Color handling

2 ms, contrast at 5000:1, 170° viewing angles from all directions, a stylish look, thin, glossy, and finally, a ''97%'' gamut.  And along with those excellent specs, the L227WT comes at a reasonable price--or at least it could have been a lot more expensive, given the feature list.

Unfortunately, our tests put almost all of these promising claims into perspective. The gamut is indeed wider than usual, but LG neglected to set colours properly, and the result is that they are totally off.  With default settings, the average difference is 7.8: one of the worst measurements we’ve taken in the last few years.  Not a single colour is well rendered!  The greys, for example, are so lacking in blue that they end up looking yellowy-brown.

Blacks are washed out at 0.6 cd/m² with whites at 200 cd/m², giving a resulting contrast ratio of 550:1, a score that is much more modest than the advertised figure (either way this should have included the word ''dynamic'', which actually means nothing).   At this point, we were quite disappointed.  The sRGB setting found in the OSD is a little bit better and the average difference is then 5.8 (a good screen is less than 3) and black is deeper (0.20 cd/m²); however, the monitor then lacks brightness and produces whites at just 160 cd/m².

What it lacks in colours ...
... it makes up for in responsiveness.  We have to admit it is very good, but there is a problem similar to what Samsung went through in mid-2007: the overdrive (a way to accelerate liquid crystals on the panel) doesn’t function as well as it should .  Instead, there is a slight dark afterglow image that is less marked than on the Samsung monitors that were affected last year, but still noticeable.

As for hardware, it is basic but sufficient.  There is a rotating base and digital input (DVI + HDCP) on the back in addition to analog.  Otherwise, it’s not vertically adjustable nor is there a card reader or USB hub.