Sometimes, you don’t need any fancy bells and whistles to be a great gaming monitor. LG’s newest ultrawide gaming monitor excels at the basics, with a decent price to boot.
The LG 34BP65C is a 34-inch curved ultrawide monitor sporting a 1440p resolution, 160Hz refresh rate, and 5ms response time. Gamers will be happy to know that the 34BP65C supports AMD FreeSync Premium to prevent screen tearing, motion blur reduction, and a Low Blue Light mode to reduce eye strain. There’s also Dynamic Action Sync (DAS) to reduce input lag for games that require split-second reactions.
Brightness tops out at 300 nits and the panel itself covers 99% of the sRGB color gamut, which is useful for photo and video editing, as well as consuming content. The monitor isn’t officially certified by HDR, but LG still claims it supports HDR10. Port selection includes a single DisplayPort 1.4, two HDMI 2.0 ports, and a 3.5mm headphone jack.
Finally, the monitor includes two 7 watts speakers and a stand that allows for tilt and height adjustment. You can also use a VESA mount if you prefer a cleaner setup.
The spec rundown isn’t fancy, but it covers the basics for what most gamers would want out of a gaming monitor. Most importantly, it does it for around $520. In our current landscape, where Apple releases expensive monitors with subpar features, it’s nice to see a simple, yet effective monitor aimed at most people.
This is also important because high refresh rate, 1440p resolution monitors are the next step up when it comes to esports titles. According to Nvidia, “1440p 27-inch displays can improve aiming by up to 3 percent over traditional 1080 24-inch displays when aiming at small targets.” Nvidia partnered with several monitor manufacturers earlier this year to announce a number of monitor models that meet that goal.
This newest monitor from LG doesn’t quite hit the 360Hz refresh rate, but then again only high-end graphics cards like the RTX 3080 and 3090 are pushing above 300 frames per second anyway. Gamers with less powerful graphics cards can still benefit from the 160Hz panel and 5ms response time. The refresh rate also makes regular productivity tasks a little smoother.
The LG 34BP65C is available now in the United States through LG’s website or third-party stores like B&H.