LG UltraGear 48GQ900 48" 4K 138Hz OLED

JTCPingas

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https://www.lg.com/us/monitors/lg-48gq900-b

EDIT: It's now available to buy on LG's website. I would be a brave soul to buy one and test it out, but money is important right now for me.

I couldn't find any threads of this OLED display yet other than the 48CX thread that already exists. If a separate thread is not suitable, I can remove it.

Even if it is an inferior value and product to a C2 OLED TV, I would be very hesitant to buy until it's reviewed by rtings or Tim from Hardware Unboxed. The matte coating is especially something I would need to see in person in order to properly judge how it looks on an OLED.
 
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Too little too late. Had this come out around the same time as the CX/C1 it would have been nice but now, why would you buy this over the 42" C2?
 


I found this video that is apparently the LG 48GQ900. That is definitely a matte coating. Who on earth is asking for matte screens on an OLED? I certainly am not.
 
The 42" C2 outputs at 137/138hz and no higher when I make a custom res but frame skips. Really wish someone who knows timings could mess with it and see if its really possible.
 
138Hz seems awfully specific, but probably the highest these panels can be realistically pushed at the moment.
 
It's gonna come along with the matte coating.

what-eww.gif
 
Absolutely no one:
LG: You know what 48" OLED panels need? A matte anti glare coating because g*mers know best.

Nobody asked for this. And yet because I'm stubborn, I'll probably end up getting one out of morbid curiosity.
 
Any reason 3 of these wouldn’t run with all features enabled off a 30 series card? 3 x 4k, 120Hz, VRR, HDR?

Or do I just hold out hope for a 40 series with 3 x hdmi 2.1?
 

Unsurprisingly another display that pushes its controller to the max and then has some issues with it. For me dropping to 8-bit 138 Hz vs just running the display always at 4K 120 Hz 10-bit is one of those things where switching for slightly higher refresh rate is just not worth it.

The matte coating doesn't seem too bad but at the same time glossy on my CX 48" was never an issue for me, I could control its reflections well enough.

Going forward the Displayport connection won't be an advantage either as more GPUs will have HDMI 2.1.

I do kinda like that more old school remote over the one on my C9/CX.
 
Absolutely no one:
LG: You know what 48" OLED panels need? A matte anti glare coating because g*mers know best.

Nobody asked for this. And yet because I'm stubborn, I'll probably end up getting one out of morbid curiosity.
I can't image why someone would want a glossy screen for desktop use. Especially one this size.
 
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Unsurprisingly another display that pushes its controller to the max and then has some issues with it. For me dropping to 8-bit 138 Hz vs just running the display always at 4K 120 Hz 10-bit is one of those things where switching for slightly higher refresh rate is just not worth it.

It's totally worth it for most games, since most games don't support HDR and are 8-bit only
 
Man all these monitors using LG OLED panels are so dim compared to the TV's.
 
It's nice if you have a darker room that doesn't have direct sunlight.
OK, that's fair.

I guess what I'm asking is how PC users could not understand how there is demand for a matte screen from us hybrid gamers. I tested a C2 for a weekend last month and all I could see was myself, the whole time. Which then makes you turn up brightness, which then accelerates burn in.
 
OK, that's fair.

I guess what I'm asking is how PC users could not understand how there is demand for a matte screen from us hybrid gamers. I tested a C2 for a weekend last month and all I could see was myself, the whole time. Which then makes you turn up brightness, which then accelerates burn in.
A matte coating basically just blurs the reflections. On my matte screen 28" IPS display with what I consider a fairly good coating, using it on a very sunny day without having blinds closed is just not happening even with the sun coming in from the side.

In some situations matte coating could even be worse because it can spread out a strong light source hitting a screen. So it's always a tradeoff and the best way is to control for the position and amount of light. For me the LG CX 48" worked just fine because I was able to put it in a position where there is no strong light source hitting it. I could see a reflection of myself but it did not cause any noticeable issue even at 120 nits brightness on the display.
 
Though I would drop in and share. Been using a FU43U and really like it then someone bought me LG 48GQ900-B 48 for this XMAS. So watching allot of videos on it which can help sometimes make it much worse lol. So I just had to open it and check if its as bad some a few say it was. Its no worse then my FV43U which is simi glossy. Yeah there was a box sitting in front and I could almost read every letter on the box. OLED matte/glossy yeah way better then some sort of VA panel. Then oh no what if I have to press a key or something like that if the window gets a tad dark after 5min (I believe for this model)? Lol really?

