LG has posted full specs and pricing for its first OLED gaming monitors, the 27-inch LG UltraGear 27GR95QE-B (opens in new tab) and 45-inch LG UltraGear 45GR95QE-B (opens in new tab). The good news is that both panels share an impressive 0.03ms response time. The bad news' 200nits brightness. The brightness rating is a bit complicated, so we'll reserve that thought for a moment.

Starting with the LG UltraGear 27GR95QE-B, in many ways this is a very ordinary 27" 16:9 panel with a classic 1440p native resolution. It covers 98.5% of the DCI-P3 color gamut at up to 240Hz. All good stuff, but nothing you haven't already seen.

Interestingly, it starts with a 0.03ms response. This is measured in the traditional gray-to-gray way, which is a bit odd given that it exists to flatten out the slower response of LCD panels at both ends of the response curve. Regardless, it is two orders of magnitude better than the 1 ms that existing IPS and VA-type LCD monitors achieve by the same metric. This is a very fast screen.

The 1.5M to 1 contrast ratio is likewise utterly impressive. In fact, the OLED panel has essentially infinite contrast because it controls lighting on a pixel-by-pixel basis and can switch pixels completely off.

If this is good news, the apparently unimpressive spec is brightness; LG lists the panel's brightness at 200 nits at 25% APL; 25% APL means that the panel can achieve 200 nits in an area covering 25% of the entire screen.

A feature of OLED panels is that the brightness that can be achieved depends on which part of the panel is illuminated. Conventional LCD monitors have a big, dumb backlight burning at the same brightness all the time, and the LCD panel is used to control the transmission of that light. With an OLED panel, however, each pixel is individually lit on demand. This means that the more pixels there are, the more power and heat there are.

In any case, we do not yet have a complete picture of how LG's new panel will perform at various APLs. We do know that it is rated at 120 nits at full screen coverage or 100% APL. But when it comes to rendering HDR scenes, the really bright areas are usually less than 25% of the screen area. Therefore, the LG UltraGear 27GR95QE-B will certainly exceed 200 nits for small, bright details. However, we do not know how much.

Furthermore, OLED panels do not need to achieve the same heights as LCDs to achieve good HDR performance because the contrast is so high. However, the Alienware 34 QD-OLED AW3423DW has a 25% APL of 370 nits. In other words, by OLED standards, this new LG panel is not the brightest. [As for its sibling, the 45GR95QE-B, it has nearly identical specifications, except that it is a curved 45-inch panel with a resolution of 3,440 x 1,440 pixels. This is a much lower resolution for such a large screen.

In any case, the 27-inch LG UltraGear 27GR95QE-B is priced at $999 and the LG UltraGear 45GR95QE-B at $1,699. It is unclear when these panels will be available, but they appear to be on the way.