u/Samsky

I received this product for free from LG as part of an event. While I was asked to share my review, all opinions are entirely my own.

Introduction

I’m a professional photographer, a working musician and an occasional computer gamer that wanted to get into a 5K monitor specifically.

That 5K requirement really limits your options these days - to have extra resolution over the more common 4K, and somewhat prioritize resolution over other options.  Often times, you sacrifice frame-rate, the display tech or the response time for that extra resolution.  The promise of the 27GM950B on paper is to compromise much less in those areas!

I had previously used a Samsung monitor, a 4K OLED monitor at 32 inches, and felt like the picture quality was great when watching content, but the desktop experience was lacking at best, with a notable lack of sharpness in the text and a severe lack of brightness for my needs.  It wasn’t a bad product, but it wasn’t my cup of tea.

For the times that I do play games, I was looking for strong performance with a high frame rate.  I don’t need to go much higher than 120Hz, but the option for 165Hz is nice (or 330Hz in dual mode).

These decision factors made the LG 27GM950B an amazing choice for me from the spec sheet, and I was interested immediately when I heard of its announcement.  I intended to write this initial review about a week earlier, but there was a small shipping issue getting the monitor to me, so I received it a bit more than a week after I originally expected it.

Why I Considered Hyper Mini LED Instead of OLED

OLED monitors seem to be very prevalently advertised as “the best” in optical quality these days.  With each pixel turning on and off individually, this is of course, the most ideal layout from a technical perspective.  

But what’s “the best” really mean anyway?  To me, my previous OLED monitor wasn’t the best because it had poor brightness and a relatively lower pixel density—it may not be best for everyone.

OLED comes with trade-offs that I was very aware of while using my previous monitor (which I ended up returning).  First off, Most OLED monitors at this size are 4K at best—or only 5K with a very wide screen, which is then covering a lower pixel density.  So the sharpness of a 4K OLED panel at 27 to 32 inches isn’t what I am accustomed to for desktop work.

As stated earlier, I was also experiencing disappointing brightness with my previous OLED monitor, something that was immediately noticeably better with the LG 27GM950B.  I turned the 27GM950B on for the first time and the brightness comparison wasn’t even close - the LG with Hyper Mini LED is sufficiently bright.

Lastly, I was concerned about burn-in way more than I thought I would be while I owned an OLED monitor.  I was simply thinking about it far more than I wanted to even if it’s a non-issue for many people or for many years of usage.  As a photographer, I’m often sitting in Adobe Lightroom with some static UI elements for hours at a time, unless I full-screen a photo or get distracted and get out of the app, etc.  Just thinking about it too much for my own good and I didn’t want to have to.

First Impressions After Setup

The LG 27GM950B monitor is packed well, maybe a bit unceremoniously.  It comes with a stand and monitor arm that are both easy to assemble, and they are of a nice quality.  A built-in screw adjustment on the bottom helps the stand stay secured to the arm, and the monitor clicks in place on the arm.  I have not had any durability concerns or issues here.  It has height adjustment, tilt adjustment, and can rotate 90 degrees which I would have no current need to use.

Juniper approves.

There’s 2x HDMI ports, DisplayPort, USB-C, 2x USB-A and a headphone jack.  There’s built-in speakers, and they’re fine for what they are, but I have some external desktop speakers that I use anyway.

Visually, I was quite impressed upon loading up some HDR video content.  I ensured that HDR was on (some computers may have a setting to toggle HDR imagery like mine).  My immediate thought was “OLED isn’t everything” as I played a common benchmark, the “2020 LG OLED | The Black 4K HDR 60fps” video.  1250 nits of peak brightness is very nice to have and a big advantage over my previous monitor.  For context, my previous monitor was only a maximum of 600 nits and that was extremely noticeable for everyday work, and frustratingly low.

The power supply is massive!

I have had some minor issues with local dimming, where it is not a perfect solution every time, but local dimming is definitely best turned on for content and games.  It feels best turned off to do desktop work/word processing, like the review I’m writing right now—I have local dimming turned off while writing this.  With it on, it seems to drop the brightness of certain types of text, especially when the text is small.

With local dimming on, I do find that when the brightness is appropriately set, this monitor shines best.  If the brightness is set too high for the situation, you can still see some occasional blooming here and there especially around moving objects on a black screen like an area of visibility around my mouse cursor.  

When you set brightness to a slightly lower level, the perception of bloom is hardly there at all - very impressive.  Local dimming is a reasonable, well-implemented compromise; just not perfect like the expectation of, say, an OLED monitor.

While turning local dimming off does turn off the impact of the Hyper Mini LED and is essentially then a standard IPS panel, it’s not necessary for writing words on a document and I prefer the look.  I will turn local dimming back on with a controller on the backside to say, watch content or play a game.  I’ve found that I generally prefer local dimming set to Medium or Low.

\"LG Black\" video in a dark room

\"LG Black\" video in a brighter room, same freeze-frame.

Having a monitor with 218 PPI is a gold standard that I feel like all monitors should strive for in 2026, for anyone looking to do any desktop work.  I did not personally experience an issue which others have described, with one side of the monitor looking different than the other side from a sharpness perspective.  When I installed the LG Switch app to check the firmware, the firmware was already updated to the latest version upon my receiving this monitor.

Areas I'd Like to See Improved

I wish the monitor could intelligently sense if I am doing desktop work, or say, playing a game/watching content to switch local dimming on or off automatically.  It’s not necessary to turn local dimming off, but I find for me, it’s better looking for desktop work when it is off.  My computer does also have an HDR toggle, and sometimes it’s just best with it off for desktop work, and best with it on for content/games etc.

The cables included with the monitor have given me some small issues.  When connected over HDMI with the included cable, I have experienced issues switching from the 2K dual mode at 330Hz and back to the 5K mode - but have not had that issue with the included USB-C cable.  For me, I just don’t benefit often from lower resolution and higher frame rate - if the frame rate is at or above 120Hz, then I prioritize resolution as high as it can go.  I have had limited testing with that dual mode and will put it through its paces a bit more for a second, more full-scope review.

With the included USB-C cable, I’ve only been able to achieve 144Hz at 5K/288Hz at 2K, where the included HDMI provided the full 165Hz/330Hz at 2K.  Honestly, I’m not sure if I’d notice the difference from 144Hz to 165Hz at 5K anyway.

I have not been able to test the DP 2.1 cable that is provided.  I do plan to test the monitor with a different high-spec HDMI cable to see if the dual mode switching issues persist - I can switch into dual mode with a toggle on the bottom of the monitor, but the issue I ran into is that I couldn’t switch back to 5K mode with the included HDMI cable.  While it works fine with the included USB-C cable, I need the USB-C ports available to me for the work that I do.

A full-screen view of a photo I took, viewed in Adobe Lightroom. Looks great.

Early Verdict

Overall, I’m quite impressed by the monitor.  It’s not perfect, and there are some small compromises for it to do what it does do, but those small compromises are much better than the disadvantages of an OLED panel with the current technology to me - the risk of burn-in, the relatively lower brightness, and the current unavailability of a 5K OLED panel being my major thoughts here. 

I’ll be doing a more thorough review in the coming weeks that I’ll be sure to share here.  Please let me know if you have questions in the comments, and I’ll do my best to answer!