LG 38WN95C-W Monitor Review

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 borders are thin and aren't distracting.

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.

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.

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.

There's a single joystick control underneath the center of the LG 38WN95C-W that allows you to control the on-screen menu.

• Thunderbolt cable
• HDMI cable
• DisplayPort cable
• Power supply and cable
• User manual and driver