LG 27UN850-W Review | Good But With Caveats

Our Conclusion

The LG 27UN850-W can be among the finest options for you at this price range if you don’t mind giving up some smoothness in exchange for good image quality and clarity. However, keep in mind that it is somewhat outdated, and if you do not require a nice stand and ports as well as out speakers, there are undoubtedly better choices, such as the: LG 27UP600 which is about $100 less expensive.

Pros

Great brightness

 High sharpness

 Support for 10-bit colors

 Good out speakers

 Adjustable stand

Cons

Average colors

 60hz

LG has this strange propensity to produce the same monitor under a different name, raise the price, and add a nicer stand. Although the ergonomic version naturally costs more, you can frequently find both in the same price range. 

The non-ergonomic version of the: LG 27UN880-B, which has wonderful features but was a bit on the pricey side, is the one we’re looking into today. Assuming this one is relatively cheaper, it may be a better choice to consider than its expensive version. And that’s what we’ll check out in today’s LG 27UN850-W Review. Is it better than its sibling? We’ll find out below.

Design

This monitor is undoubtedly at the bottom of the list in terms of design for its rear portion.

It is a 27-inch screen.

Unsurprisingly, there is also a 32-inch version of it, as well as another variant with an ergonomic stand. Due to its rough and sharp edges, the rear part of the LG 27UN850-W actually doesn’t even come close to looking as good as its older sibling’s.

The 27-inch model is on the right, while the 32-inch model is on the left.

Of course, such things are subjective, but I’m very confident the vast majority of us prefer the 32-inch display over this one. It feels smoother and looks more straightforward and sturdy.

Well, the fact that this display follows the typical design of older LG monitors explains why they are from the same series but appear to be so distinct.

Usually, you may anticipate this identical design if it is an LG monitor that was released before or during 2020. Either this or the large/thick bezels, I suppose.

In the end, you will not even see the monitor’s back while using it normally, so let’s stop talking about it and get to the important stuff.

Starting with the stand, we have a simpler version of the ergonomic model with adjustability for tilt, height, and pivot.

Therefore, unless you really need the swivel support, or the prices of the other version are the same or cheaper, there is no point in getting that one instead.

The only reason I can think of for choosing that version is to save up desk space since this stand takes up a lot of room. Having said that, you should carefully consider going for the ergonomic version or purchasing an adjustable stand if your desk doesn’t have a lot of free depth space.

Moving on to the other important features, we have the out speakers. 

Although still not high-end speakers, those ones performed far better than we had anticipated.

With such speakers, you get a high volume and strong bass, but the mids and highs lack body. As a result, the sound could be fairly good for gaming and watching movies, but the voices might sound a little strange in podcasts.

Apart from that, the LG 27UN850-W essentially offers the same features as every other LG display from that time. A three-color design with a white back, matte black bezels, and a grey stand. The bottom bezel is still thick by modern standards, but not by an unsettling amount. Fortunately, the three-sided ones are “borderless.” Finally, because of its high-quality materials, it is a little heavier than average, weighing about: ‎13.5 pounds.

Connectors

Now that the speakers have surpassed our expectations, it’s time for the ports to do the same. It contains USB and USB-C ports, both of which were not particularly common on displays at the time. In addition, it is surprisingly rare to find such a good amount of ports for a monitor like this in this price range. It includes 2x HDMI, 1x Display port, 1x USB type C, 2x USB Downstream, and 1x Headphone out.

Features

Panel type

The IPS panel is ideal for you if you want precise color reproduction, wide viewing angles, and no black smearing at all. Unexpectedly, especially in light of current trends, this old monitor did rather well.

To be fair, it has a reasonable viewing angle like every other IPS panel and has some good colors right out of the box.

The VA monitors, in contrast, will have some better contrasting but poorer viewing angles and colors.

However, it has a concerning degree of IPS glowing, which makes it less than ideal for use in a dark environment. In fact, if that’s your primary objective for the monitor, you might pick a VA model instead, such as the: Acer ED273UR.

The handling of reflections is the one feature that really isn’t up to date with modern trends. While conducting several of our tests with this display, the glare was a significant problem.

Sincerely, it was definitely out of the question to engage in competitive gaming under those circumstances. Even routine tasks like reading and flipping between pages posed greater challenges than we had anticipated.

Thankfully, though, the brightness can really go rather high, which somewhat resolves the glaring issue.

