- Table of Contents
- Intro
- Our Verdict
- Test Results
- Differences
- Compared To Others
- Deals
- Discussions
The LG 38WN95C-W is a great ultrawide, curved screen monitor with an IPS panel. It has a ton of features aimed at improving your workflow at the office. It has a Picture-by-Picture mode, allowing you to display images from two input sources at once. Its Thunderbolt 3 support lets you display an image from a compatible device and charge it at the same time, and provides higher bandwidth and power delivery compared to a DisplayPort Alt Mode connection. Its uncommon 3840x1600 packs in more vertical pixels, allowing you to see crisp, detailed images. Despite being mainly designed for the office, it's packed with gaming perks, such as FreeSync variable refresh rate (VRR) support, G-SYNC compatibility, a remarkable response time, and low input lag. It gets very bright and makes highlights pop in HDR, but doesn't perform very well in a dark room. Its low contrast ratio means blacks appear closer to gray, and it has a terrible local dimming feature.
Our Verdict
The LG 38WN95C-W is a great overall monitor. It's very good for office use or watching content, because it gets bright enough to combat glare, has wide viewing angles, and displays a wide color gamut. It's impressive for gaming due to its extremely quick response time, incredibly low input lag, and FreeSync support. HDR content looks good as it gets bright enough to bring out highlights, but it has a low contrast ratio and the local dimming feature is terrible.
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Wide viewing angles.
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Gets very bright.
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Remarkable response time.
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High resolution.
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Low contrast ratio.
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Terrible local dimming feature.
The LG 38WN95C-W is very good for office use. The 38 inch, 3840x1600 screen provides enough space for you to open multiple windows at once. It gets bright enough to combat glare, but the reflections may be too distracting if it's placed opposite a window. Even though the stand doesn't offer much in terms of ergonomics, it has wide viewing angles, making it easier to share your screen with others.
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Wide viewing angles.
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Gets very bright.
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Thunderbolt 3 support.
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Disappointing ergonomics.
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Struggles with direct sunlight.
The LG 38WN95C-W is impressive for gaming. It's packed with gaming features such as FreeSync support, G-SYNC compatibility, low input lag, and a remarkable response time. Unfortunately, it doesn't have a Black Frame Insertion feature to improve the appearance of motion. The low contrast ratio means it's not ideal for dark-room gaming. However, it has wide viewing angles, great for co-op gaming.
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VRR support.
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Remarkable response time.
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Incredibly low input lag.
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Low contrast ratio.
The LG 38WN95C-W is very good for multimedia use. Its 3840x1600 resolution allows you to watch high-resolution videos online, and the wide viewing angles means you can easily watch content with friends. Unfortunately, it has a low contrast ratio, so blacks appear closer to gray when viewed in the dark. Fortunately, it performs well in bright environments because it gets bright enough to combat glare.
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Wide viewing angles.
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Gets very bright.
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High resolution.
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Disappointing ergonomics.
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Low contrast ratio.
Great for media creation. The LG 38WN95C-W's high resolution allows you to see images in fine detail. It has excellent coverage of the Adobe RGB color space used in photo editing, and it displays a wide color gamut for HDR content. It has limited ergonomics, so it may be difficult to place in an ideal position, but it has wide viewing angles if you need to share your screen with others.
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Wide viewing angles.
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Gets very bright.
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Thunderbolt 3 support.
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Exceptional gradient handling.
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Disappointing ergonomics.
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Low contrast ratio.
The LG 38WN95C-W is decent for HDR gaming. It's an impressive gaming monitor because of its VRR support, remarkable response time, and incredibly low input lag. It displays a wide color gamut for HDR content and gets bright enough to make highlights pop. Unfortunately, it has a low contrast ratio and a terrible local dimming feature, so it's not ideal for gaming in dark rooms.
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Gets very bright.
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VRR support.
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Remarkable response time.
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Disappointing ergonomics.
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Low contrast ratio.
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Terrible local dimming feature.
- 8.0 Mixed Usage
- 7.9 Office
- 8.3 Gaming
- 8.0 Multimedia
- 8.1 Media Creation
- 7.4 HDR Gaming
- Updated Sep 21, 2020: Review published.
- Updated Sep 15, 2020: Early access published.
