Ok. Have been wanting a 5K display since they were relased on iMac. Started to take the plunge with the LG 5K in December but got cold feet.
Decided yesterday to take the plunge. This is what I was currently using:
- 2014 15 inch MBP (2.5/16/512)
- Apple Thunderbolt Display (Purchased in 2012)
I upgraded to this:
- 2017 15 inch MBP (3.1/16/1TB)
- LG Ultrafine 27"
My primary uses of the laptop:
- Interwebbery
- Media
- World of Warcraft (native on Metal)
- VMWare Fusion (run lot of assorted VM's for penetration tests and general cyber stuff)
Brought it home last night, transferred my data and started using it. Was really excited to see the 5K display blow me away. I was pretty underwhelmed. Yes, the menu bar was a bit crisper, and the screen definitely brighter, but not as much as I had expected/hoped.
And laptop performace was suprising as well. It seemed marginally faster, but I did determine that running an ethernet dongle through the LG display capped my bandwidth at around 240mbps verus running the dongle directly off a USB-C port or even off the TB display when I hooked it up as a second monitor. That alone basically has forced me to have two connections since I can't rely on the LG to host my network connection.
To make matters worse, my VM's actually looked worse. Most of my Fusion VM's are Linux/Kali variants and Windows 7. The MacoOS and Windows 10 VM's looked fine but I just dont use those much. (Yes I had VMWare tools setup and fiddled with DPI settings).
Here are my pro's/con's:
Pro:
- More internal storage for VM's
- Lighter Laptop (do quite a bit of travelling)
- Brighter display
- Refreshed products (warranty, lifecycle, etc)
Cons:
- Dongle city (do quite a bit of travelling / more to keep up with and lose)
- Touchbar sucks (hate not being able to bang on the escape key or hit the screen bighttness and audio whenever I want and by feel)
- Unable to use a single connection to streamline docking due to Ethernet performance
- VMWare VM display issues
- Performance jump not as high as expected
- Cost
- LG Monitor seems cheap
So I'm asking, has anyone had a similar experience or want to share an opinion? At this point I'm thinking the $4,500 was not much of an upgrade and that I should return it all and ride it out hoping they release a better solution or when better display options are available.
Decided yesterday to take the plunge. This is what I was currently using:
- 2014 15 inch MBP (2.5/16/512)
- Apple Thunderbolt Display (Purchased in 2012)
I upgraded to this:
- 2017 15 inch MBP (3.1/16/1TB)
- LG Ultrafine 27"
My primary uses of the laptop:
- Interwebbery
- Media
- World of Warcraft (native on Metal)
- VMWare Fusion (run lot of assorted VM's for penetration tests and general cyber stuff)
Brought it home last night, transferred my data and started using it. Was really excited to see the 5K display blow me away. I was pretty underwhelmed. Yes, the menu bar was a bit crisper, and the screen definitely brighter, but not as much as I had expected/hoped.
And laptop performace was suprising as well. It seemed marginally faster, but I did determine that running an ethernet dongle through the LG display capped my bandwidth at around 240mbps verus running the dongle directly off a USB-C port or even off the TB display when I hooked it up as a second monitor. That alone basically has forced me to have two connections since I can't rely on the LG to host my network connection.
To make matters worse, my VM's actually looked worse. Most of my Fusion VM's are Linux/Kali variants and Windows 7. The MacoOS and Windows 10 VM's looked fine but I just dont use those much. (Yes I had VMWare tools setup and fiddled with DPI settings).
Here are my pro's/con's:
Pro:
- More internal storage for VM's
- Lighter Laptop (do quite a bit of travelling)
- Brighter display
- Refreshed products (warranty, lifecycle, etc)
Cons:
- Dongle city (do quite a bit of travelling / more to keep up with and lose)
- Touchbar sucks (hate not being able to bang on the escape key or hit the screen bighttness and audio whenever I want and by feel)
- Unable to use a single connection to streamline docking due to Ethernet performance
- VMWare VM display issues
- Performance jump not as high as expected
- Cost
- LG Monitor seems cheap
So I'm asking, has anyone had a similar experience or want to share an opinion? At this point I'm thinking the $4,500 was not much of an upgrade and that I should return it all and ride it out hoping they release a better solution or when better display options are available.
