It’s no secret that in 2024, OLED gaming monitors have truly come into their own. We’ve covered a number of them already and there’s still a number left to go before the year ends. Although they all come in different shapes, sizes and curvatures, there’s really only two types of OLED gaming panels shared between them: A Samsung QD-OLED panel and an LG WOLED panel. The new LG UltraGear 34GS95QE-B(who the hell comes up with these names?) falls into the latter category by default.
The 34GS95QE-B is a stunning 34-inch ultrawide curved OLED display using LG’s latest WOLED panel fused with Micro Lens Array or MLA tech similar to that found in the groundbreaking LG G3 OLED Evo TV’s which vastly boosts overall brightness. As a result, the 34GS95QE-B can hit a theoretical peak brightness of 1300 nits in HDR and a much higher sustained brightness in SDR.
It will literally burn your eyes out in some conditions and it will also burn a major hole in your wallet with its $1,999 retail price. Of course, with a little bit of patience and tenacity, you can find it for as low as $1,499.00 in some places. This is a premium monitor in every way boasting a 240Hz refresh rate, stunning HDR, excellent color accuracy for professional work and all the gaming features you need.
But it doesn’t really do anything that we haven’t seen done in offering from Alienware, Asus or MSI. At this point in the game, the only reason to pick one monitor over the other is literally how you feel about the brand and how much you have to spend. Still, after over a month daily driving the 34GS95QE-B, I can confidently say you are getting a fantastic monitor with no discernable flaws to my enthusiast gamer eyes. But a limited warranty, lack of USB Type-C with power delivery certainly put it a step behind the competition.
LG UltraGear 34GS95QE-B OLED Curved Gaming Monitor Review
The 34GS95QE-B monitor employs UltraGear’s new Unity Hexagonal Design language. It’s all about smooth flowing curves and as few harsh edges as possible. The straightest thing about this monitor is its slightly misshapen hexagonal base for the stand. The stand curves ever so slightly and of course the monitor itself has a gentle 800R curve that is just enough to limit eye strain while gaming. Its an overall elegant design that I like – no garish gamery designs but still coming across as a monitor designed for gaming.
The stand offers the usual height, swivel and tilt but no rotation into portrait. It has an oblong cutout for your cables lower near to the base to neatly go out the back. Overall, it’s very sturdy with no wobble and the aforementioned base doesn’t take up a lot of desk space. It’s even handy as a storage area for your phone, controllers or other small desk accessories. The monitor is also VESA mount compatible in case you want a more flexible arrangement.
On the back of the monitor is the new backlighting design that looks very elegant but is still subtle — nothing like Asus ROG’s glowing eye-logo. As usual, this is more for aesthetics appeal than practical backlighting. There are some options in the OSD to change but nothing special.
For ports, the 34GS95QE-B supports DisplayPort 1.4 and two HDMI 2.0 at 240Hz. There’s no USB Type-C video with power delivery, something I absolutely expect in any premium monitor. Concordantly, there’s no KVM switch either. You do get a USB hub with two USB Type-A 3.0 ports and an upstream to connect to your PC though.
Lastly, you get a 3.5mm 4-pole audio jack which allows for both headphone and microphone throrugh the monitor. It’s disappointing that the 34GS95QE-B doesn’t come with speakers. LG’s 32-in 4K OLEDs come with some impressive speakers that even use the panel to direct sound at you. So it’s a shame this one doesn’t get those but you do at least get DTS headphone X spatial audio through the aux port.
Curvy OLED Display
The 34-inch WOLED panel of the 34GS95QE-B has a gentle 800R curve that makes viewing the expansive canvas that much easier. It has a 3440x 1440 pixel resolution with 240Hz refresh rate and 0.03ms response time. This resolution is far easier for most hardware to drive than 4K and everything looks sharp and clear. I never had any issues with text fringing making things hard to read which is one of the improvements in this generation of OLEDs.
I also really love the wide canvas for my day job work as a designer. With support for 10-bit color and 98.5% coverage of the DCI-P3 color space, the 34GS95QE-B is highly color accurate for creative work. Spreading my large Figma design canvas across the display and still having room for my email client and music player is a boon. At night, when I fire up Davinci Resolve, I can get a full view of my timelines with no need for constant scrolling and zooming.
