G-SYNC range is 48-160Hz, but there was no tearing when the frame rate dropped below 48fps during our test.

The LG 38GN950-B has exceptionally low input lag, and it remains low even with VRR enabled. We don't have a measurement for the 10-bit HDR input lag because the maximum refresh rate at 10 bit over a DisplayPort connection is 120Hz, 75Hz over HDMI, and we lack the necessary tools to measure HDR input lag over DP. That said, we don't expect the input lag to increase in HDR.

The LG 38GN950 has a large 21:9 screen that delivers an immersive gaming experience. It gives you more horizontal screen space than a standard 16:9 display, increasing your field of view in games and allowing you to place multiple windows side-by-side. That said, not all games support an ultrawide format, so you may see black bars at the sides, or the image might be stretched to fill the screen. While its resolution may seem odd, the pixel density is roughly the same as a 34 inch, 3440 x 1440 display.

The LG 38GN950-B has a few extra features, including:

• Crosshair: Adds a virtual crosshair on the screen.
• Black Stabilizer: Makes objects more visible in dark scenes.
• Reader Mode: Blue light filter to help reduce eye strain.
• RGB bias lighting: RGB lighting on the back of the monitor. You can control this using the physical wheel on the monitor or through LG's UltraGear Control Center software.
• Picture-in-Picture mode: This lets you display two input signals simultaneously. For this to work, you have to connect the second device to the USB-B upstream port and install the UltraGear Control Center software.

The controls are below the LG branding at the center of the bottom bezel. The joystick lets you navigate the on-screen menu, and the lighting wheel/button lets you control the RGB bias lighting on the back of the monitor.

• Quick start guide
• Owner's manual CD
• Power cord
• Power supply
• HDMI cable
• USB-A to USB-B cable
• DisplayPort cable