Hands-On With LG's $1,500 34WK95U UltraWide 5K Display

[androvboy]

Went to Microcenter today where they have a 2018 Mini with the 34WK95U on display: same 18 seconds wake from sleep I am seeing at home, so it is not a faulty Mini/cable/monitor. Then I plugged the same Mini's TB3 cable into the LG UltraFine 5K next to it and found that this combination reliably wakes up in under 6 seconds. WTF...

In my house we have both the original LG from Apple, and the 34WK95U.

The Apple LG wakes instantly, the 34WK95U is a tricky beast. The bodge is to set your Energy Saver settings to disable the "put hard disks to sleep when possible".

I think a fix will come along eventually. I had lots of problems as a first adopter (until we got an Apple upgrade and then it was better).

 

[Alexander46]

My 2013 Mac Pro can't run this which is too bad. I'll stick with my ten year-old 30" ACD. I'm eager to see the 2019 Mac Pro and new display from Apple.

I am using this display with a 2010 Mac Pro 5.1 equipped with the Sapphire Radeon Pulse RX 580 video card via the DisplayPort, which is DP 1.4. It's a 5K connection scaled to 3440x1440. However, I can't use the built-in speakers but this can be easily remedied by employing external speakers like the Klipsch R-15PM in my case. I highly recommend this monitor and you should be able to use it with your Mac Pro 2013 too.

Alexander

 

[mwiggles]

I have both the new 2018 Mac Mini and the LG 34WK95U 5K2K widescreen display. I can tell you that it has been nothing but problems. Worst first use experience for any Apple product I've ever had. The mini has sync/handshaking issues with this display and will often just stay blank when waking from sleep. The mini is awake and active since I can screen share into it. Sometimes removing the TB3 cable and reinserting will 'wake' the video display, but more often it won't. Reboots are hit and miss as to whether I will get any video display. I know the display is fine since I used it on another Mac and it works fine. Thought the mini was a lemon but then found MANY threads on Apple Support site referencing issues with external display problems and the new mini. Those problem mirror my own.

I have a support case escalated with Apple Support. They acknowledged the issue and Apple Engineering is aware and working on a fix. The hope is that it will make it into the 10.14.4 release. Essentially I have $3500 of gear that is not really usable. Returning the mini just leaves me with a $1500 display I can't use. Getting a replacement mini is unlikely to solve the problem. Have done EVERYTHING to solve this including wiping the internal drive, multiple OS reinstalls, installing 10.14.4 beta 3 (which has it's own issues with BridgeOS on the mini). None of it works.

So I would say stay away from this configuration until you get confirmation that Apple has fixed the issue.

 

[THE ONE!!]

So, this...like...supports HDR?

Too bad Mac OS doesn't. Windoze is another story...

If I live to a hundred I'll never like understand why folk actually type LIKE in a setence .. it's bad enough in like spoken English. But like.. really... like!!

 

[toke lahti]

I have both the new 2018 Mac Mini and the LG 34WK95U 5K2K widescreen display. I can tell you that it has been nothing but problems. Worst first use experience for any Apple product I've ever had. The mini has sync/handshaking issues with this display and will often just stay blank when waking from sleep. The mini is awake and active since I can screen share into it. Sometimes removing the TB3 cable and reinserting will 'wake' the video display, but more often it won't. Reboots are hit and miss as to whether I will get any video display. I know the display is fine since I used it on another Mac and it works fine. Thought the mini was a lemon but then found MANY threads on Apple Support site referencing issues with external display problems and the new mini. Those problem mirror my own.

I have a support case escalated with Apple Support. They acknowledged the issue and Apple Engineering is aware and working on a fix. The hope is that it will make it into the 10.14.4 release. Essentially I have $3500 of gear that is not really usable. Returning the mini just leaves me with a $1500 display I can't use. Getting a replacement mini is unlikely to solve the problem. Have done EVERYTHING to solve this including wiping the internal drive, multiple OS reinstalls, installing 10.14.4 beta 3 (which has it's own issues with BridgeOS on the mini). None of it works.

So I would say stay away from this configuration until you get confirmation that Apple has fixed the issue.

So this was fixed in 10.14.4?

EDIT1:
I started assembling my mini2018 + 34WK95U + ram upgrade + part home dir to ext ssd + part home dir to ext hdd + hp omen + old nvidia card + bunch of other things...

With 10.14.2 mini couldn't even drive the LG with native rez, with 10.14.4 it can, but TB will still freeze when putting mac to sleep.

Have you had any response from LG about this?
Any fw updates to the monitor?

EDIT2:
Installing LG's "onscreen control" sw does not help...

 

[toke lahti]

Onscreen Control says that my monitor's fw version is "(3.02, 2.14)".
@mwiggles , you have the same version?

 

[mwiggles]

So this was fixed in 10.14.4?

EDIT1:
I started assembling my mini2018 + 34WK95U + ram upgrade + part home dir to ext ssd + part home dir to ext hdd + hp omen + old nvidia card + bunch of other things...

With 10.14.2 mini couldn't even drive the LG with native rez, with 10.14.4 it can, but TB will still freeze when putting mac to sleep.

Have you had any response from LG about this?
Any fw updates to the monitor?

EDIT2:
Installing LG's "onscreen control" sw does not help...

I just got 10.14.4 installed after running into the SAME BridgeOS crash issue that I saw in the beta. I, again, had to wipe the internal drive to get it installed and then restore from backup. So haven’t had a chance to connect the LG widescreen to verify the fix. I did see that one of the fixes in this update is targeted at the Mac mini monitor issues so I’m hoping this does it. Will report back later today.
[doublepost=1553697551][/doublepost]

Onscreen Control says that my monitor's fw version is "(3.02, 2.14)".
@mwiggles , you have the same version?

I have never seen a way to update this display’s firmware using the LG controls. I will confirm my versions when I get it installed later today.