LG 45GR95QE-B  Monitor Review

The LG 45GR95QE-B has an aggressive curve that's even more curved than some other ultrawide models like the Samsung Odyssey Neo G9/G95NA S49AG95. This can take some time to get used to, especially if you're looking at a webpage with straight lines. Other than that, it's a stylish monitor with some RGB lighting on the back.

This monitor isn't currently part of the Longevity Test. If you want to see it as part of our test, let us know.

The LG 45GR95QE has excellent build quality. It feels well-built with premium materials and has no obvious issues as to how it's put together. The bezels are properly attached to the screen throughout too. The stand is metal, while the rest of the monitor is solid plastic. There are some downsides, as it wobbles easily, which can be problematic if your desk moves a lot, like if you type aggressively. Also, the housing underneath the bottom bezel is very reflective and can be distracting if you have strong light sources nearby.

The ergonomics aren't bad, especially for a large ultrawide monitor like this one. The stand also has a clip to keep your wires tidy for cable management.

The V-shaped stand is fairly large and requires a deep desk to put it on. The monitor is also very heavy with the stand, so you may need someone to help you lift it. The thickness measurement is from the center of the monitor to the back of the stand, and the thickness from the side to the back is 14.0" (35.5 cm).

The thickness measurement is taken from the center of the display. From the sides, the thickness is 7.9" (20.0 cm).

The LG 45GR95QE has a remote to control the on-screen display, which is easier to use than traditional joysticks or buttons on monitors. While there aren't any other physical buttons to control the on-screen display, there's a power button underneath the center of the monitor.

• DisplayPort cable
• HDMI cable
• Power supply and cable
• USB-B to USB-A cable
• Remote control (CR2032 battery included)
• Screw driver
• User documentation, including quality assurance report

The LG 45GR95QE has a near-infinite contrast ratio thanks to its OLED panel. It displays perfect blacks next to bright highlights.

OLED panels like this one don't have a backlight, so they don't require a local dimming feature. However, with a near-infinite contrast ratio, there isn't any blooming around bright objects, and it's the equivalent of a perfect local dimming feature. We still film these videos on the monitor so you can see how the screen performs and compare it with a monitor that has local dimming.

The LG 45GR95QE has disappointing SDR peak brightness, even on firmware 3.09, 1.17. It isn't much brighter than the older firmware, 3.05, 1.13. It doesn't get bright enough to fight glare, but at least it maintains its brightness consistently across different scenes. These results are from after calibration in the 'Gamer 1' Game Mode, which is the name of the picture mode setting, with the Brightness at its max and Smart Energy Saving disabled.

The SDR brightness is a bit brighter in picture modes that aren't optimized for gaming, like 'Vivid', 'Reader', 'HDR Effect', 'sRGB', 'Color Weakness', 'Calibration 1', and 'Calibration 2'. Using any of these modes also disables the DAS feature, which increases the Input Lag too. You can see the results in the 'Vivid' mode below, but the overall picture quality is also worse in 'Vivid' as the colors are off.

• Peak 2% Window: 399 cd/m²
• Peak 10% Window: 398 cd/m²
• Peak 25% Window: 400 cd/m²
• Peak 50% Window: 231 cd/m²
• Peak 100% Window: 141 cd/m²
• Sustained 2% Window: 395 cd/m²
• Sustained 10% Window: 392 cd/m²
• Sustained 25% Window: 396 cd/m²
• Sustained 50% Window: 229 cd/m²
• Sustained 100% Window: 140 cd/m²

The HDR brightness is okay with firmware 3.09, 1.17. Some small highlights get bright and stand out against dark backgrounds, but it doesn't get bright enough to deliver a truly impactful HDR experience. Like the LG 27GR95QE-B, it has an aggressive Automatic Brightness Limiter (ABL) that makes large areas dimmer, and while you might notice it in some games, it isn't overly distracting either. Sadly, it doesn't do the best job of following the target PQ EOTF curve, as dark scenes are darker than intended, meaning it crushes blacks. However, there's a smooth roll-off at its peak brightness, meaning it preserves details well in bright scenes.

These results are in the 'Gamer 1' Game Mode with the Brightness at its max and Smart Energy Saving disabled.

The LG 45GR95QE-B has an incredible horizontal viewing angle. While it technically isn't perfect, as the image starts to fade at extremely wide angles, you won't have issues looking at the screen from different angles.

