Let me start by saying this first: This is a good SDR monitor which is decent for HDR usage - It is not great.
I not going to waste time one reviewing the trivial stuff such as ergonomics and style - you can get that from anywhere on the web. I am going to focus on performance and colour reproduction
SDR performance
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This monitor has a really good SDR performance. It has good colour gamut and brightness and decent contrast ratio (1200:1 native). Colour really pop and it comes packed with several colour profiles. In my experience the most accurate - not the most good looking - profile is the SMPTE-C profile. However I switched to the 'Custom' profile and manually adjusted the other parameters like: colour temperature, rgb levels... and got a better result that has delta Es under 0.68.
The panel has pretty good gray uniformity, but the black uniformity is not that impressive; but, it is not a deal breaker, and you have to expect it from any consumer grade IPS panel.
HDR performance
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The monitor does suppoer HDR signals on both HDMI and Display Ports. It is not a true 10 bit panel; it uses 8 bit panel with FRC. This is pretty common now a days while HDR is still in its infancy. The thing is you wouldn't notice much of difference between true 10 bit and 8 bit+FRC for consumer applications. A true 10 bit panel only makes a difference for true professionals such as Colour graders, those in the photography industry, and movie industry who generate HDR content. If you only want consume HDR games and movies 8 bit+FRC should not be a concern; in fact, there are other more important considerations such as: brightness, contrast levels and black levels.
The peak brightness of this monitor is only 450 nits, while HDR specification requires at least 1000 nits. This is where it gets tricky. The HDR specification was originally developed with TVs in mind; they were not meant for PC monitors which sits much closer to your eyes. For PC monitor 1000nits brightness if unnecessary; such brightness levels could damage your eyes. This is why VESA came up with the DisplayHDR specifications that are meant for PC monitors. This new spec has 3 levels DisplayHDR 400, 600 and 1000 - the number indicating the target brightness level. So this monitor KIND OF meets the entry level DisplayHDR 400. I says kind of because while it meets the brightness level requirement, it does not meet other criteria listed in the specification - so this is not a DisplayHDR certified monitor.
Contrast levels should be around 10,000:1 for good HDR performance. This is required for showing details within dark areas; a lower contrast will result in the dark areas being too dark or grayish hiding away the details in them. Sadly, this monitor does not even come close to 10,000:1. The monitor only has 1200:1 contrast ratio. This is expected from IPS panels. VA panels on the other hand offers better contrast ratios and hence better rendering of black and dark scenes - but they suffer from bad viewing angles and does not provide great colour accuracy.
The black levels on this monitor is also not that great. In a dark room, blacks appear dark grey. It is not much of a problem in a moderately lit room. This is due to the lack of local dimming. There are IPS monitors with local dimming, but they are insanely expensive.
So the HDR performance is just decent. The main reasons by it fails to provide a great HDR experience are the lack of local dimming and average constrast ratio.
That being said, let me remind you one thing: HDR on PC monitors is in a messy state. I have not found any monitor that meets all the HDR criteria yet. Some new panels are expected to come out by mid-2020 that could improve this. But at the moment there is no point in wasting a lot of money for better HDR performance as the gains don't justify the price.
Gaming performance
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Very good monitor for gaming; at 5ms the response times are really great for casual and semi-pro gamers. The only serious limitation is the 60Hz max FPS. But then again, running modern games at 4K at even 60Hz would require a beast of a PC; so, I wouldn't worry about that for now.
If you are a professional gamer or mostly play fast paced games like CS, you should look elsewhere; this is not the monitor for you.
Multi-media performance
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This is a really great monitor for watching moives and streaming live sports coverage. The colours look really impressive and as long as you are not sitting in a really dark room, the black levels are also decent.
Even though the monitor is limited in its HDR rendering capabilities, it does manage to make a significant difference. I have watched several 4K HDR Hollywood movies and they looked amazing. I have found that sitting in a slightly lit room gives you the best experience with this monitor.
General usage performance
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Becasue of the high pixel density of this monitor everything is crisp and clear. You will notice no aliasing with text. In Windows a scaling factor of 150% is required to make texts readable.