Test Results
The LG 38WN95C-W is a curved screen, ultrawide monitor that looks a lot like the LG 49WL95C-W. It has a gray arc-shaped stand that's very wide, but you can still place stuff in front of it. The back of the monitor is white, while the bezels in front are black, and it should look good in any office environment. It feels well-built, but the monitor does wobble quite easily.
The monitor has a wide arc-shaped stand. It's big, but there's still space in front to put stuff like a keyboard. It's well-made and supports it well.
Disappointing ergonomics, which is typical of LG's office monitors. It has a fairly narrow tilt and swivel range, and as expected from an ultrawide, you can't rotate it into portrait mode.
The LG 38WN95C-W has a plain, white back panel. There's a quick-release button if you need to remove the stand to VESA-mount it. Also, there's a hook on the stand for cable management.
The panel itself isn't very thick for a curved screen model. However, the entire monitor gets much thicker and takes up a lot of space with the stand attached.
Good build quality. The LG 38WN95C-W is made of good-quality plastic that feels solid, and the stand holds it well. The screen wobbles quite easily, and it even tilts a bit to the left and right. We don't know if this is an issue with our unit or a common problem. If you have this monitor, let us know in the discussions.
The LG 38WN95C-W has a disappointing contrast ratio, which is expected from an IPS panel. Blacks appear closer to gray when viewed in the dark, and the local dimming feature doesn't improve it very much.
Note: This is less than the advertised 1000:1 contrast ratio, but contrast may vary between units.
Like most monitors, the LG 38WN95C-W has a terrible edge-lit local dimming feature. The lighting zones are very large, so zone transitions are easy to see. If there's a bright object on the screen in real content, most of the zones light up, and it doesn't look good. If a single zone lights up in a completely dark scene, it causes a distracting flicker.
The LG 38WN95C-W has impressive brightness in SDR, and it's a lot brighter than the LG 40WP95C-W. It easily gets bright enough to combat glare, and its brightness remains very consistent with different content, which is great.
We measured peak brightness after calibration with Local Dimming on.
The LG 38WN95C-W has great peak brightness in HDR. It gets bright enough to truly bring out highlights in HDR, and it meets the advertised HDR600 standards. Sadly, its brightness isn't very consistent with varied content, and it quickly dims when a bright image remains on the screen for too long.
We measured HDR brightness in the 'Custom' Picture Mode with Local Dimming on.
Good horizontal viewing angle, which is expected from an IPS panel. The image remains accurate when viewing from the sides, which is ideal if you need to share your screen with others.
Decent vertical viewing angle. The image remains fairly accurate if you mount it above eye-level.
The LG 38WN95C-W has excellent gray uniformity. The edges of the screen are a bit darker, but there's no visible dirty screen effect in the center, which is great. Uniformity is much better in near-dark scenes.
Note: Gray uniformity may vary between units.
Mediocre black uniformity. There's clouding throughout the entire screen and some backlight bleed along the top and bottom edges, especially near the bottom-right corner. The local dimming feature doesn't really improve the uniformity.
Note: Black uniformity may vary between units.
Good out-of-the-box accuracy for the LG 38WN95C-W. Most colors are slightly inaccurate, especially the reds. White balance is only slightly off, and the color temperature is right at our 6500K target. Gamma follows the target curve fairly well, except dark scenes are darker than they should be. There's an sRGB mode available, but it made the white balance and color temperature much worse.
Note: Color accuracy may vary between units.
After calibration, it has remarkable color accuracy. Any remaining color and white balance inaccuracies aren't visible to the naked eye. The color temperature became slightly warmer, but this won't make a difference. Gamma is slightly below the target of 2.2, so some scenes are brighter than expected.
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 even for the same model, due to manufacturing tolerances.
Outstanding SDR color gamut. The LG 38WN95C-W has full coverage of the sRGB color space used in most content, and it has excellent coverage of the Adobe RGB color space used in photo editing.
The LG 38WN95C-W has a superb color volume. It displays colors at a wide range of luminance levels, but due to its low contrast ratio, it has trouble displaying dark, saturated colors.
Good HDR color gamut. This monitor has impressive coverage of the commonly-used DCI P3 color space and okay coverage of the wider Rec. 2020. If you want a similar monitor with better DCI P3 coverage, check out the LG 38GN950-B.
