27UN850-W Ultrafine Computer Monitor 27-Inch UHD 4K UHD 2160p IPS with VESA DisplayHDR 400 AMD FreeSync and USB-C - White/Silver

Although I am aware this is a productivity monitor first, I was in the market for a 4K60 Monitor that could game well and would not break the bank. I am used to gaming on console so 120FPS support was not something I required as I am satisfied with 60FPS. I did endless amounts of research on various brands in this pricepoint to figure out what would be the best monitor in terms of screen quality and response time. This specific model did not have many reviews in terms of gaming performance, however I did know that LG makes great gaming monitors, this one has a game mode, and I was already looking at the LG 4K model priced below this one. When this model went on sale, I took a risk and purchased it over other highly praised monitors in this price point not knowing if it would be good for gaming, and I can answer that YES it is! Starting with screen quality, brightness is great, contrast is beyond expectation, white, gray, and black uniformity are all top notch, with little to no IPS glow. Colors are accurate and the resolution keeps things sharp. No complaints. For gaming, when you put this monitor directly side by side with a high refresh gaming monitor, it is extremely noticeable that this will not be as fast of a monitor as something gaming dedicated in terms of response time, however it is much more responsive than a normal 60FPS TV or other productivity based screens. I also have a 15 inch macbook retina display, and the response time on this monitor is atleast twice as good. Unless you are an ultra competitive high refresh gaming enthusiast, you will not notice any kind of input lag or poor pixel response in this monitor. It is just as good or better than playing console on a high end TV, and in gaming scenarios, I personally can not tell the difference between the response time on this monitor and my LG gaming monitor. It is only when using UFOTest that the difference becomes very apparent, and this mainly comes down to the difference in FPS. If I ran my dedicated LG gaming monitor at 60FPS, the response would be about the same. In short, if you are used to gaming on console with a TV and are looking for a responsive 60FPS display to prioritize image quality and play mostly singly player games with high settings, get this one and you will not have any regrets. If you are looking for the fastest thing in gaming and play mostly multiplayer competitive games you shouldn't even be reading this review. If you CAN afford it, I would highly recommend a 4K120 gaming monitor for the best of both worlds. In this price point with realistic expectations in mind, this is a fantastic monitor!

I have four 4K monitors: LG 27UN850-W X2, one desk dual monitor setup (will be referred below as LG) Dell U2720Q X2, one desk dual monitor setup (will be referred below as Dell) I use LG, my spouse uses Dell. In my mind LG is better to fit my needs. From my spouse's point of view, Dell is preferred over LG. 1. Why does LG better fit my needs? a) both LG and Dell have anti-glare screens. But I found Dell reflects a little bit more than LG. I have a “designer white” desk. Dell’s reflection is noticeable especially during the evening when using the desk lamp and watching videos. On the other hand, LG does not distract my attention due to glare. The Dell glare issue could be a combination of my desk color and light source setup. But given the exact same setup, LG does not distract my attention due to reflection. b) LG has ports arrangement on the back, rather than at the bottom. I’d like to try different gadgets during the past weeks. The LG’s design makes it super convenient to plug/unplug cables, firetv stickers. Dell’s traditional port design also works well thanks to the best ergonomics stands (will come to it later). Adding devices/cable to Dell just by simply rotating the screen. c) LG has a user-friendly screen control joystick. Dell’s traditional button is not comparable. Again, because I’d like to change settings, and try different gadgets. 2. Why does Dell better fit my spouse's needs? Ergonomics, ergonomics, ergonomics! My spouse needs ergonomic monitor stands. Dell’s design fits the bill perfectly. A complete freedom of adjustment with extremely wide ranges, at any direction. 3. What do the two monitors share in common? They are all very good monitors for regular day to day work/entertainment. Again we are not professional graphic designers nor video editors. For average users like us, you cannot go wrong with either LG/Dell. For most of the time, all our monitors work in reader/office/text mode. When it comes to entertainment, LG/Dell, for me, do not make much difference. I cannot tell the difference when watching videos or playing games, or editing family photos. They look pretty much the same for casual entertainment. I also placed the LG/Dell side by side, playing the same youtube 4K HDR videos with all monitors in full HDR settings, but I cannot tell which is better. They all calibrated to their own standards. In their own “reference frame”, they all look very beautiful. Btw, isn’t the best entertainment to find a job to do what you like? The office/text mode might be the best entertainment mode for me :-) Finally, because this is my serious review under this LG product tag. I will add 3 more points for LG only: 1. LG has a bulky voltage transformer shown in the picture. The power cable on each side of the voltage transformer is about 55 inch (total about 110 inch including the transformer in the middle), long enough for any home office setup. However, for a standing desk, I have to spend a bit extra effort to hide the bulky transformer in the cable management tray. 2. One of the LG monitors has a very tiny issue with the stand. I returned it and bought a new one. The problem went away. 3. LG has a builtin speaker that can be easily used with fireTV stick 4K, just plug and play. If I want to control volume, I’m using the LG monitor joystick, or a separate speaker or a bluetooth (Jabra evolve 75), where output device with builtin volume controls. The joystick also makes the hdmi input switch very easy, fireTV to Nvidia Quadro, very smooth joystick operation. But better to get a 4K HDMI switch.

