LG 38UC99-W vs ASUS ROG Strix XG27VQ

Impressive amount of on-screen real estate, excellent picture quality, exceptional connectivity, and great color accuracy puts the LG 38UC99-W above nearly all competitors in the market.

You can charge your laptop and have display output through a single cable thanks to the monitor's USB-C port.

You can access all the general features of this monitor using your mouse and a keyboard thanks to the LG’s On-Screen Control software.

Additionally, the On-Screen Control offers many screen split presets.

Having enough display real-estate to fit three vertically aligned Google Docs windows comfortably, the LG 38UC99-W is an excellent tool to boost up the productivity in everyday office duties, CAD/CAM applications, and many other fields.

Acing the near-cinematic aspect ratio of 21:9, the LG 38UC99-W is an excellent companion to watch movies because you won't see the black bars at the top and bottom of the screen when watching most movies.

The LG 38UC99-W features a built-in 20 Watt stereo speaker system which sounds fairly well compared to the 4-10 W speakers the competitors at this price point offer.

This monitor beats most of its premium competitors in terms of connectivity because it features a USB-C downstream port which has multiple parallel functions. First, you can use it to access the monitor's onboard USB hub. Second, it can be used for charging a USB type C compliant laptop. Finally, you can use it to receive video and audio signal from a computer.

Additionally, the LG 38UC99-W has two HDMI ports, a DisplayPort, and an inbuilt Bluetooth module.

You can connect this monitor to two computers so that each machine use half of the on-screen area. This might come in handy for those who frequently use a stationary desktop computer and a laptop.

Only the best monitors can match the LG 38UC99-W's contrast ratio, peak brightness, gamma, and color accuracy, as the monitor features one of the finest IPS panels in the industry.

The LG 38UC99-W displays beautiful pictures, with deep and rich blacks, vibrant and accurate colors, and good-looking intermediate tones. Despite the fact that the monitor's native contrast ratio is only 1000:1, the dark scenes look deep and intense as the backlight of the 38UC99-W can drop below the brightness level of 0.15 nits, which only the best monitors can do. Colors pop and look vivid, as the 38UC99-W can sustain its brightness above the 300 nits mark. The mid-tones look lifelike thanks to the monitor's near perfect gamma value, which is only 1.3% off from the ideal value.

Moreover, the monitor's color inaccuracies can't be seen by the human eye because it only has an average color error dE of 2.12.

The picture quality of the ASUS XG27VQ is one of the best among all gaming monitors in this price range. This is due to its VA panel that offers high native contrast ratio, excellent peak brightness, great gamma, and fair color accuracy.

The XG27VQ does an excellent job of reproducing deep dark scenes, bright and vivid colors, and some eye-catching intermediate tones. The monitor can reproduce beautiful dark scenes thanks to its native contrast ratio of 3000:1 which allows it to display intense blacks. Colors look bright and vibrant thanks to the monitor's high peak brightness of 300 nits. Mid-tones look life-like because of the panel's nearly ideal average gamma of 2.25.

Additionally, the monitor's color inaccuracies are almost invisible to the human eye as its average color error dE is only 2.6.

FreeSync eliminates screen tearing and stutter, and reduces display lag because it allows the monitor to synchronize its refresh rate to the framerate of your Radeon GPU.

The ASUS XG27VQ supports the FreeSync in the 48-144 FPS range.

This monitor has multiple tools that enable it to display clear and blur-less motion even in the fastest FPS games, allowing this VA panel to compete against faster TN gaming monitors in this price range.

First, the artificial motion blur effect is virtually eliminated by the aid of ASUS's Extreme Low Motion Blur feature, which makes this LCD monitor behave more like CRT monitors.

Second, the monitor doesn't suffer from heavy ghosting as each pixel of the ASUS XG27VQ can change its color in 4ms.

Finally, the motion appears smooth and fluid because of the monitor's native refresh rate of 144 Hz, which enables it to display up to 144 frames each second.

The overall build quality of the ASUS XG27VQ suggests that this is a premium-class product. Each part feels rigid, as if the entire monitor was carved from a single piece of plastic.

You can adjust all the monitor's settings using your keyboard and a mouse thanks to the ASUS's desktop application.

The ASUS XG27VQ makes your overall gaming experience more immersive as its 1800R curved panel gives you the sensation of the screen surrounding you.

Additionally, the panel's curvature minimizes viewing angles on the sides of the monitor which noticeably improves the overall visual consistency of the panel.

The ASUS XG27VQ has a crosshair feature which allows you to add a crosshair to any game. It could improve your performance in games like CS: GO and Rust, where you can no-scope your opponents.

The ASUS XG27VQ offers remarkable gaming performance as it combines superb overall picture quality with excellent motion handling capabilities, well-handled input lag, and high native refresh rate.

Even though no one has tested the monitor's input lag yet, it seems to be within the four-millisecond range according to the general user reviews and the input lag tests of other ASUS ROG monitors from 2016-2017. Such input lag makes the ASUS XG27VQ one of the most responsive monitors in its price range.

The input lag of a monitor corresponds to the time delay between a GPU producing a frame and the monitor processing it. The lower the input lag, the more responsive and connected your gaming experience will be.