LG Ultrafine 6K announced

[EugW]

TFTCentral has reviewed the LG UltraFine 32U990A, but it's currently hidden behind a Patreon paywall.

LG UltraFine 32U990A Review - TFTCentral

With a 31.5” Nano IPS Black panel and a 6K resolution of 6144 x 3456, this professional display in the World’s first 6K screen with Thunderbolt 5

tftcentral.co.uk

I don't know how long they usually leave the paywall in place for their articles before releasing them publicly for everyone.

 

[EugW]

TFTCentral has reviewed the LG UltraFine 32U990A, but it's currently hidden behind a Patreon paywall.

LG UltraFine 32U990A Review - TFTCentral

With a 31.5” Nano IPS Black panel and a 6K resolution of 6144 x 3456, this professional display in the World’s first 6K screen with Thunderbolt 5

tftcentral.co.uk

I don't know how long they usually leave the paywall in place for their articles before releasing them publicly for everyone.

Review is live now for everyone.

 

[EugW]

Summary: TFT Central really likes this monitor, and they give it their TFT Central Approved award.

Excellent native contrast at 1992:1 measured, with excellent contrast uniformity. This is significantly higher than the Asus model. This can be improved to 2500:1 local contrast ratio with the low local dimming setting. It has 16 local dimming zones, but it is edge lit. I’ll have to see, but I don’t know if I’ll actually use their local dimming at all or will just turn it off completely.

Flicker-free - No PWM used.

There is excellent white uniformity on a fully white screen with no strange colour casts, but there is mild vignetting present in the corners which isn’t surprising.

There is no mention of backlight bleed, so I assume there isn’t any. Other reviews don’t show backlight bleed either. In contrast, I’ve seen multiple reports of backlight bleed in other 6K models.

99.4% sRGB
98.0% DCI-P3
99.6% AdobeRGB
80.9% Rec. 2020

Standard factory colour presets range from excellent to poor colour accuracy depending upon the setting. However, there are specific colour space emulation settings that improve this significantly for each colour space, but really it should be manually calibrated. With manual calibration, it achieves excellent colour accuracy, with average 0.4 delta E and maximum 1.5 delta E. (2 delta E is considered excellent.)

600 nits but 900 nits peak <— It’s interesting that they didn’t advertise the 900 nits spec.

Still waiting on mine. In Canada, shipments are supposed to start in 10 days. I asked LG Customer Support if that’s accurate for my order or not, but they had no clue.

 

[EugW]

I think this person got paid for this. The color performance is way worse than $2000 price tag.

According to the TFT Central review, the full native colour space of the panel is way, way larger than sRGB, and larger than DCI-P3 and even AdobeRGB too. I'm not sure what colour space you are using, but I assume it's not AdobeRGB.

In the standard default "Custom" setting, both sRGB and DCI-P3 colours will be quite inaccurate, but the reviewer states this is normal behaviour for these types of monitors.

To address this, you can reduce the colour space support down to better match the intended colour spaces. If you use the built-in sRGB emulation mode, the colour accuracy is very good overall, but not excellent in every measurement. If you use the built-in DCI-P3 emulation mode, the same thing is true, with very good colour accuracy overall but not excellent in every measurement. However, the built-in DCI-P3 emulation mode is set at target gamma 2.6 which is inappropriate for most Mac users, since the default on Macs is gamma 2.2. Gamma 2.6 is good for video editors, but it seems strange to me that the LG didn't include an DCI-P3 emulation mode targeting gamma 2.2. I suspect that's what Asus did with their 6K ProArt's Mac-specific setting. So, to get proper Mac appropriate DCI-P3 colour calibration, you'll have to manually calibrate it yourself and not use any of the built-in colour space settings. For me this is not an issue, since I have a Datacolor SpyderX Pro already. You have the option of using LG's own LG Calibration Studio, or else whatever third party calibration software you have, which in my case would be the software that came with my SpyderX Pro.

TFT Central did their own manual calibration for sRGB, and then colour accuracy was excellent across the board for all measurements. If you're going to use DCI-P3 which is the default on Macs, then the same would apply there too. They didn't do a DCI-P3 custom calibration in the review, but that's probably because they're on Windows which uses sRGB by default.

tl;dr:

The colour performance of this monitor is excellent, but the out-of-the-box default colour calibration will look wrong on Macs.

If you use sRGB, then the monitor's sRGB emulation mode provides very good but not perfect results. A manual sRGB calibration will provide excellent results across the board.

If you use DCI-P3, the monitor's DCI-P3 emulation mode still won't look right on Macs, because it targets gamma 2.6 for video editors not gamma 2.2 for most Mac users, so you need to calibrate it manually to get it to match other Macs.

 

[PaulD-UK]

@EugW ”They didn't do a DCI-P3 custom calibration in the review, but that's probably because they're on Windows which uses sRGB by default.”

sRGB is an 8 bit 16.7Millions colour space, and is the traditional default for web browsers.
Which I suppose might be the go-to setting for a web review site…

 

[Pezimak]

Excellent looks like a great monitor, the picture looks REALLY sharp in the video.

