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! 👍

 

[thenewepic]

that’s great news if this screenshot is taken on Macbook Air. This means DSC is working on TB4.

 

[EugW]

 

[unodgs]

I waited for lg 6k but I'm disappointed with the stand. The lowest position seems to be still too high..

 

[smirking]

I waited for lg 6k but I'm disappointed with the stand. The lowest position seems to be still too high..

Does it require any extra mounting brackets (that aren't included) in order to attach to a monitor arm?

 

[EugW]

I waited for lg 6k but I'm disappointed with the stand. The lowest position seems to be still too high..

I asked LG USA about the height, and they gave me a different answer from LG Korea’s website:

EugUS:
Ivan at LG Digital Care stated the minimum height is 22.175" tall, with a clearance of 5⅞". LG Korea states the minimum height is 522.3 mm / 20.56", which would suggest a clearance of about 4¼". Which is correct?

LG Digital Care:
The measurement of 22.175" to the top of the LG 32-inch UltraFine™evo 6K Nano IPS Black Professional Monitor with Thunderbolt™ 5, Model # 32U990A-S, when set at its lowest setting, is an actual measurement taken directly from the monitor in our office, but you can go with the measurement you are quoting from LG Korea of 522.3 mm / 20.56"...^Ivan.

—-

I really hope it isn’t that tall, cuz that would kinda suck. That measurement from Ivan is taller than the Pro Display XDR.

 

[Pezimak]

I am going to buy and try this one when it is available, I want one with decent built in speakers and so am happy to hear people say the LG ones are passable for everyday use, I want to use less clutter. I may look into using a webcam then too and see if I can get away without using my works laptop at all. Means I can get rid of the arm it’s on and again reduce clutter.

 

[EugW]

Works fine in 6K HDR on iPad Pro M4 via Thunderbolt

Below is a screen grab, resized. Do not use it to assess chroma.

See later message for chroma test on Mac mini.

I am going to buy and try this one when it is available, I want one with decent built in speakers and so am happy to hear people say the LG ones are passable for everyday use, I want to use less clutter. I may look into using a webcam then too and see if I can get away without using my works laptop at all. Means I can get rid of the arm it’s on and again reduce clutter.

To my surprise, the audio is indeed passible. It's not exactly great, but it's much better than the vast majority third party screens out there.

 

[Dark-Signature]

Works fine in 6K HDR on iPad Pro M4 via Thunderbolt.

View attachment 2573706

View attachment 2573705

But your first screenshot of the chroma test doesn't look so good when you look at the bottom two lines (blue on red and red on blue). The second screenshot is meaningless because you're not allowed to enlarge the result... which makes the Chroma test invalid.

However, you can clearly see the matte coating on the white area, and that's exactly what I don't like because I would constantly notice it when working on light backgrounds.

 

[EugW]

Build quality is better than expected. The base is solid metal. The stand is covered in plastic but looks decent and isn't as stiff as I was expecting. It's taller than I'd hoped. I measure it at about 21.6" minimum and 24" maximum. Clearance above table is about 5.4" minimum to 7.75" maximum. That means about 2.4 inches of adjustment, which meets the claimed 60 mm adjustable range. However, those heights are about 1 inch taller than what LG itself claims. OTOH, it's shorter than what LG Digital Care USA measured. Weird. At the lowest setting, the viewable screen is about 5.8" above the table to 21.2". In comparison, the viewable screen on a 27" iMac is at about 6.2" above the table to about 19.4".

At least looking it at during the day, backlight bleed seems minimal. I'll have a look again at night, if it's there, it certainly isn't anything like I've seen with other monitors like the 4K Asus ProArt I tried briefly. No stuck pixels I can see on a quick look either. However, I did see some dirty screen effect. It's worst on the far left with a 3 x 1 cm spot which I can notice on a solid white screen. However, I usually don't see it unless I'm specifically looking for it, and interestingly, I can't seem to actually take a picture of it, and I betcha most people wouldn't notice it either, especially on mixed content.

I didn't see any consistent colour casts, but if I look at parts of the screen significantly off axis, it can show some shift in colour. I wonder if it's due the the matte coating. BTW, this matte surface is absolutely nothing like the matte surfaces of cheap monitors of yesteryear. The actual surface feels relatively smooth, and text quality is very good. Not quite the text clarity of glossy 218 ppi screens, but excellent nonetheless. I don't see any rainbow sparkling at all, unless I'm like 6" from the screen.

Both Thunderbolt and HDMI work fine for 60 Hz 4:4:4 at 6K. Monitor Control is required for brightness control for both Thunderbolt and HDMI. The default colour profile is "LG ULTRAFINE", whatever that means. I haven't had a chance to colour calibrate it yet though.