Its just funny how we use to love glossy on say that HUGE 27" NEC glass monitor then hated it and wanted more matte screens. So they did that. What people leave out is all those that thought they hated matte and tried glossy and then went back to matte. Anyway don't get something someone else tell you to. You test you go see try it and get what you like. There really is no one unless setting in a mostly black room that will tell you "it never bothers me". The colors that pop and such out weigh the reflection.
 
I have this monitor for about a week and I love matte coating on it.
Unfortunately engineers at LG made a dud.

Pure black to dark pixel transitions have overdrive that is so ridiculously bright (relative to black and other dark shades) it causes a kind of halo around dark smooch object on black background. Its enough to open http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/gradient.php and move window around. Best visible with low brightness levels.
Its completely unacceptable and ruins this screen for me. And sure, its rarely visible but when it is it's irritating as hell.

Other flaws are:
- there is no sRGB or callibration mode button and I have to each time go to menu and select it. Who cares for anything else than sRGB mode anyways? There is special button on remote called "reader mode" which is completely pointless. It would be much better if they made sRGB button or at the very least allow selecting one mode for dedicated button.
- this giant circular thing on remote is very inconvenient to use. They should just put buttons instead. Best if it there were four directions and with it quick access to brightness setting.
- uniformity sucks - I didn't expect perfection or anything but for whatever reason LG seems to put worst 48 panels for these monitors. Even RTINGs have worse uniformity in their tests than they did for LG OLED TVs. This makes no sense at all. For monitor they should put best panels and not worst because PC users will display solid colors more. Or they do not have quality control and its just lottery and I got bad unit. Maybe not terribly bad but disappointing...
- brightness limiter thing is relative to selected brightness level so if I have 100 brightness then full white page is certain brightness level that is much darker than when I display eg. 70% white page. This makes sense. What does not make sense if that when I use brightness level of eg. 10 and normal white when there isn't a lot of it is darker than full white page at brightness 100 then I expect that when monitor displays full white page it should not lower brightness because I should not hit any limits... WRONG, LG made it so even if you use brightness of 0 and everything is already pretty dim then full white page will be even dimmer than that! This makes literally no sense whatsoever and looks like just bad control software design.

In other words: bad quality control, bad design of remote and most importantly engineers making this monitor literally f**ked up and made broken firmware with unacceptable bugs and terrible software design choices.
And this is sad because there isn't much matte OLED monitors and otherwise image quality is really nice on this monitor. 138Hz is also nice to have for PC monitor.

I really don't want to go through it and return it and go back OLED-less because image quality is fantastic when it works but it has just too many issues. Most could easily be fixed with firmware update but I know they won't fix anything, ever. Monitor manufacturers almost never fix anything and rather carry bugs to further products they apparently never tried using by themselves... anyways, gonna probably return it because time is ticking and return window is only 15 days in hellhole I live in. Too bad, really like the image quality... 😪

also DO NOT RECOMMEND!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
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- brightness limiter thing is relative to selected brightness level so if I have 100 brightness then full white page is certain brightness level that is much darker than when I display eg. 70% white page. This makes sense. What does not make sense if that when I use brightness level of eg. 10 and normal white when there isn't a lot of it is darker than full white page at brightness 100 then I expect that when monitor displays full white page it should not lower brightness because I should not hit any limits... WRONG, LG made it so even if you use brightness of 0 and everything is already pretty dim then full white page will be even dimmer than that! This makes literally no sense whatsoever and looks like just bad control software design.

Ooof, yeah this is the #1 thing I hate about my Gigabyte Aorus FO48U. The software is just lazily programmed in that way.

But otherwise, it seems like the Gigabyte is on the whole a better monitor. Especially since it has 120hz BFI.
 
I have this monitor for about a week and I love matte coating on it.
Unfortunately engineers at LG made a dud.

Pure black to dark pixel transitions have overdrive that is so ridiculously bright (relative to black and other dark shades) it causes a kind of halo around dark smooch object on black background. Its enough to open http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/gradient.php and move window around. Best visible with low brightness levels.
Its completely unacceptable and ruins this screen for me. And sure, its rarely visible but when it is it's irritating as hell.