 

[oKUtItyp]

According to the TFT Central review, the full native colour space of the panel is way, way larger than sRGB, and larger than DCI-P3 and even AdobeRGB too. I'm not sure what colour space you are using, but I assume it's not AdobeRGB.

In the standard default "Custom" setting, both sRGB and DCI-P3 colours will be quite inaccurate, but the reviewer states this is normal behaviour for these types of monitors.

To address this, you can reduce the colour space support down to better match the intended colour spaces. If you use the built-in sRGB emulation mode, the colour accuracy is very good overall, but not excellent in every measurement. If you use the built-in DCI-P3 emulation mode, the same thing is true, with very good colour accuracy overall but not excellent in every measurement. However, the built-in DCI-P3 emulation mode is set at target gamma 2.6 which is inappropriate for most Mac users, since the default on Macs is gamma 2.2. Gamma 2.6 is good for video editors, but it seems strange to me that the LG didn't include an DCI-P3 emulation mode targeting gamma 2.2. I suspect that's what Asus did with their 6K ProArt's Mac-specific setting. So, to get proper Mac appropriate DCI-P3 colour calibration, you'll have to manually calibrate it yourself and not use any of the built-in colour space settings. For me this is not an issue, since I have a Datacolor SpyderX Pro already. You have the option of using LG's own LG Calibration Studio, or else whatever third party calibration software you have, which in my case would be the software that came with my SpyderX Pro.

TFT Central did their own manual calibration for sRGB, and then colour accuracy was excellent across the board for all measurements. If you're going to use DCI-P3 which is the default on Macs, then the same would apply there too. They didn't do a DCI-P3 custom calibration in the review, but that's probably because they're on Windows which uses sRGB by default.

tl;dr:

The colour performance of this monitor is excellent, but the out-of-the-box default colour calibration will look wrong on Macs.

If you use sRGB, then the monitor's sRGB emulation mode provides very good but not perfect results. A manual sRGB calibration will provide excellent results across the board.

If you use DCI-P3, the monitor's DCI-P3 emulation mode still won't look right on Macs, because it targets gamma 2.6 for video editors not gamma 2.2 for most Mac users, so you need to calibrate it manually to get it to match other Macs.

The weird thing is that the default brightness is only 16 for sRGB picture mode, that I have bump it up to 60 or it's too dark for me.

Anyway, I did another side-by-side comparison with LG 27 5K by playing same 4k demo from youtube. The picture quality is noticeably better on LG 27 5k, as color is more vibrant, black darker, white brighter.

Maybe I need colorimeter to calibrate first.

 

[EugW]

LG sponsored* Canadian review of the 6K 32U990A. That bodes well for my Canadian shipment soon. 🤞

*See edit at bottom of post.

Like the other reviewer, he indicates the stand is quite stiff.

Sees a bit of the rainbow speckle up close on white backgrounds due to the matte display but doesn't notice it in his usual usage.

Shows a bit of backlight bleed, which is disappointing, but it seems closer to his Apple Studio Display than his Asus display, and he says he doesn't notice it on the LG in everyday usage. From the video it appears his Asus ProArt has significant backlight bleed.

Asus (multiple corners):



Apple (hard to see with that image but I wonder if there might be a slight bit at the top edge, not sure):



LG (top left and bottom right):



With those images, in terms of backlight bleed, I'd keep the Apple, return the Asus, and would probably keep the LG but would have to think about it.

Overall he likes it more than his Apple Studio Display. Better contrast which shows up in real usage. Measured he gets over 2000:1 true contrast, and he says he sees more shadow detail on the LG than the ASD. However, the screen required some manual calibration (for whatever colour space he's using) as the factory calibration had a green hue. AdobeRGB was 100% coverage. P3 was 96%.





HDR supported, although he's not impressed with it (not surprisingly). He doesn't specify but I think this was with the included Thunderbolt 5 cable. He presumably does have a TB5 Mac, because his gear includes a TB5 SSD. However, later on in the review it appears he's using a MacBook Air.



Beyond 3072x1728, 3200x1800, 3360x1890, and 6144x3456 are optional higher screen resolutions.



He says everything works fine with Thunderbolt 4. The video indicates the MacBook is 2560x1664, so that's a MacBook Air and TB 4, although HDR on or off wasn't mentioned. No mention of 4:4:4 vs 4:2:2 either, but we already know from @oKUtItyp that 4:4:4 works fine at 6K, so DSC is working.



P.S. I really hate these tilted angled shots of the on-screen reports.

EDIT:

I forgot to mention he actually thinks the speakers are OK enough to use instead of external speakers.

P.P.S. I don't know if this really counts as LG sponsored or not. He got the review unit from LG, but I don't know if he gets to keep it or not.

 

[Riot Nrrrd]

@EugW Really appreciate your in-depth posts on this monitor! 👍