Usual Issues with IPS
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Backlight bleeding: Backlight bleeding is when the LED backlight steals its way through the panel into the foreground. This usually manifests as a whiter or yellow tint around the edges. Sadly almost every IPS panel has this problem. And the panel I got hs this issues, although not very serious. I can see a tint of yellow in places along the bottom border. This appears to be caused by the bezel pushing a bit too much into the panel; indicating a manufacturing oversight. However this only becomes visible when brightness is increased above 50. However when in HDR mode, the monitor switches to high brightness and this bleed becomes noticeable, especially when the scene is dark. If the content you are viewing - games or movies - is not too dark or black it is not an issues. But when you are watching movie with top and bottom black bars, this yellow tint is a bit annoying.
One thing to remember here is when it comes to IPS there is a thing called panel lottery: no two panels are the same, it will depend of your luck; you may end up with a really good or a bad one or something in the middle.
IPS Glow: This monitor does have IPS glow as does any other IPS panel. Unless you are in really dark room and watching dark content at an angle, this wouldn't be a problem
Check the attached image: The whitish overlay is IPS glow. The yellow tint inside the red circle is Backlight bleed. NOTE: IPS glow and bleed always look exaggerated when photographed. It is not that profound when watched in person.
Usual Questions Regarding HDR:
1. Does this monitor support 4K HDR @ 60Hz over HDMI?
Yes, it does. The HDMI ports on this monitor are HDMI 2.0 and supports HDR meta data. One thing to remember is to enable ULTRA HD Deep Color from the monitor settings for the HDMI port you are using.
2. Does this monitor support 4K HDR @ 60Hz over Display Port?
Again, yes. Now this is something a lot of people seem to be confused about. LG data sheet says that the monitor has DisplayPort v1.2. Now the version 1.2 originally did not have any specification for HDR meta data; this was added only in Display Port 1.4. Now the thing is there are no Display Port 1.2 or Display Port 1.4 devices. These numbers - 1.2, 1.4 - are just versions of Display Port specification document. So a manufacturer could implement a device with a Display Port and implement some features from v1.2 and some from v1.4. This is what LG has done. They have implemented support for HDR metadata into this monitor. So if you connect this monitor to the display port of a source device (Console, PC ...) that also has implemented the HDR metadata support, it will accept 4K HDR signal at 60Hz. At the moment, GTX 10XX and newer cards support this. GTX 9 series does not have support for HDR meta data.
3. How to enable HDR on the monitor?
There is nothing to enable. When the monitor receives and HDR signal, it will automatically switch to HDR mode
4. How to enable HDR on Windows 10?
To use HDR on Windows, you have to first enable it. To do that go to Display Settings - you'll see a toggle there that says 'Play HDR Games and apps'. Just enabled it. Note that this will result in everything else in Windows will look washed out. This is normal and is a known problem when Windows tries to map SDR content to HDR colour space. Unfortunately there is no way around it. Hopefully Microsoft will come up with some solution.
Alternatives:
From my research, there is only one alternative around this price range:
Benq EW3270U - This is a VA panel and provides much deeper blacks and contrast ratio. But it has very limited brightness and viewing angles.
Summary:
A very good monitor for the price asked. Does support HDR at 4K 60Hz. Has common IPS issues like IPS Glow and Backlight bleeding - but nothing too serious. Very good SDR colour gamut. HDR performance is limited due to average contrast and brightness levels. Great viewing angles and pixel density.
| Brand | LG |
|---|---|
| Model Name | 27Qn600 |
| Hardware Interface | USB Type C, HDMI |
| Resolution | QHD Wide 1440p |
| Special Features | Wireless, Bluetooth |
| Display Technology | LCD |
| Standing screen display size | 27 Inches |
| Viewing Angle | 178 Degrees |
| Screen Resolution | 2560 x 1440 |
| Refresh Rate | 75 Hz |
| Connector Type | DisplayPort, USB Type C, HDMI |
| Mounting Type | Wall Mount |
| Actual viewing angle | 178 Degrees |
