LG’s radical new OLED panels push PC monitors to unprecedented frontiers

One of the most exciting PC trends of this decade is the rise of beautiful OLED monitors. They’ve steadily improved year after year, delivering ever more sumptuous visuals at ever-increasing speeds, and at CES 2026, LG revealed a host of new OLED panels designed to improve gaming fidelity even further.

Note that I said panelsnot monitors; as a panel supplier, these LG displays will find their way into other vendors’ monitors as well as LG’s own goodies.

And as a panel supplier, LG is going all out on OLED. OLED has been under attack by the rise of mini-RGB LED panels that build on existing LCD technology, for better or worse. LCD and OLED displays behave very differently, and LG’s new Tandem WOLED and Tandem OLED technologies (its first new OLED brands in 13 years!) push the advantage even further.

Tandem WOLED will appear on larger screens, like TVs and computer monitors, while Tandem OLED will target smaller devices like laptops, tablets and automotive displays. I’m a thirsty and disgusting gamer so for this article, let’s focus on Tandem WOLED.

Officially called “Primary RGB Tandem 2.0”, Tandem WOLED can achieve up to 4,500 nits in full form, or 1,500 nits on PC monitors. One nite is equivalent to the brightness of a single candle, and we prefer laptops to reach 250-300 nits (or more) for optimal viewing, so 1,500 nits is a big number – and one that you can instantly feel and appreciate when seeing the technology in action. The new “Perfect Black Anti-Reflection” technology “provides the world’s lowest reflectance of 0.3%”, ensuring a sharp image even in bright conditions. Better yet, Tandem WOLED supports 99.5% DCI-P3 coverage, an industry term that means its color accuracy is indeed incredibly accurate color.

The “WOLED” comes from an additional white light source, joining the usual RGB trio. “By precisely stacking RGB light sources in tandem, it creates pure white light and near-perfect picture quality: blacks deepen, colors stay naturally true in any environment,” says LG. After seeing it in action, I have to say I agree!

OLED versus mini LED

LG hit the nail on the head with several low-key demos comparing an “affordable” OLED TV to a rival mini LED TV. Mini LED uses standard LCD technology, with approximately 1,500 “block dimming” blocks spread across the screen; OLED can independently turn each of the 33 million pixels on a 4K display on and off.

It makes a huge difference. Mini LED was still much better than most TVs, but it suffered from color inaccuracies and other issues compared to LG’s Tandem WOLED. Since mini LEDs (and all LCD panels) only dim colors in blocks, images can be affected by surrounding colors; you may witness lightening effects of “blooming” around fireworks and nearby colors affecting the appearance of people’s skin or so-called white areas.

None of these appeared in LG’s Tandem WOLED panels. To be fair, these were mostly standardized testing demonstrations to show the extremes, but these extremes TO DO happen, and the results largely match my previous experiences with mini LED and LCD displays.

Unfortunately, I was unable to capture any convincing images of the comparison, as the visual details on the screen cannot be captured by my camera. But trust me: you have to see it to believe it.

OLED panels pushing LG’s limits

At CES 2026, LG announced three new boundary-pushing Tandem WOLED panels to push the boundaries.

First up, there’s a 27-inch gaming OLED capable of hitting a blazing 720Hz at 1080p resolution, or 540Hz at 1440p resolution – ridiculous speeds. It’s not exactly “new” though: the panel already debuted in Asus’ ROG Swift OLED PG27AQWP-W (pictured above) late last year, which blew us away during our review. It earned 4.5 stars (out of 5) and an Editors’ Choice award.

“The Asus ROG Swift OLED PG27AQWP-W pulls out all the stops to deliver best-in-class motion performance and a long list of bonus features,” our synopsis states. Enough said! Well, not really – read our full review for a deeper look at the underlying technology and how it works in the ROG Swift.

The world’s first OLED with a 240 Hz RGB strip pixel structure

LG also introduced an OLED panel featuring the world’s first 240Hz RGB strip pixel structure. “The RGB strip structure arranges the three primary color subpixels in a straight line, significantly reducing visual distortions that can occur at close viewing distances,” LG’s press release states. It “enables highly detailed and sharp graphics reproduction at 160 pixels per inch.”

That’s a lot of geek talk. Let me explain.

OLED panels have a flaw that we don’t always talk about. Yes, deep blacks and vibrant colors look great when gaming or watching videos, but technology often reproduces on-screen text less accurately. Called “fringing,” text on OLED monitors can sometimes appear somewhat blurry and distorted depending on the implementation. I covered this in depth in my review of the Corsair Xeneon Flex (which used an LG OLED panel) in 2023, and you can see sample text taken from that same monitor below.

All those cheesy words LG uses to describe what “240Hz RGB striped pixel structure” basically means makes text look like text. path less bad. LG claims that this panel is “optimized for operating systems such as Windows as well as font rendering engines, ensuring excellent text readability and color accuracy.”

LG showed off the monitor using a world-building game with lots of text, complete with a magnifying glass connected to the screen to show what the sub-pixel RGB screen looks like IRL.

Luckily, I was able to get a glimpse of a real-world monitor with this panel at the Asus booth. Considering that Asus also helped launch these 720Hz/540Hz OLED monitors late last year, I guess Asus and LG are best friends!

Here’s a photo of the just-announced Asus ROG Swift OLED PG27UCWM, using LG’s new panel. The system was pretty locked down, but I was able to call up the right-click context menu to preview the advances in text fringing, and well, it looked significantly better than most competing OLEDs.

The panel uses LG’s Dynamic Frequency and Resolution (DFR) technology to operate at 240Hz in 4K or 480Hz in 1080p. Look for monitors with this new panel to arrive during the second quarter.

LG’s 39-inch “5K2K” gaming OLED

4K? Ha! This was the case yesterday. Acer and LG make 5K gaming monitors the new flagship model at CES 2026.

For LG, this means the introduction of the world’s first 39-inch screen. 5K Gaming OLED, with a standard 21:9 aspect ratio and 1500R curvature. There’s not much to say other than that, but hot fucking It looked luscious in real life – huge, wide and completely filled with high-quality OLED pixels galore.

Once these monitors launch in the second quarter, you’ll want to head to a Best Buy or Microcenter to check them out for yourself – they really are stunning. I’m willing to review one, just saying LG.

Stay tuned to PCWorld (and our live blog) for all the latest CES 2026 news throughout the week!