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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
Impressive brightness in SDR. The LG 38WN95C-W 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.
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.
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.
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 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'.