I was comparing monitors by pixel density vs price and this one was the winner, and sure enough, the device is as advertised–very crisp. I'm using it with a Macbook Pro M1 and a Macbook Air M3. Now that I've had it for 6 months I'm happy to report that after being committed to Dell monitors for the past 15 years, this monitor was both better quality and cheaper than my recent Dell purchase. Also my Dell monitor faces horribly annoying flashing issues every few days with my macbook pro. I will be switching brand allegiance now. For your consideration, I leave this monitor in vertical orientation, and I mostly use it for programming, reading, and writing. I also pile utility apps onto it. It is stellar for these uses. It is far brighter than needed after sundown and during the day it is sufficiently bright for any situation. I plug it into my laptops via a Tobenone doc, and at this time it is set scaled up to 1440p and runs at max of 30Hz (not sure why not 60Hz).

Writing a review for LG UltraFine 27UN850-W. I have been using it for about 2 weeks. Before this model, I bought LG 27U650-W which was the same price in BestBuy as 27UN850-W here, and when I found out i returned it back because it's double more the price in BestBuy. LG 27UN850-W is a very good monitor. It produces nice colors. The 4K resolution is great, it produces crisp fonts, good visibility of icons and overall accurate images. The brightness is very good, up to 350 nits when the brightness is 100%. HDR is not good it produces very sharp edges which do not look good. Contrast is 1000:1 which is ok but it's not the best. This monitor cannot compare to 4K or 5K Apple monitors, however it is very close to them. More expensive monitors about $800-$1000 would probably output same image and contrast quality as Apple stuio monitors. I found for me the best image and contrast quality for this monitor on Vivid settings with brightness of 85%. Overall, this monitor is very good for office work, it is also good for photo/video design and I am sure it is very good for gaming which I didn't try yet.

I bought this monitor for how versatile it would be in my setup. However, the main use is with my ps5. I had no desire to get an hdmi 2.1 4k tv as my display, so i settled for a 60hz 4k monitor. This one fit exactly what i was looking for. The 60hz is fine for the games i play, but maybe not for you. I hear hdmi 2.1 monitors will be released this year, so maybe wait on that if 60hz isnt enough for you. Now for the review. I am very picky about my visual and audio experience and this monitor lived up to my expectations. Out of the box, i really didn't like how the colors, brightness and sharpness looked. it just didn't have the pop of the LG 34gn850 despite being 4k and the 34gn850 being 1440p. Once i adjusted what i could with HDR on, i was a bit more satisfied, but still unimpressed. I then turned HDR off and everything changed. I messed with my settings and used the super resolution on high and that changed my whole perception. I was then very impressed. HDR just ruined the colors on ps5. They just didn't pop. The HDR is useless in my opinion and i wouldn't recommend using it. Super resolution has gotten a lot of hate from the reviews i read and maybe it is bad when used as a regular monitor, but as a gaming monitor, this option on high was perfect for me. I think it is worth getting the newer version that has the feature than an older monitor like the ul and uk if you are using it for gaming. Super resolution gets a 10/10 as a feature from me. The black levels are the main issue here. The blacks are almost grey no matter what settings you try. This doesn't bother me at all and is an issue with the 34gn850 as well. I think its just an ips monitor thing. I used an hp2511x tn panel before this and it had way better black levels, but also had way worse viewing angles. I guess its all up to preference when it comes to tn/ips/va but i think ips is still the best. The color accuracy and pop of the colors make ips the winner for me. The response time is fine. I haven't done any technical analysis of it, but it doesn't feel any different than the tn panel i was using which was also 5ms. Just make sure you set freesync to extended and response time to faster in the settings. This monitor is great if you go through all the settings and tweak it to your liking. Colors stand out, super res is great. response time is good and the 4k is obviously the main selling point. The negatives are not enough to give it less than 5 stars for me, but i could see people having issues with black levels.