Aside from 6144x3456, I don't get any resolution options above 3072x1728 on my M4 Mac mini (non-Pro), either on HDMI or Thunderbolt. Interestingly, there is an option for 3008x1692, despite the fact I didn't install BetterDisplay. I'm only running MonitorControl to get brightness control. Show resolutions did not expose any more HiDPI options, and just exposed the low rez options.

 

[EugW]

But your first screenshot of the chroma test doesn't look so good when you look at the bottom two lines (blue on red and red on blue).

That was a screen grab. I resized it because MacRumors won't accept images that large. You can't use screen grabs to assess chroma.

The second screenshot is meaningless because you're not allowed to enlarge the result... which makes the Chroma test invalid.

You are right. When I opened the browser on iPadOS, it defaulted to full screen mode on the LG 6K. I have since deleted that pic and taken another picture at the proper size.

I will upload new pic later. Right now uploads aren't working for some reason.

EDIT: Uploads now working.

M4 Mac mini:

 

[PaulD-UK]

@EugW Were you running the screen at the full 6144x3456 when you did those chroma tests?
The test image should be downloaded and displayed at 100% in Preview (at 6K), to get 10 bit colour.
That’s an image of about 5.5 in in size, and is carefully constructed to put specific colours on a specific single pixel matrix.
Then a photo taken to record the results. 😉

Only by doing this is the Chroma image compression visible, by using black pixels in the image to mask colour ‘smeared’ across multiple pixels to compress the data stream size.

 

[EugW]

@EugW Were you running the screen at the full 6144x3456 when you did those chroma tests?
The test image should be downloaded and displayed at 100% in Preview (at 6K), to get 10 bit colour.
That’s an image of about 5.5 in in size, and is carefully constructed to put specific colours on a specific single pixel matrix.
Then a photo taken to record the results. 😉

Only by doing this is the
Chroma image compression visible, by using black pixels in the image to mask colour smeared across multiple pixels to compress the data stream size.

Here ya go.

 

[EugW]

Some minor glitches, that wouldn’t affect actual most real world usage, but it might be useful info to some.

If you plug the M4 Mac mini to the monitor with Thunderbolt, it works fine at 6K. It auto-selects hiDPI 3072x1728.
If you plug the M4 Mac mini to the monitor with HDMI, it works fine at 6K. It auto-selects hiDPI 3072x1728.

However, if you already have the Mac mini plugged in via HDMI and then plug in Thunderbolt, and then unplug HDMI and switch to Thunderbolt, it may be at 4K max resolution. Sometimes I had to power cycle the Mac to get back 6K. I’m thinking this is likely because when you plug in the second cable, it detects both as independent 6K displays. The M4 Mac mini cannot run 6K on Thunderbolt and HDMI at the same time, so it sets the second screen at 4K. However, when you unplug the first 6K input, the second input remains at 4K. To prevent this from happening, unplug the first cable before plugging in the second cable.

Besides this minor annoyance when swapping inputs, there is also the fact that while the M4 Mac mini can run dual 6K displays, it cannot do it with HDMI and Thunderbolt simultaneously. To run dual 6K displays, you’d have to use Thunderbolt only. This is not an issue with the M4 Pro Mac mini, just the base M4.

Also after plugging in the iPad Pro and running it for a bit at 6K, after unplugging it, the iPad Pro screen was black after wake with nothing displayed. Weirdly enough, when I plugged in a charger, the charging icon showed up, but the screen remained otherwise black. I had to power cycle the iPad Pro to get my screen back. Interestingly, the power off screen showed up fine, but if I cancelled the power off, the screen went black again, until I reboot it.

P.S. With my medium brightness, the monitor runs a bit warm, but not hot. I cannot hear any fan, although I didn’t put my ear right up to it.

 

[thenewepic]

Here ya go.

was this test taken on Thunderbolt or HDMI?

 

[EugW]

Hmmm. My M4 iPad Pro most of the time doesn't actually work with the LG 6K. They often don't detect each other. This is with a Cable Matters Intel-certified TB4 cable and with the included LG TB5 cable. It detects 4K HDMI fine from the iPad Pro so the port is still working. It would appear the port/electronics of my particular iPad Pro is unstable with 6K, at least with the LG.

The M4 Mac mini works fine with both the TB4 and TB5 cables, and the behaviour appears to be exactly the same between the two cables (as it should).

was this test taken on Thunderbolt or HDMI?

Thunderbolt, with the included LG TB5 cable.

Next test is sleep. Tahoe introduced a bug that stopped my Mac mini from waking up my Huawei MateView. I had to set the Mac to never sleep even when the monitor slept. Now I've turned the Mac mini sleep function back on to see if will work properly with the LG.

 

[thenewepic]

Thunderbolt, with the included LG TB5 cable

great to hear that! Which macOS version do you use, btw?