The WOLED panel gets very bright thanks to the MLA+ tech on board that LG says gets up to 37.5% brighter than previous MLA implementations. I don’t have any measuring tools but I have no reason to doubt the official number of 275nits in SDR and 1300nits in HDR peak. I can say this monitor gets quite bright, even forcing me to turn down the brightness in the evenings.
During the day, its very bright and I had no issues making out my content. The panel has an anti-glare coating which really handles reflections very well. Even bright lights shining directly infront of the monitor are reduced to a subtle haze. This makes the monitor perfect for anyone working in bright environments.
As an OLED, colors look absolutely stunning with a richness and vibrancy that is enhanced by the perfect blacks. That contrast and improved brightness makes HDR truly sing on this display. Whether I am on Windows desktop, watching Netflix or playing Diablo IV, HDR content is gorgeous especially when viewed in darker environments.
I love gaming on this monitor. Not only do games run smoothly thanks to the 240Hz refresh and instant response time but they look stunning. This isn’t the first choice for fast competitive shooters given the ultrawide screen but it’s to-die for in single player games. I’ve been playing way too much Diablo IV lately(it’s seriously that good) and dabbling a bit in narrative games like Star Wars: Jedi Survivor, Starfield and Senuas Saga Hellblade 2.
Senua’s latest adventure was designed for ultrawide, cinematic experience and it’s a absolute stunner on this. The night scenes filled with free and smoke as Senua fights off bloodthirsty slavers is fantastic on this 34GS95QE-B. I found playing Call of Duty MW III a bit of a challenge on this wide view but scooting back a few feet and using a controller was less dizzying. FPS players can make use of the monitors aspect ratio controls to adjust the view port.
Speaking of OSD, the 34GS95QE-B has a beautiful, and easy to navigate menu. Inside here you’ll find all the cusory gaming features for picture profiles, crosshairs, black stabiliser, FPS counter and more. Multitaskers can also easily split screen with the Picture in Picture and Picture by picture modes. It’s here as well that you’ll find the OLED care features.
Like most modern OLED’s, the 34GS95QE-B comes with a few built-in safety to prevent the dreaded burn-in. The monitor uses OLED Screen Move to periodically move the screen by a few pixels so as to prevent any from being overworked. There’s also the standard image cleaning which takes about 10 min. Unlike MSI’s monitors, the 34GS95QE-B doesn’t seem to have a set scheduled interval that I could observe to do this mandatory cleaning.
A big caution point when considering this monitor is the lackluster warranty compared to the competition. LG offers only 2 years of warranty when everyone else is offering three. That doesn’t seem to include burn-in so if you drive your monitors hard, then you might lean towards another manufacturer for peace of mind in that regard.
Obviously, after just a month of use, I can’t really speak of burn-in and I use the monitor with all the safety features running, with many breaks where it turns off. I wouldn’t be worried about burn-in personally as I really trust the various improvements in OLED tech over the years. But, that is still a personal choice.
Verdict
So at the end of the day, should you buy the LG UltraGear 34GS95QE-B 34-inch OLED curved gaming monitor? Yes, of course. It’s practically impossible to beat OLED’s when it comes to picture quality and response time. The 34GS95QE-B performs excellently across the board, leaving nothing to be desired in gaming or productive work.
The bigger question is what is your use case? If you do a lot of productivity work but also want a great monitor for immersive AAA gaming experience, then hell yeah. The only downside I can see is the lack of KVM switch and USB Type-C for single cable laptop setups. Is that a deal breaker? Not really but consider that the Asus ROG Swift PG34WCDM, which is about the same price but offers does come with USB-C with 90W of Power delivery and the same panel.
Additionally, the limited warranty compared to the competition is a big smell and if you are concerned about the longevity of your $2000 investment, then this isn’t the one. That said, the LG UltraGear 34GS95QE-B is certainly a stunning monitor and if you can get it at discount, then don’t think twice.
LG Australia kindly loaned the LG UltraGear 34GS95QE-B to PowerUp for the purpose of this review
