LG has announced a new 45-inch ultrawide OLED gaming monitor with a refresh rate of 240 Hz. The company calls the UltraGear 45GR95QE its “first curved OLED display with a 240 Hz refresh rate,” which is remarkable at a time when most OLED displays (including those with flat panels) are still limited to 120 Hz. The company has not yet announced pricing or a release date for the monitor, but plans to show it at IFA in Berlin next month.
A higher refresh rate means a screen looks smoother and less jerky, and video games are more responsive to play, especially when combined with OLED’s near-instant response times. Until recently, it was rare to find an OLED display with a refresh rate above 120Hz, but that has changed in recent months. Youtube Channel HDTVTest reported in May that Samsung’s S95B QD-OLED TV had become the first OLED TV to support a 144Hz refresh rate (albeit unofficially), while Alienware’s AW3423DW monitor, which also uses a QD-OLED panel from Samsung Display, completely up to 175 Hz.
Now, however, we see the appearance of OLED screens that go all the way up to 240 Hz. HDTVTest reported earlier this month that the MSI GE67 HX laptop has the world’s first 240Hz OLED display, and Razer has also announced its own 240Hz OLED laptop. This week we also saw Corsair announce a 240Hz OLED monitor, although the fact that it can be bent manually into a curved monitor took some of the attention away from its high refresh rate.
Aside from the refresh rate, the UltraGear 45GR95QE’s other specs include a 21:9 aspect ratio, 800R curvature, and the ability to display 98.5 of the DCI-P3 color gamut. It has a 1440p resolution, an HDMI 2.1 port with support for variable refresh rates, and an additional DisplayPort 1.4 connector. There are also built-in picture-by-picture and picture-in-picture modes for displaying content from multiple sources side by side.
While the refresh rates of OLED panels are improving, they are still way behind what LCD can do. LCD panels with 360Hz refresh rates are becoming more common and earlier this year saw the first 500Hz Nvidia G-Sync gaming display announced by Asus.
