LG Electronics has announced its first ever OLED gaming monitor in an apparent effort to take on rivals Samsung Electronics and Alienware.
The new OLED gaming monitor is part of LG’s UltraGear range of monitors and is designed for both PC and console-based gaming, the company said. It’ll be a 48-inch monitor that’s based on LG Display’s White OLED display technology. Features include 4K resolution and 10-bit colour HDR. It will also come with an anti-glare low reflection coating on the screen to help prevent distraction when playing games. None of LG’s OLED TVs have this coating.
While LG hasn’t revealed all of the connectivity options, the LG 48GQ900 OLED monitor will have DisplayPort as well as HDMI 2.1.
The HDMI 2.1 ports mean the monitor will support 4K at 120Hz, and possibly even up to 138Hz, though that hasn’t been confirmed. It will also support Variable Refresh Rate for PCs and the Xbox Series X, and hopefully the PlayStation 5 too, whenever Sony gets around to enabling it on its top console.
The monitor looks sleek too, with a borderless design and LG’s high-end UltraGear branding, plus purple light elements on the back. Built-in speakers are another feature.
Gamers will appreciate the fact that OLED displays are much faster than any LCD panel, allowing for an ultra-fast response time of 1 millisecond, according to LG. The OLED display will also deliver true blacks and high contrast, plus pixel-level luminance, eliminating the halo effect that ruins some games. It will also provide extremely accurate colour control, with 98.55 coverage of the DCI-P3 gamut with HDR content.
LG’s first OLED monitor will come up against some steep competition this year, with rivals such as Acer, Asus, Gigabyte and MSI all launching new OLED gaming monitors for this year. However, its biggest challenge may well come from Dell Alienware’s and Samsung’s new QD-OLED monitors, which are expected to launch in the coming months, based on a new type of OLED display technology that promises higher brightness and more accurate graphics.
Whether or not that’s true remains to be seen, but no doubt LG will be under pressure to compete on price. Rumour has it that the Alienware 34 QD-OLED Gaming Display will go on sale at a very competitive price of just $1,299 this spring. Samsung’s product is likely to carry a similar price. That will put enormous pressure on LG to make the LG 48GQ900 OLED at least as affordable.
We won’t know until later though as LG said its OLED monitor will only arrive in the shops in the second half of the year.