The vertical viewing angle is once again fantastic. You won't have any issues if you mount the monitor above eye level or if you're standing up and looking down at it. The top of the screen gets a bit brighter when looking down on it than in the center, but this is hard to notice.

The LG 45GR95QE has excellent gray uniformity. There aren't any visible uniformity issues, and content with large areas of the same color looks amazing. Like any OLED screen, there are thin vertical lines in near-dark scenes, but they're hard to notice unless you're looking for them.

The black uniformity is perfect, thanks to its OLED panel. This means that there isn't any blooming around bright objects.

The accuracy before calibration is fantastic. The sRGB mode limits the colors to the sRGB color space well, but some greens are still slightly oversaturated. Other than that, the white balance is fantastic, and the color temperature is close to the 6500K target. However, gamma doesn't follow the target sRGB curve at all, as all brighter scenes are too bright.

Unfortunately, the sRGB mode locks most picture settings, including Black Stabilizer and Gamma. If you want to adjust those settings, you can do that with the 'Gamer 1' Game Mode, but the colors are oversaturated, and the color temperature is much colder.

The accuracy after a full calibration is amazing, but calibrating it results in slightly more oversaturated colors. The color temperature and gamma are both nearly spot-on with their targets, and there aren't any visible inaccuracies to most colors and the white balance. Only calibrate it if you want perfect gamma and white balance; otherwise, the image still looks very accurate before calibration.

The LG 45GR95QE has a remarkable SDR color gamut. It has perfect coverage of the commonly-used sRGB color space and is also great in the Adobe RGB color space used in photo editing. However, reds and greens are still off in Adobe RGB.

The SDR color volume is remarkable. It displays bright and dark colors extremely well.

The HDR color gamut in the 'Gamer 1' picture mode is fantastic. It has near-full coverage of the DCI-P3 color space used in most HDR content, and the tone mapping is almost perfect. It's also decent in the wider Rec. 2020 color space, but some colors are off. While the 'Vivid' picture mode gets brighter, tone mapping is much worse with it, so the image looks bad.

The HDR color volume is very good. While it's worse than QD-OLEDs at displaying colors as bright as pure white, it still does a good job at displaying most bright and dark colors.

The LG 45GR95QE has amazing reflection handling. Like the LG 27GR95QE-B, it has an aggressive matte screen coating that reduces glare from strong light sources very well. However, this also results in a hazier image than monitors with a glossy coating, like the Samsung Odyssey OLED G8/G85SB S34BG85.

The LG 45GR95QE-B has mediocre text clarity, as text looks blurry at times. Due to its 45-inch screen size and 3440x1440 resolution, it has a low pixel density, which is a contributing factor to the mediocre text clarity. Another issue is that it has an RWBG subpixel layout, which not all computer programs can properly render text with. These text clarity issues are most noticeable when browsing the web or reading documents.

Unfortunately, enabling Windows ClearType (top photo) introduces color fringing, and this is because ClearType isn't designed for RWBG subpixel layouts. The photos above are with Windows 10, and you can see what it looks like in Windows 11 with ClearType on, and with ClearType off.

All four of the monitor's subpixels are never all on at the same time, and in the photo above, you can see the white subpixel. You can also see some examples of more pixel combinations below:

• Red only
• Green only
• Blue only
• Blue and green
• Blue and red

You can also check out the LG 45GX950A-B if you want a large ultrawide monitor with better text clarity.

The gradient handling is incredible. You won't notice any banding in shades of similar colors, like in scenes with a sunset.

Thanks to its DisplayPort 1.4 and HDMI 2.1 bandwidth, you can reach its max refresh rate with any signal over DisplayPort or HDMI. Unlike the LG 27GR95QE-B, it doesn't have the same issue of displaying a 4k signal when sending a fixed 120Hz signal.

The variable refresh rate support works without any problems over DisplayPort and HDMI. It also supports Low Framerate Compensation (LFC) for VRR to continue working even when the frame rate of your game is low.

The response time at its max refresh rate of 240Hz is incredible. While there's a bit of overshoot in dark transitions, motion still looks exceptionally smooth. There isn't any feature to adjust the pixel overdrive, though.

The response time at 120Hz is once again fantastic. There's a bit of noticeable inverse ghosting caused by overshoot, but it isn't a major concern, and the motion handling is still incredible.

The LG 45GR95QE has a very good response time at 60Hz. While the total response time is quick with most transitions, there's noticeable overshoot that causes inverse ghosting, which can get distracting with darker scenes.

