Which OLED Gaming Monitor is Best For 2025? LG vs?ROG
Which 2024 OLED Gaming Monitor is Best? LG vs?ROG
Today I’m going to show you the difference between probably two of the most popular OLED gaming monitors of 2024.?
We have the LG UltraGear 32GS95U and the Asus ROG PG32UCDM. Now, these are both 32-inch 4K OLED monitors with incredible specs, but they do have some big differences that set them apart. So in this article, I’m going to compare the two side by side to hopefully help you decide which one’s best for you.
As always, any questions you’ve got, just drop those below, and I will try to get back to you.?
Specs
Okay, so before we talk about the main differences, here’s a quick rundown of the specs. As mentioned, they are both 32 inches with a 4K resolution that supports up to 240 Hz. They have two HDMI 2.1 ports and a DisplayPort. They also support 1440p VRR and over 1,000-nit peak brightness.
So, on first impressions, these appear to be pretty similar, but there are about 10 things that could sway your decision one way or the other, with one of them being the new Dual Mode on the LG, which unlocks 480 Hz. But more on that later.
Design And?Branding?
So I wanted to very quickly touch on the design of these two monitors. I think on first impressions they both look great and have a premium look to them, but the ROG definitely looks more like a gaming monitor with its branding and overall appearance. The LG, on the other hand, looks a lot more minimal and clean, with practically no branding at all.
Now, looking around the monitors, they both have pretty slim bezels and borders around the screen, and the overall profile of the panels is relatively thin.?
There is, however, this huge chin at the bottom of the ROG with a red logo built in, along with a red LED shining onto the desk.?
Even though you can turn this LED off in the settings and go for a full blackout look, you’re still going to be stuck with this piece sticking out of the bottom of the screen. Whether you like this notch at the bottom of the screen is personal preference, but it definitely looks so much better with the LEDs off.
As for the LG, there’s no branding at all on the front of the screen, so it instantly looks a lot cleaner.
?There is some minor branding on the base of the stand, including the LG and UltraGear logos, but that’s it. Stick this on a monitor arm, and it is ultra clean.
Even though you never really see the back of these screens, here’s what they look like. Both have some LED lighting, where the ROG logo makes up part of those LEDs, whereas the LG has gone for two strips of LEDs on either side. Yes, the LG looks cleaner, but again, you never really see the back of these screens apart from when you unbox them.
Even though both of these screens have LEDs on the back, neither of them is bright enough to really work as ambient lighting. So, if you want to go for that RGB gaming vibe, you’ll still need to add your own LED strips to the back.
Glossy VS Matte?Screen
Now, you’ve probably noticed this already, but the coating of these two screens is very different.?
The ROG is glossy, which is something that a lot of us have been asking for, whereas LG uses an anti-glare, low-reflective coating.
Now, which is better is personal preference, really, but let me show you the main differences between the two and my experiences so far.?
So, the glossy finish means we’re getting deeper and better colors, image clarity is slightly improved, and the overall picture quality is sharp. But there is a downside to having a glossy screen, and that’s the obvious reflection issues.?
If you’ve got a bright room or you’re placing it opposite or near a window, you’re going to see this, and it could be distracting for you. But as we have this with most OLED TVs anyway, you just need to manage the light in your room. If you’re playing in a dark room or at night, though, this would be of no concern to you.
Then there’s the LG, which has a matte or anti-glare coating. I know this is an interesting subject, as there’s a clear divide between who prefers matte and who prefers glossy.?
Now, the advantage with matte is you don’t need to worry too much about the lighting or reflections in your room, and that’s because the anti-glare coating does a great job of diffusing those reflections. But when there’s any kind of coating added to a screen, you’re going to have some kind of compromise.?
In this case, the image looks a little bit flatter while viewing it during the day due to that matte finish.
Now, personally, I don’t mind the matte finish, as my room is pretty bright, and at night or in a darker room, the finish of the screens makes almost no difference at all anyway.?
Picture Quality?—?Which is The?Best??
Over the last few weeks of using and testing both of these screens for gaming, I’ve come to the conclusion that they are both great.?
They both look incredible when you throw any 4K content at them, but there are some differences and compromises that you’re going to need to make if you’re seriously looking at these two screens, as unfortunately neither of these tick every single box.