Note: The DCI P3 coverage is much lower than the advertised 98% coverage. This is normal and is due to the way we measure DCI P3. We measure DCI P3 by sending a Rec. 2020 signal, but unlike most reviewers, we limit the colors we're sending to the DCI P3 primaries. This results in a lower, but arguably more accurate measurement.
Good HDR color volume. Due to its wide color gamut, it can display a wide range of colors; however, it can't display dark colors well because of the low contrast ratio.
The LG 38WN95C-W has no signs of temporary image retention, but this may vary between units.
Exceptional gradient handling. There are no signs of banding, which is fantastic for HDR content.
There are no signs of color bleed on the LG 38WN95C-W.
The LG 38WN95C-W has okay reflection handling. It performs exceptional well in moderately-lit rooms, but really struggles with direct sunlight on it.
Good text clarity. It can be improved by enabling ClearType (top photo). This helps the appearance of the diagonal and curved lines as seen on the letters R, N, G, and S. For a monitor with exceptional text clarity, see the Dell UltraSharp U4021QW.
| Overdrive Setting | Response Time Chart | Response Time Tables | Motion Blur Photo |
| Off | Chart | Table | Photo |
| Normal | Chart | Table | Photo |
| Fast | Chart | Table | Photo |
| Faster | Chart | Table | Photo |
Remarkable response time at its max refresh rate of 144Hz. Motion looks very smooth and there's hardly any motion blur. The recommended overdrive setting is 'Fast'. There's some overshoot in the darker transitions, and if that bothers you, the 'Normal' setting is slightly slower but there's no overshoot.
| Overdrive Setting | Response Time Chart | Response Time Tables | Motion Blur Photo |
| Off | Chart | Table | Photo |
| Normal | Chart | Table | Photo |
| Fast | Chart | Table | Photo |
| Faster | Chart | Table | Photo |
The LG 38WN95C-W has an amazing response time at 60Hz. Unlike at its max response time, the recommended overdrive setting is 'Normal', so you may have to change the setting if the frame rate of your game drops. It has a lot less overshoot than the 'Fast' and 'Faster' settings, and fast-moving content looks good.
The backlight is completely flicker-free, which helps reduce eye strain.
The LG 38WN95C-W doesn't have a Black Frame Insertion feature.
The LG 38WN95C-W has an outstanding refresh rate. It has native FreeSync support, and it's certified by NVIDIA to be G-SYNC compatible too. You can achieve the 144Hz refresh rate and get G-SYNC support only over a DisplayPort connection. Over HDMI, the VRR range is limited to 48-75Hz, and it only supports FreeSync.
The LG 38WN95C-W has an incredibly low input lag. It slightly increases with VRR enabled, but this shouldn't be noticeable for most people.
Note: Due to bandwidth limitations, 10-bit HDR is only supported at 120Hz over a DisplayPort connection. Currently, we can't test for input lag over a DisplayPort connection, so we left it as 'N/A'.
The LG 38WN95C-W has an excellent and uncommon 3840x1600 resolution. It has about the same pixel density as a 34-inch 1440p monitor with a 21:9 aspect ratio, such as the LG 34GN850-B. This screen provides you enough space to open multiple windows at once, and it delivers crisp images.
The LG 38WN95C-W has a USB-C input that supports Thunderbolt 3, allowing you display an image from a compatible device and charge it at the same time. Thunderbolt 3 has a higher power delivery and bandwidth than a DisplayPort Alt Mode connection. If you need higher bandwidth or support for daisy chaining, check out the LG 40WP95C-W instead.
This monitor has built-in speakers and supports Picture-by-Picture mode, allowing to display images from two input sources at once. It also includes the following features:
- Super Resolution Plus: Upscales lower-resolution content.
- Auto Brightness: Automatically adjusts the brightness of the screen based on the brightness of the room.
- Low Blue Light: Removes blue light to help reduce eye strain.
Differences Between Sizes And Variants
We tested the LG 38WN95C-W, which is the only size available for this monitor. If you have this monitor and it's different from ours, let us know and we'll update the review.
Note that some tests, such as gray uniformity, may vary between units. Our unit was manufactured in May 2020, and you can see the label here.