Other flaws are:
- there is no sRGB or callibration mode button and I have to each time go to menu and select it. Who cares for anything else than sRGB mode anyways? There is special button on remote called "reader mode" which is completely pointless. It would be much better if they made sRGB button or at the very least allow selecting one mode for dedicated button.
- this giant circular thing on remote is very inconvenient to use. They should just put buttons instead. Best if it there were four directions and with it quick access to brightness setting.
- uniformity sucks - I didn't expect perfection or anything but for whatever reason LG seems to put worst 48 panels for these monitors. Even RTINGs have worse uniformity in their tests than they did for LG OLED TVs. This makes no sense at all. For monitor they should put best panels and not worst because PC users will display solid colors more. Or they do not have quality control and its just lottery and I got bad unit. Maybe not terribly bad but disappointing...
- brightness limiter thing is relative to selected brightness level so if I have 100 brightness then full white page is certain brightness level that is much darker than when I display eg. 70% white page. This makes sense. What does not make sense if that when I use brightness level of eg. 10 and normal white when there isn't a lot of it is darker than full white page at brightness 100 then I expect that when monitor displays full white page it should not lower brightness because I should not hit any limits... WRONG, LG made it so even if you use brightness of 0 and everything is already pretty dim then full white page will be even dimmer than that! This makes literally no sense whatsoever and looks like just bad control software design.

In other words: bad quality control, bad design of remote and most importantly engineers making this monitor literally f**ked up and made broken firmware with unacceptable bugs and terrible software design choices.
And this is sad because there isn't much matte OLED monitors and otherwise image quality is really nice on this monitor. 138Hz is also nice to have for PC monitor.

I really don't want to go through it and return it and go back OLED-less because image quality is fantastic when it works but it has just too many issues. Most could easily be fixed with firmware update but I know they won't fix anything, ever. Monitor manufacturers almost never fix anything and rather carry bugs to further products they apparently never tried using by themselves... anyways, gonna probably return it because time is ticking and return window is only 15 days in hellhole I live in. Too bad, really like the image quality... 😪

also DO NOT RECOMMEND!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Man… thanks for the honest review.
 
Can someone with this screen (or some other LG OLED for that matter...) check if the issue I described happens for you?
http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/gradient.php and move browser window left and right.
On my unit moving left will show one of the dark colors in upper gradient lit up like this
lg_issue.PNG


It might be panel issue and screen can be RMA'd - which idea I do not like but until I have time to return it and get my money back it would be great to know if its generic issue or not because if it is how these monitors just are it makes no sense to RMA it and screen should be returned ASAP... if it is not generic issue I might RMA it at later date or something. Good to know my options you know... and who knows, if it is generic issue we need to let people know not to buy such sheet...

Anyways, Gigabyte FO48U is even slightly cheaper. I would not get it simply because with its specs and external looks it would make more sense to get TV.
I got LG 48GQ900 because it has:
- matte screen
- 138Hz vs normal 120Hz
- hardware color calibration
- look like giant gaming monitor with its stand and not repurposed TV

BFI I do not care if its implemented in such a way it cannot be enabled alongside VRR.
Gaming on fixed refresh displays has much more input lag and is prone to stuttering/tearing and isn't something I want to subject myself to. Especially at 120Hz where motion clarity is simply good enough for me to not see it as an issue.
 
Apparently the issue I experience is called "near black chrominance overshoot" and affects all LG OLED screens to some extent


Probably gonna keep it then. Due to how it works issue is barely visible at 100% brightness and there is barely any good alternative anyways.
Samsung will have 48 displays this year and there is nothing matte announced which could be good alternative to LG 48GQ900...
 
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I decided to return this monitor. Even with 100% brightness (at which setting this issue is visible the least) that issue causes nasty banding at places and it happens more often than its immediately apparent. Having reference LCD monitor next to OLED helps to see that. Of course issue is issue when its overly visible and its not overly visible all the time but in at least few cases I expected amazing near-black rendition I saw flickering banding...

Good hardware but terrible firmware ruins this (and presumably other LG OLED monitors) so again my recommendation is to stay away from these products.