The LG UltraGear 45GR95QE doesn't have an optional black frame insertion feature.

The LG 45GR95QE technically isn't flicker-free because there's a slight dip in brightness that corresponds to the 240Hz refresh rate. However, it isn't the same as pulse-width modulation because it isn't a full screen on and off, and you won't notice this flicker.

The LG 45GR95QE has low input lag with most picture modes for a responsive gaming experience. It remains low whether you have VRR on or off, or whether you're using a DisplayPort or HDMI connection. Unfortunately, the input lag increases in picture modes that aren't optimized for gaming and disable the DAS feature. These modes are 'Vivid', 'Reader', 'HDR Effect', 'sRGB', 'Color Weakness', 'Calibration 1', and 'Calibration 2'. You can see the input lag in 'Vivid' below:

• Native Resolution @ Max Refresh Rate: 13.7 ms
• Native Resolution @ 120Hz: 21.7 ms
• Native Resolution @ 60Hz: 31.4 ms

This monitor's large size and 3440x1440 resolution result in low pixel density, but if you prefer a large display with a 4k resolution, check out the LG 42 OLED Flex. You can also look into the LG 49GR85DC-B if you want a monitor with an even wider 32:9 aspect ratio and 5120x1440 resolution, but that's an LED-backlit monitor.

There aren't any compatibility issues with the PS5, but because it's an ultrawide monitor and the PS5 doesn't support ultrawide gaming, you'll see black bars on the sides. For 4k @ 120Hz to show up as compatible on the Video Output Information page, you may need to first go into a game with VRR enabled for 4k @ 120Hz to work properly. Although it isn't a 4k monitor, it downscales 4k signals, which results in a sharper image than a native 1440p signal.

The LG 45GR95QE has perfect compatibility with the Xbox Series X|S, but you'll see black bars on the sides because the console doesn't support ultrawide gaming.

The 3.5mm audio output serves as a combo jack with both audio out and mic in, but you need to have the USB-B cable connected to your computer to make full use of it. It also comes with DTS Headphone:X to simulate surround sound audio. Unlike many monitors, it has an Optical Audio output to connect to soundbars or speakers with this connection, but it doesn't support DTS/DTS:X audio passthrough.

You need to connect the USB-B to USB-A cable to your computer for the USB ports to work.

The LG 45GR95QE works well with macOS, but there are some limitations. You can't use VRR and HDR at the same time with a 240Hz signal, and you'll need to drop the signal to 144Hz if you want both to work at the same time. VRR works without issue, but there's a thin gray line on top of the screen with some games, and disabling VRR removes it. Unfortunately, HDR looks washed out, which is a limitation of macOS with some monitors. If you're using a MacBook, windows return to their original position after waking the laptop up from sleep, but not after you reopen the lid.

The text clarity seems to be a bit better in macOS than Windows, but the difference is minor. You can see what the text clarity looks like with font size 11 and with font size 13.

The LG 45GR95QE has a few extra additional features, including:

• Crosshair: Adds a virtual crosshair that your system won't detect.
• DTS Headphones:X: This only works with the 3.5mm audio output and not the Optical Audio output. There are three modes for this: Sports, Entertainment, and Game.
• Dynamic Action Sync: Mode that's automatically enabled and aims to lower the input lag.
• FPS Counter: Displays the frame rate of your source.
• Hexagon Lighting: Includes color mode presets for the RGB lighting on the back of the monitor.
• LG Calibration Studio: This is a downloadable software that aims to automatically calibrate the monitor. We didn't use it for calibration.
• Optical Audio Out: Lets you connect a soundbar or speakers that support this connection.

Like most OLED displays, there are also a few settings to help reduce the risk of burn-in:

• Pixel Cleaning: Corrects individual pixels. Occurs after 500 hours of use and only starts once you turn the monitor off or enter the power-saving mode. It only lasts about a minute.
• Image Cleaning: Runs a complete image refresh cycle after four hours of use and only starts when you turn the monitor off or enter the power saving mode. It takes about 10 minutes to finish.
• Screen Move: Moves the image by a few pixels to one side to help reduce the risk of burn-in.
• Screen Saver: Automatically turns the screen off when there's inactivity.

Burn-in can occur with constant exposure to the same static elements over time, so the best ways to reduce the risk of burn-in is by watching varied content, hiding the taskbar, using a black background, and taking advantage of these features in the OLED Care settings. Unfortunately, LG's warranty doesn't cover burn-in. You can learn about our current longevity and burn-in test here.