Compared To Other Monitors
The LG 38WN95C-W is a great ultrawide monitor that's very versatile. It's great for office use, and if you want to game with it after work, it provides all of the gaming features you need. It's also one of the brightest we've seen in HDR, which is a nice touch. However, it's the same price as some larger TVs, and if you don't need all of its extra features, there are cheaper ultrawide options out there, like the Dell U3818DW. Also see our recommendations for the best ultrawide monitors, the best 34+ inch plus monitors, and the best office monitors.
Although the LG 38GN950-B and the LG 38WN95C-W are very different in their outer design, they're actually quite similar. The main difference is that the 38GN950-B's 144Hz refresh rate can be overclocked up to 160Hz. The 38GN950-B has a better HDR color gamut and volume, and it gets a bit brighter overall. The 38WN95C-W has a few more features, like a USB-C port with Thunderbolt 3 support and built-in speakers.
The LG 38WN95C-W and the LG 38GL950G-B are similar-performing monitors aimed at different uses. The 38WN95C-W is an office monitor that supports Thunderbolt 3 and has built-in speakers. It also gets brighter in HDR, displays a wider color gamut, and has better ergonomics. However, the 38GL950G-B is a gaming monitor with native G-SYNC support, a 175Hz refresh rate, and quicker response time at 60Hz.
The LG 38WN95C-W and the Dell AW3821DW are each very good overall monitors. They're both 38 inch models with a 3840x1600 resolution and a 144Hz refresh rate. The LG is mainly designed for office use, but it's slightly better than the Dell for gaming because it has a quicker response time, resulting in clearer motion. It's also slightly better for HDR gaming because it gets much brighter in HDR. However, if you have an NVIDIA graphics card, the Dell may be a better choice for you because it has native G-SYNC support.
The LG 38WN95C-W is much better than the Dell U3818DW. The LG gets much brighter, supports HDR, displays a wider color gamut, and it has more gaming features like VRR support and a 144Hz refresh rate. However, the Dell has better ergonomics, has better color accuracy, and there two more USB ports.
The LG 38WN95C-W is more versatile than the LG 40WP95C-W, but if you're a professional content creator, the 40WP95C-W is a better choice. The 38WN95C-W has a much higher refresh rate, better motion handling, and it's a lot brighter, so it's a better choice for gaming or watching videos. The 40WP95C-W is better for media creators or office users as it has a much higher native resolution and better text clarity, as well as better connectivity.
The LG 38WN95C-W and the Dell UltraSharp U4021QW are both ultrawide monitors with different advantages and disadvantages. The LG is better for gaming, as it has a much faster response time for clear motion, lower input lag, 144Hz refresh rate, and VRR support. The Dell, however, is a bit bigger, and its 5120x2160 resolution delivers an incredibly crisp image and exceptional text clarity that may appeal to some despite its lack of extra bells and whistles.
The LG 38WN95C-W is slightly better overall than the LG 34GN850-B. The 38WN95C-W gets much brighter, it has wider viewing angles, supports Thunderbolt 3, has built-in speakers, and it's bigger. However, the 34GN850-B has a higher refresh rate, quicker response time, and better reflection handling.
The LG 38WN95C-W is better overall than the LG 49WL95C-W. The 38WN95C-W gets much brighter, it has more accurate colors, and it has more gaming features like VRR support and much quicker response time. However, the 49WL95C-W has a bigger 32:9 aspect ratio, it has two more USB inputs, and has much better reflection handling.
The Samsung Odyssey G7 LC32G75T is slightly better than the LG 38WN95C-W, but they have different panel types. The Samsung has a VA panel, resulting in deep blacks. It also has a higher 240Hz refresh rate, a black frame insertion feature, and a slightly lower input lag. However, the LG has an IPS panel with wider viewing angles. It also has a higher resolution, gets brighter, and has a USB-C port that supports Thunderbolt 3.
Overall, the LG 38WN95C-W is slightly better than the Acer Nitro XV340CK Pbmiipphzx, mainly due to its faster response time, higher peak brightness, and better HDR color gamut. However, the Acer has significantly better ergonomics and reflection handling, and a Black Frame Insertion feature to help reduce motion blur.