LG to start producing more W-OLED gaming screens

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Hopefully this will lead to some good quality cheaper monitors on the market.

LG UltraGear
(Image credit: LG)

I never thought I'd see the day, but it seems manufacturers may be uncertain about the future of the large household TV, and are instead looking to the PC monitor for the future of screens. Surprisingly, it looks like one such company is LG, a brand known for producing some of the most popular TVs around, even taking out our best gaming TV award with the LG OLED48CX. Still it's an interesting move from a company that recently announced both the biggest and smallest OLED gaming TVs on the market.

According to reports received by OLED-info, the electronics giant is going to focus on producing white OLED or WOLED panels predominantly around 40 inches. This has a focus on smaller TVs, but also clearly on gaming monitors as the brand plans to start producing 27-inch WOLEDs by the end of this month, with displays hopefully in the wild in Q1 of next year in LGE screens.

When it comes to screens, WOLED can be a bit of a mixed bag. Thanks to the white backlight they can pacify colours and sometimes not have blacks as deep. In saying that, LG has already been using WOLED tech for many of its TVs and they tend to be great for deep blacks and HDR so far. Plus they add gaming features like app support for Nvidia's GeForce Now. As far as track records go, we're expecting some nice panels. Still, it'd be nice to see these smaller panels in action to see how they handle up-close experiences.

The hope is that these new WOLED screens from LG will also come with a nicer price tag. Current OLED monitors of this size from LG are packed with Japan OLED standard panels and a bunch of other features leading to fairly expensive pieces of kit. If LG is producing its own panels this time around, hopefully that will lead to cheaper manufacturing and the passing of those savings onto consumers.

Screen queens

(Image credit: Future)

Best gaming monitor: Pixel-perfect panels for your PC
Best high refresh rate monitor: Screaming quick screens
Best 4K monitor for gaming: When only high-res will do
Best 4K TV for gaming: Big-screen 4K PC gaming

For now LG has just launched the 48GQ900-B UltraGear 48-inch UHD 4K OLED gaming monitor in Australia with an RRP of $AU2,599. This has been out for a while in other parts of the world and sports an official refresh rate of 120 Hz, or up to 138 Hz if you switch it into overclocked mode. Given that delay in release though, it could be that Aussies won't see these new WOLED screens for a little while. 

This comes during an interesting time for gaming monitors. This year we've seen HyperX join the scene with new gaming monitors that come standard with VESA arms. Corsair announced that wild bending monitor, which happens to use an LG-provided panel. It turns out this is the same OLED LG is packing into its new LG UltraGear 240 Hz curved OLED screen, which was only announced a few months back. It feels like things are moving very quickly in the monitor world right now, and I can't wait to see what's next.

Hope Corrigan
Hope Corrigan
Hardware Writer

Hope’s been writing about games for about a decade, starting out way back when on the Australian Nintendo fan site Vooks.net. Since then, she’s talked far too much about games and tech for publications such as Techlife, Byteside, IGN, and GameSpot. Of course there’s also here at PC Gamer, where she gets to indulge her inner hardware nerd with news and reviews. You can usually find Hope fawning over some art, tech, or likely a wonderful combination of them both and where relevant she’ll share them with you here. When she’s not writing about the amazing creations of others, she’s working on what she hopes will one day be her own. You can find her fictional chill out ambient far future sci-fi radio show/album/listening experience podcast right here. No, she’s not kidding.