I will probably get Samsung S95C once it comes out or alternatively (though much less likely) MLA Panasonic which should be available this year. Unfortunately both will be more expensive and glossy... which at least also has some benefits unlike having good AG but with visible image artifacts
 
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Hmm well I had the 48GQ900 swapped back for LG C2. Everyone is different that matte screen is nothing like some paint it to be. The glossy vs matte there is a difference but not night and day. Colors and all the rest are still there. I LOVE so sorry but LOVE the soap opera effect and the 48GQ900 well no way to do that and also in the service menu there was no way to turn off auto brightness. The matte never once bothered me. Listening to all the videos and reviews most said the gossy will be like a MIRROR! Which is ture yet.. yeah never noticed it over the matte. It 48GQ900 is a monitor and like anything never go by what some reviewer or video told you. Gives you an idea yet most only tell you their personal experience. If I had went by everything I watched and read that alone I would never had bought the LG C2. MAN am I so happy I did get it. Never going back. Before all this had the Aorus FV43. Brightness? Again for me the LG C2 is way better. I can still crank the LG c2 up a tad more its not all the way. HDR is awesome. So buy something and try it your self. Just make sure you can return it if you don't like it.

Oh the Gigabyte FO48U ...yeah that is one I would never have touched. Just compare it side by side with the LC C2 and you will send the Gigabyte FO48U right back in a hurry. On PAPER ooh sounds awesome but it is NOT!..for me
 
Did more testing and this near black chrominance overshoot thing is only really noticeable when using at low brightness levels and almost not noticeable when brightness is cranked all way up. So in the end as long as higher levels of brightness are used its not such a big issue. Likewise gradation is way better at higher brightness levels as when brightness is very low its quite obvious panels own bitdepth is not keeping up.

100% brightness is ok for me for games and videos as I wouldn't wanna use lower brightness levels there but this also kinda forces me to use settings which are not the best for longevity... wich I should probaby not care for anyways and just use the damn thing as it was apparently designed to be used.

Probably gonna keep it then.
 
Update:
I noticed today that the aggressive screen dimming when displaying (almost) white page doesn't happen when brightness is already low. I think firmware update fixed this issue.
Screen dimming which happens when either nothing or almost nothing changes on screen still happens. Not a lot is needed to change on screen for brightness to be restored so it doesn't seem like it will possibly be an issue in games or movies.

Other thing is I got i1 Display Pro Plus to utilize hardware calibration feature. This colorimeter works great with this monitor producing 6500K white and RGB primaries which is visually identical to what I have on HP DreamColor LP2480zx which is calibrated via HP branded i1 Display Pro. In comparison monitor's sRGB mode isn't very accurate when it comes to whitepoint - it is too warm/red. It is possible to correct this by changing RGB values though so this mode is not useless.
Calibration modes have slightly smaller maximum brightness than eg. gamer mode or even sRGB mode with corrected whitepoint and increased contrast (all before clipping) so unfortunately there might still be need to use other modes.

I made calibrated profile with sRGB/Rec.709 gamut, d65 whitepoint and gamma of 2.3.
Other profile is the same as first but with native gamut.
Gamma 2.3 imho is the best value to use with least instances of gamma looking wrong.
When using gamma of 2.2 there is often impression gamma is too low and when using 2.4 there is impression gamma is too high. I use gamma 2.3 for many years and it always looks correct.
 
Update:
I noticed today that the aggressive screen dimming when displaying (almost) white page doesn't happen when brightness is already low. I think firmware update fixed this issue.
Screen dimming which happens when either nothing or almost nothing changes on screen still happens. Not a lot is needed to change on screen for brightness to be restored so it doesn't seem like it will possibly be an issue in games or movies.
I wish I’d read this earlier, I just took delivery of another monitor today but was considering this. When you say not a lot is needed to restore the brightness what exactly do you mean? Would moving the mouse be sufficient to bring it back or do you still have to move windows.
 
I wish I’d read this earlier, I just took delivery of another monitor today but was considering this. When you say not a lot is needed to restore the brightness what exactly do you mean? Would moving the mouse be sufficient to bring it back or do you still have to move windows.
If it works like my LG C2 48" then moving the mouse is sufficient to bring it back
 
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