One of the biggest specs that we’ve seen mentioned about the new LG monitor is the new MLA Plus tech. This is what’s supposed to give us a brighter screen. Well, the good news is it does on paper. The ROG has a peak brightness of 1,000 nits, while the LG is rated at 1,300 nits. I’ve tested this, and I’ve seen similar results on a 3% window.?
Although while using them, it’s not a night and day difference as you might first expect. It is so marginal that most will struggle to tell which is supposed to be the brighter screen. In fact, if you take away the white color test and do a real-world HDR test, I actually found the QD-OLED appears brighter in some games and scenes.
That said, they both get bright enough for normal gaming use in both SDR and HDR, although the jump isn’t what I originally hoped for. But that’s typical, as QD-OLEDs will be slightly brighter than WOLEDs anyway. It just means the MLA Plus tech has closed the gap rather than surpassed it.
Then we have colors and image quality, which are really impressive on both screens.?
The LG has a DCI-P3 color gamut of 98.5%, while the ROG states 99%.?
This means, on paper, the ROG’s color reproduction and vibrancy of colors is slightly better. Now, this is something that we expected to see, as the QD-OLEDs are often better in this area, so it’s not really surprising.
Black Levels
Okay, so another area worth comparing are the black levels. We know that OLEDs are incredible at producing those inky blacks, and it’s one of the biggest selling points of an OLED.
Now, there is a difference between the two, and that’s because the LG is using a WOLED panel, while the ROG is using Samsung’s latest QD-OLED panel.?
The LG has very good black levels and has a display HDR true black level of 400.?
You can see above there are no compromises at all on the black levels. Even with the matte or the anti-glare coating, the blacks really are jet black, and if you can get the lighting right in your room, it produces some of the best blacks you can get from a monitor.?
I can watch this during the day or night, or with my studio lights on, and it consistently looks perfect.
Then we have the ROG. Since this is using a QD-OLED panel, we’ve got a couple of compromises here.?
The first is that, as it’s a glossy panel, if you’re viewing it during the day or in a well-lit room, the black or dark areas will reflect, which means you might struggle to see what’s on the screen. The other issue is the slightly raised blacks.?
It’s a trait that we’ve seen with QD-OLED TVs as well, but due to the anti-reflective coating that’s being used, when a light source is directly shown onto the screen, the black levels appear to be raised.?
Now, this might not be something that bothers you, but you won’t get the same level of black as you would from the LG.?
You can see this quite clearly here when you show the same black or dark image on screen, and the ROG looks more gray than jet black.
Now, for me personally, I actually prefer to see the black levels appear to be more black than gray, and it’s definitely one of the downsides of a QD-OLED, which does put me off using this one.?
But there is one feature that the ROG monitor has over the LG monitor, and that’s Dolby Vision support. This means for the content that you watch that supports it, you’re going to get a far nicer and better experience. It’s something that I often look for when I’m choosing a movie or TV show I want to watch, as I much prefer watching it in Dolby Vision.?
You know what is actually surprising? That we don’t get this support on the LG monitor, as they do feature it on our OLED TVs.
Performance (4k?240HZ)
Now, when it comes to the performance of these two screens, they are pretty much the same. They both offer that 4K resolution and support up to 240Hz. They also support VRR (variable refresh rate) and give us Nvidia G-Sync and AMD’s FreeSync Premium Pro, so games will run smooth and stutter-free.
They are both also rapid with a gray-to-gray response of 0.03 milliseconds. I’ve been using it today to play the new Warzone update, and I’ve been swapping between the two screens just to test them out, and to be honest, they have both been incredible.
Oh, and for those who asked via email, this is a Scuf controller that looks like an Edge controller. I spec’d this a couple of months ago because I liked the look of the Edge controller, but I wanted the extra paddles and the buttons that come with the Scuf.?
Now, if you are a console gamer, it will obviously support the 4K and 120Hz that you need, and if you’re on PC, well, you can make the most of the full 4K and 240Hz. But there’s one feature that the LG offers over the ROG, which is the new dual-mode switch.?
This is a physical button that allows the monitor to switch between 4K at 240Hz and 1080p at 480Hz. Now, this is quite a niche feature, as it’s aiming at PC players who want to make the most of 480Hz while playing competitively but are also happy to drop the resolution down to 1080p as opposed to 1440p.?
