LG 34UM95 Monitor Review
by Chris Heinonen on June 18, 2014 7:00 AM ESTAnother area where 21:9 displays have shined is in their uniformity. They have had some of the most uniform screens of anything I have tested to date. The LG 34UM95 proves to be a good performer here, but with a couple issues.
As soon as we look at white uniformity we see what the issue is going to be. The upper corners of the display are very dim in comparison to the rest of the screen. If you leave those corners out the rest of the display is very uniform with an all-white screen. The middle 60% of the display is within 3% and even the lower-corners are within 5%. It's those upper corners that are dim that cause a problem with the uniformity.
Black Uniformity is also good except for a bit of brightness in the lower-right corner. The upper corners are darker, which isn’t as much of an issue with black as compared to white. The lower-right corner has a significant rise in black level but very little change in white level. Excluding that point the rest of the display is quite good.
Other than the lower-right corner, the whole display has a contrast ratio of close to 1000:1 with a median of 979:1. The average is dragged down by the lower-right corner as you’d expect but overall the whole screen is good here.
Color Uniformity suffers as a result of the dim corners at the top of the screen. This causes all the color checker samples to miss their target luminance levels and dE2000 errors are higher as a result. As you can see in the center of the screen, uniformity is excellent, but those corners are just not good. The Median color error is only 1.27 but the average falls to 1.65 due to the poor performance in the corners. If you are doing photo work, you can use the center of the screen and be safe, which is basically a 27” display at that point, but avoid the edges due to the light issue.
It is a shame the two upper corners on the LG are so dim. Had they been closer to the rest of the display it would be an excellent performer for uniformity. As it is it only comes in as a very good display. The uniform area is still close to a full 27” QHD display in size, but that is making an excuse for those two corners.
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nathanddrews - Wednesday, June 18, 2014 - link
My solution is simply not to scale anything. Every 4K monitor I've tested out so far (including the UP2414Q) has been great at 1:1. From my experience so far, either people are overhyping the scaling issue or they need glasses. I'm not saying that to be a d!ck - I've got glasses and can see everything clearly with them on.twistedgamez - Thursday, June 19, 2014 - link
this 100%, i can understand some people increasing the page zoom setting bit a little on chrome for example, but there is no reason the UI elements, url bar and any other stuff needs to be zoomed - i love my 2880x1800 at nativecheinonen - Thursday, June 19, 2014 - link
I have the 24" NEC EA244UHD here right now, and without scaling enabled it's unusable to me. Text elements are just too small to read from my regular seated distance so I have to use scaling with it. The 32" 4K monitors have been semi-usable without scaling but the 24" ones just are not IMO.fokka - Wednesday, June 18, 2014 - link
5k is just awkward. 4k content will be upscaled and future 8k will be very much downscaled.same with this model, just with 1080p and 4k.
if you need such an awkward screen for your workflow, go ahead, but for movies it doesn't seem to be ideal.
acejj26 - Wednesday, June 18, 2014 - link
I'm pretty sure 1720:1440 is more of a 7:6 ratio, not 6:5.Death666Angel - Wednesday, June 18, 2014 - link
1720/1440 = 1.194447/6 = 1.16667
6/5 = 1.2
Pretty sure 1.19 is closer to 1.2 than to 1.17. :)
acejj26 - Wednesday, June 18, 2014 - link
1. Too early for me to post my post...no caffeine yet2. Then this isn't a 21:9 monitor, since if it were, each half of the monitor would be 21:18 (7:6)
3. This is nitpicking to the extreme
JarredWalton - Wednesday, June 18, 2014 - link
I wonder if there's a typo on the specs and it's not really 3440 pixels wide? Technically, 21:9 with a 1440 height should be 3360 pixels wide. It's not like 1440 isn't easily divisible by 9 (it's 160), and 3440 doesn't really have any particular importance. I guess you just get a "free" 80 extra pixels in width (again, assuming it's not an error on the spec sheets).Of course, the 2560x1080 displays aren't 21:9 either. The correct resolution for 21:9 would be 2520x1080, so there customers are "gaining" 40 pixels of width. 2560 as a width at least makes sense, though, as there have been lots of 2560x1600/2560x1440 displays. There ought to be some logical reason for the choice of resolution, so perhaps there's a technical aspect to the displays that makes the slightly odd AR easier/cheaper to manufacture. However, I can't think of what that reason would be, at least not for a 3440 width.
DanNeely - Wednesday, June 18, 2014 - link
I don't know why they fudged the width/aspect ratio slightly either; but Google reports a number of companies launching 3440x1440 monitors but nothing at 3360x1440. Possibly the extra width lets them reuse existing production lines, just cutting at different points, with less wastage.japtor - Wednesday, June 18, 2014 - link
I figure they're sticking with the "21:9" terminology for marketing reasons, like it's easy to compare it to the usual 16:9 screens in that sense.