Was using Dell u2415 that seemed pretty good for the new Mac mini (8/256) I just got, using HDMI. Dell screen had a few areas that were getting image burn or something, so searched for 27 in 4k replacement. Biggest question was would I notice a significant difference if did get a 4k, well the answer is yes. I got 27UN850-W since I don't need 90w or 60w charging. Not a gamer, not a photo proofer, not a content creator. This screen is really nice, the text is much sharper and clearer, and my eye are not bugged out after extended viewing like they were on the Dell. Cost an issue, oh yeah, the apple display was not happening. Really anything over $400 wasn't happening. Do I need a USB hub, no or ethernet in the monitor-no. Ran the included USB-C cord from the Macmini to the LG screen turned everything on and wow how nice the screen looked. It shows up in system as LG HDR 4K with color profile LG HDR 4K 60hz. It looks super excellent to me. Did try changing the resolution to I guess it was true 4K and everything was sharper, but needed a magnifying glass to read it, so I went back to that original setting as it was perfect. Looking in Hardware Graphics/Displays this is what my Mac was reporting: LG HDR 4K: Resolution: 3840 x 2160 (2160p/4K UHD 1 - Ultra High Definition) UI Looks like: 1920 x 1080 @ 60.00Hz It is silent just like the Macmini. Still quick and snappy. My windows machine has W11 and attach it via HDMI. The joystick control on the LG makes it easy to select what input to display and I had to play with that because it defaulted to some high resolution with 30hz! Everything was really choppy, got it set to a lower resolution at 60hz. This screen will go to sleep with the Mac, and wakes up fast no issue. The included speakers are set with Maxx sound on-which is an attempt to make them sound better-and they do get quite loud, but they are small monitor speakers, and would only be good for voice. At low volume levels music would probably be ok, but I am not using them, and using a bluetooth speaker for way better sound. Stand is stable for me, really easy to put together and get going. The power brick is hidden under desk, not a big deal that it is a small block, cord is plenty long. Well packaged. LG delivered a very nice screen for the money with this one. Super happy that it was plug and play with the Mac, and operates correctly with the Mac. It's a keeper for me. Update April 26 2024---------------- Quick update after using it daily for the last 6 months. No change in opinion, no buyers remorse, no screen issues, still easy on my 60+yr old eyes. Sometimes when reading text I really notice the detail and sharpness and get that happy feeling. Update July 6, 2025-----------------> Still going strong there have been no changes in performance, this has turned out to be a fantastic monitor.

DO NOT BUY THIS MONITOR. I PURCHASED IT IN JANUARY THE FIRST ONE WAS DAMAGED THE SCREEN WAS ALL DIFFERENT COLORS ON THE SCREEN. SO THEY SENT ME ANOTHER IT HAS ONLY BEEN NINE MONTHS AND IT ALSO IS NOT WORKING. I CALLED LG AND THEY BASICALLY SAID TOUGH LUCK. I REACH OUT TO AMAZON AND THEY ALSO WERE NOT HELPFUL. $367.00 RIGHT OUT THE WINDOW. THIS PRODUCT IS AWFUL AND THEY DO NOT STANDBY THE WARRANTY. THEY TRIED TO TELL ME I DAMAGED IT! SO DISAPPOINTED IN BOTH LG AND AMAZON CUSTOMER SERVICE. STAY AWAY FROM LG MONITORS. WISH I HAD READ ALL THE REVIEWS BEFORE I PURCHASED IT!!!!

I bought this monitor to act as a secondary screen for my M3 MacBook Pro as well as a dedicated screen for my older touch bar MacBook Pro with a damaged screen (using it in clamshell mode with a bluetooth Anker keyboard and a Logitech mouse). The quality of the monitor is great, and it's not overly heavy for a 27 inch monitor. It's large enough I could multitask different windows comfortably. The color is great on the Ultrafine, and the 4K resolution looks just as good to my eyes as the native resolution on my M3 Pro MacBook despite the monitor having a max refresh rate of 60 hertz vs. the laptop's built-in 120 hertz display. Having the AMD FreeSync mode built in for gaming does help it look smooth when running games on my computer or my Nintendo Switch (I have yet to try it with my PS5). The USB-C connection on this helps minimize cable usage, as it does charge my laptop at 60w.