Curved monitors are nothing new, but that doesn't mean they're not still mightily impressive to sit in front of. When you take into account the vicious arms race in monitor specs that has been taking place in recent years, you start to realise why big manufacturers like LG are repeatedly being forced to up their game.
At an event a few days ago I got the chance to go hands-on with a monitor that LG says is one of its most in-demand ever, and one of the best gaming monitors you can find: the LG UltraGear OLED 45GX950A, which it announced back at CES.
This is a monster in every sense of the word, starting at a chunky $1,999, £1800 or €1,899 – if you can find it in stock. LG's spokespeople confirmed that the monitor practically flew off the shelves at pre-order, smashing expectations thanks to the hype that had built up around it. Units are therefore hard to come by right now.
The long and short of it? This is the world's first 45-inch OLED curved monitor with a dual-refresh rate option, and it brings a whole heap of other welcome features to the table to augment that somewhat convoluted boast. In practice, it's a quite unreal gaming proposition if you can afford it and have a PC to match.
LG has carved out a niche in the curved monitor market by going for an aspect ratio of 21:9, which is taller than typical and therefore a little more space-efficient. You can feel that real estate when you use one, but there's no getting away from how sharp the 800R curvature is – if you're used to flat screens, it'll feel like another world.
That ratio also makes the 45GX950A the world's first 5K-by-2K (or 5120x2160) monitor, according to LG, which is a nice bar to set. It can power that absurd resolution at a refresh rate of 165Hz, but has another killer feature on that front. If you're playing something competitive where you want a tighter crop on your screen, you can activate a setting to crop the screen down to a way tighter crop that can poll at 330Hz for a big boost in smoothness.
That makes the monitor less pigeonholed into certain genres, and more adaptable, which is welcome at the price. That focus on being more usable also means there's a really excellent matte anti-reflective coating that doesn't dull the OLED image, and LG also redesigned the monitor's stand.
Rather than a huge V that requires acres of desk shape, it's now a flat six-sided plate that frees up a wide slice of your desk, to be used as you see fit. It's far more elegant, in my opinion.
Playing a slice of Hades (and a little League of Legends, not my forte), it was immediately obvious how immersive the monitor could be with the right choice of game. I think anyone weighing up this sort of purchase needs to get to a store to see one in person, frankly, because it's so much more dominant on your desk than you might realise wihtout that test.
If you're happy to go for it, though, when the 45GX950A is in stock it'll represent a pretty unimpeachable option in the world of curved gaming monitors. You won't find this many boxes ticked by many competitors, and the lusk blacks of its OLED screen underline how few compromises it brings to the table.
The addictive and immersive qualities of gaming can sometimes be overplayed with ill intent, but when you sit in front of a monitor like this and play for a while, you'll start to see just how much that curve can suck you in. The 45GX950A is as close to a portal to another world as I've tried in ages, and that's quite a powerful endorsement.
