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.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
110 Comments
View All Comments
acejj26 - Wednesday, June 18, 2014 - link
The graph on the top of page 6: "Processing Lag Comparison (by FPS)" and then you have the units on the graph in terms of ms. At a quick glance, it looks like there is 18 FPS of lag which would be ridiculous.inighthawki - Wednesday, June 18, 2014 - link
The only thing ridiculous about it is that it makes no sense because FPS is not a measurement of time, it's a rate.ERJ - Wednesday, June 18, 2014 - link
Dang'it...we've been waiting a month for these to come back into stock (except for the price gougers) and you posting a review is not going to help the situation :)Gambit2K - Wednesday, June 18, 2014 - link
I ordered one this morning to replace my three 23" 1080P NEC screens. Bought them for Eyefinity and have used eyefinity once in 3 years :)RagnarKon - Wednesday, June 18, 2014 - link
Bought three Dell 23" screens for the same purpose. Used Eyefinity four times, and then stopped using it. Now I'm down to two monitors (rarely used the third).BUT, I can get behind this 21:9 monitor. Not ready to order yet though, price too high.
jslater - Wednesday, June 18, 2014 - link
Unless I'm mistaken, this monitor comes with Thunderbolt 2, and not Thunderbolt 1 - do you know if it'll still work alright on an older Mac with only Thunderbolt 1 though?mackjam - Wednesday, June 18, 2014 - link
I was wondering the same thing. According to this form it does work. http://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?f=19&am...crazysurfanz - Wednesday, June 18, 2014 - link
thanks for that link, lots of good information there.DrKlahn - Wednesday, June 18, 2014 - link
I bought a Dell 21:9 (1080) last year. My work machine has 3 1080 monitors, but I don't have the desk space to replicate that at home. This lets me see about a monitor and a half when remotely controlling my work PC. Which is a big improvement. The extra width makes it feel somewhat like a 3 monitor setup. The resolution isn't crazy, so it's not hard for the video card to drive while gaming. Editing video on it is great. The extra width gives you a lot more room to play with timelines. The vertical resolution is no more constraining than a normal 16:9 1080p monitor. Of course the extra resolution of this monitor would only make it better. Just wanted to chime in on using a monitor with this aspect ratio in the real world.cknobman - Wednesday, June 18, 2014 - link
Now just get the price down below $600 and I'll be interested.