Most monitors that support a high refresh rate like this don’t also offer 4K, so the fact that you can have both a 4K screen at 240Hz and a 1080p screen at 480Hz means it’s a pretty big deal?—?it’s like having two monitors in one if you need both of these features.
Speakers
Now, I would guess that most of us use external speakers or headphones while we’re gaming, but if you needed or wanted to, the LG does have internal speakers built into the screen.?
This means on the rare chance you want to sit back and watch something straight from the monitor with sound, well, you can. I’m not saying this is a huge selling point of the LG, but it’s definitely convenient to have them built in when you need it.?
Also, the speakers they are using are classed as pixel sound, so instead of the speakers being downwards or backwards-firing, they come through the screen instead. This will create a far more immersive experience, and they actually sound okay.?
I’m not saying I would replace my headphones with these, but the fact is I can play the odd game with sound through the monitor instead of wearing headphones.
USB-C?
As for ports and connectivity, on the whole, both of these share the same options around the back. We’ve got two HDMI 2.1 ports, a DisplayPort 1.4, and some USB ports as well.?
That’s all pretty standard, so not enough to sway you one way or the other.?
However, the ROG does come with a USB Type-C port, which is a huge advantage over the LG. This will not only allow you to connect your laptop or MacBook to it and use it as a productivity monitor, but you will be able to charge it as well.?
This instantly makes the ROG a viable monitor that can be used for both gaming and productivity, whereas on the LG, you would need to use adapters or HDMI, which won’t charge your laptop at the same time.?
So yeah, if you were looking for a single monitor that you could use for both gaming and work, the ROG is awesome.
Oh, and the ROG also has a smart KVM switch, whereas the LG doesn’t. This allows you to use multiple devices with a single keyboard or mouse.?
Menus and?Settings?
If we take a quick look at the menus, you’ll see they’ve got very similar options in settings.?
You can see what resolution and frame rate you’re running at, change the picture profiles, adjust brightness and colors, and enable a few different gaming settings as well, like the crosshair or FPS counter.?
Oh, and they both have OLED care settings like pixel shift and screen savers. To be honest, I just set these to default and let the monitor run the regular pixel cleans when the monitor is off.
In case you wondered, neither of these come with a remote control like we’ve seen with previous versions. I guess nobody used the remote control, and that’s why they got rid of them.?
Warranty and?Pricing?
We have got to talk about the warranty and the price of these screens. First, the warranty.?
The ROG comes with a 3-year warranty that states it will also cover you for burn-in, and that is a huge selling point. It’s something a lot of us ask for, and it will give you peace of mind while playing.?
The LG, on the other hand, comes with a standard 2-year warranty as opposed to three, and it does not specify burn-in anywhere in the warranty. So the fact that it’s not mentioned would normally imply it’s not covered either.?
If you are using this as a desktop or productivity monitor, it might be something worth bearing in mind.
As for the price, well, neither of these are cheap, and even with all of the features and the specs they are packing, it is hard to justify just how much this will set you back. So, are you ready for it??
The ROG comes in at $1,300, while the LG comes in at $1,400.?
This pricing kind of blows my mind. I mean, that is more expensive than a 42-inch LG C3 OLED, and whether it’s worth it again comes down to the features that each of these offer and if you see value in them.
Which Monitor Is The?Best??
If you ask me which monitor I would buy, I would honestly struggle to give you a straight answer. There are so many factors here, including the overall design, if you like a matte or glossy screen, the risk of burn-in and the raised blacks, the dual-mode switch and if you’d actually use it, and of course, the price.?
Right now, I think I would pick the LG based on the matte finish, which works better in my room, and the ultra-clean branding.?
But I would actually recommend the ROG due to the lower price, the 3-year warranty, the USB-C port, and the improved colors.?
Unless you really need that 480Hz mode, then go for the LG. But then, of course, if you’re on a console like me, the dual mode is pointless anyway, so it really comes down to the screen coating.
Either way, there are compromises to make on either of these two screens, and you need to weigh out which one you think is better for you.?
But let me know which of these two monitors you think is better or which one you would rather have in your setup.?
Would it be the LG or the ROG, or maybe something else? Well, hopefully, I answered everything that you needed in this article, but any questions I missed, just let me know below.?