Brightness

It is somewhat brighter than 350 nits at its maximum brightness. This is one of the nicest qualities of the LG 27UN850-W in our opinion, especially considering that every other older monitor we tested with the same nits on paper was often worse than what we have here.

That this display doesn’t effectively handle reflections is a great bummer.

In terms of features and brightness ratio, this monitor could rank among the finest in its price range if that feature were just a little bit better.

Since this isn’t truly a “gaming” monitor, very few people will use it to play competitive video games. However, if you do, keep in mind that its brightness will provide you with a little advantage in some settings.

Comparatively speaking, the: LG 27UL500-W monitor has almost the same price range as this one but seemed quite dim, of course, with both on the maximum brightness setting.

Refresh rate and Response time

Naturally, because this isn’t a screen designed for gaming, don’t anticipate it to have the fastest refresh rate and response time ever.

It only has 60hz, which may be plenty if you don’t intend to use the screen for competitive gaming. Still, 60hz is really low in today’s trends, so you might choose something with higher ratios for gaming sessions.

Besides that, if you are used to the better smoothness of higher refresh ratios, it is even harder to use a 60hz screen like this one normally.

However, if your graphics card can’t support a smoother frame rate than 60FPS with the 4K resolution of this monitor, the clarity of the high-resolution screen and the vibrant colors of the IPS panel would likely compensate for the absence of a smoother frame rate.

Having said that, this display worked very well for casual gaming.

Motion blur wasn’t really an issue during our casual gaming sessions, despite the fact that it has a response time ratio that is deemed high (5ms with GTG at most/around 10 typically).

Of course, the IPS glow made it difficult to play with this monitor in a dark environment, but IPS displays often have this problem.

As expected, this display performed terribly in competitive games. The 60hz seemed stuttery and had a lot of visible motion blur, which is not what you would expect from a decent monitor for that kind of application.

That said, if you intend to enter the competitive scene, a better monitor for the job like the: Dell S2522HG would be a better option for you.

Image Overall Quality

It is obvious that they made an effort to make sure that the LG 27UN850-W catered to those who need high image quality attributes. They obviously put in twice as much work for this section.

Starting with the plus points, we have the screen’s high-resolution of 3840 x 2160.

Even while the feature alone is already rather outstanding, a 27-inch display with this PPI makes it practically impossible to distinguish individual pixels at a typical viewing distance.

As a result, you get a very crisp image, which is excellent for immersive gaming and content consumption.

However, there’s a little catch.

Because there is less room for pixels to fit into, they must shrink in size, which causes pretty much everything on the screen to be smaller as well.

The good news is that you can upscale anything to over 100% using a Windows function, so when utilizing this type of zoom, it might not even be a major concern.

Even yet, if you need additional screen space, acquiring a 32-inch 4K monitor is always the better option. The choice of what size is ideal, on the other hand, ultimately rests with you.

In addition, the monitor’s color accuracy is another factor to consider.

The colors weren’t all that striking out of the box.

They tended to be on the cooler side of things, but with a little calibration, you can make them a bit more vibrant. The 99% gamut range it has cooperates that the colors are less vivid but more accurate.

However, given that you can find extremely comparable out-of-the-box colors on a far less expensive screen like the: LG 27UP600, those colors didn’t particularly wow us.

Yet, after calibration, everything was at a reasonably comfortable level to use for media production. But in the end, you can’t avoid the above +500 price tag of this type of monitor if you really require a professional screen with incredible color accuracy.

The HDR 400 function is also supported by this display, which is better than usual in this regard but still falls short of a true HDR experience. If HDR is your primary concern, the LG 32UL750-W could be a better option at this price point.

Having said that, we must not overlook the fact that this monitor includes other appealing characteristics.

Its pricing, on the other hand, isn’t all that appealing at the moment. The clear pictures of its resolution, decent brightness, and wide viewing angles make this monitor not only passable but also fairly average in the price range it seats right now.

Final thoughts

When to buy it

Although the LG 27UN850-W has a couple of good features that may put it at the top of the heap at this price range, you can get really similar models at the same price tag currently. 

The: LG 27UP600 is 100 dollars cheaper and has pretty similar features, although it lacks some USB ports, speakers, and a tilt-only stand. If you need all of those features though, maybe this is the best monitor for you, being way better than the LG 27UL550-W, for example.

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