How well does the display work if you are using an older Mac without USB-C display capabilities? (The guy in the video posted above seems to have had a problem with it.) Is there a way to also use the USB ports on the back if you are using the DisplayPort or HDMI as your main video input?
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Review: LG's $1500 38UC99 UltraWide Display Offers a Giant, Desk-Filling Workspace
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When did Macs start shipping with freesync? What models have the gpu to push this at 60 fps? And who would pay that much to get such a low refresh rate?
So it's not for gamers.
It'it s not for photo or video based on the backlight bleed.
It's not premium looking with its cheap plastic back.
It's not high res, compared to lower cost 5k displays.
It isn't for budget builds with its high price tag. Or audiophiles with its weak speaker. Or as a replacement tv with its low brightness.
Besides people with large desks, who is this for?
So it's not for gamers.
It'it s not for photo or video based on the backlight bleed.
It's not premium looking with its cheap plastic back.
It's not high res, compared to lower cost 5k displays.
It isn't for budget builds with its high price tag. Or audiophiles with its weak speaker. Or as a replacement tv with its low brightness.
Besides people with large desks, who is this for?
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There's no arguing with the latter. Yes, we do see perspective distortion all the time but because we live in a 3D world, our brains are trained to correct for the distortion and they are very good at it. Just like they are very good at filtering out raindrops on the car windscreen we look through, or a crack in a window, just like we don't even notice our own nose while looking straight past it the whole day, and we are not distracted by the edges between a two monitor setup.
We can see and navigate perfectly, raindrops or not. Still, if you could choose when buying a new car, would you pick one with a permanently wet windscreen, or a split screen, or a crack in it? Your brain will not be fooled but the larger the screen, the further the corners, the more distracting and annoying it gets.
With 'small' screens of say up to 21" you don't see the distortion, but above 27, 30" you need to take more and more distance to 'keep the horizontal edges straight'.
My 55" UHD TV is curved, but it doesn't make much of a difference because you don't sit right in front of it anyway. At a distance of a few meters, the perspective distortion is negligible. I just wanted this TV for it's other features and nobody even notices the curve when watching video, but it doesn't add anything.
I've been working at a Philips UHD 40" computer monitor for over a year now. I sit about a good arm length away from it. Although I love the huge desktop space, the perspective distortion at the corners is noticeable. Therefore, a curve in large computer monitors is really helpful. It's not a coincidence that the recent update to that monitor does have a slight curve. I even thought about trading in my old one for the curved version, but for that, the curve is too subtle to make enough difference.
It's also a question of even brightness and colour. Yes, viewing angles have improved but there are still slight shifts as you move away from looking at a screen perfectly perpendicular. And at some point also of resolution, the wider the screen the larger the resolution difference your eyes can resolve between the centre and the edge of the frame.
It does work with the older Mac's; I did do a 2nd opinion vid and outlined some improved findings
Indeed. Also, the larger the screen, the more tiresome it is to your eyes because they have to accommodate / refocus every time you look at a corner or back to the center.
These curved monitors usually are not curved enough to completely neutralize that distance, depending on how far you sit from them, but it can make quite a difference for a all-day screen worker.
However, it can take time to re-adjust once you become used to a certain "correction", and the adjustment period can be disconcerting.
I remember, back in the CRT days, when the older, convex "spherical section" screens were replaced first by Trinitron "cylindrical section" screens and then by nearly flat "flat screen" CRTs: your eyes were so used to looking at curved TV screens that your "smart" brain over-corrected and the perfectly rectangular picture initially appeared to be distorted. You'd be reaching for the "pin-cushion" distortion until you actually held a ruler to the screen to convince yourself that the edges of the picture were straight...
See also (slightly O/T) the "soap opera effect" that many people experience when they first see high-frame-rate TV - the smoother motion is "better" by any rational measure, but actually makes movies look "cheap" or "fake" apparently because your "smart" brain associates "the look" with cheap shot-on-video soap operas at 50 or 60 fields-per-second rather than better quality, shot-on-film 24 frames-per-second material).
Smart brain = impressive, but prone to glitches!
Personal thoughts having owned a LG38 for two months. I own a web and app development company, do not game, and have previously owned the Dell 34" and Apple Cinema Display.
Screen size:
This is THE reason to get this monitor! You'll get three full-size 1250px windows side-by-side. For what I do, this is an optimal setup in having a full-width database screen on the left, Sublime Text in the center and Chrome browser testing on the right. I can efficiently look at all variables names without switching window panes from dev to testing.
I previously had the Dell 34" and it didn't cut it. The screen height felt cramped for coding, and the width covered about two and 1/3rd actual windows and so I typically used an iPad and Duet Display to compensate for the lack of a full-width browser window.
Ports: it charges via USB-C. C'mon fellas, it's a slow charge, but you do not need two cords to charge your MBP Touchbar laptop! I go to the office on Monday morning and plug in with one cord, and I always leave with 100% battery. I don't know why plugging in a single cord is as satisfying as it is, but it is. You will digg.
Colors:
It's not as good as the Apple Cinema Display, but it's much nicer than the Dell 34. Let's just say I am very satisfied with the color reproduction for churning out professional design and dev work for clients.
Monitor Build:
It's solid for what it is: plastic.
Speakers:
Are terrible. I have also not found a way to use the volume-up/down buttons on my computer to control the volume, you have to use the manual toggle at the base of the monitor. I have just chosen not to use the speakers at all.
Final thoughts:
This is an excellent monitor for its purpose - a big, wide-screened monitor with a single connection for the new Macbook Pro with Touchbar. If you don't like plastic bases or curved screens or want a retina screen, you shouldn't even be reading this. I purchased the monitor through bhphoto.com and at the time they were including a $200 gift card with each purchase; I'm not sure why they didn't just give me $200 off the price of the monitor but it did bring the price down. I would absolutely purchase this again and recommend the LG38 especially to my coder friends.
Screen size:
This is THE reason to get this monitor! You'll get three full-size 1250px windows side-by-side. For what I do, this is an optimal setup in having a full-width database screen on the left, Sublime Text in the center and Chrome browser testing on the right. I can efficiently look at all variables names without switching window panes from dev to testing.
I previously had the Dell 34" and it didn't cut it. The screen height felt cramped for coding, and the width covered about two and 1/3rd actual windows and so I typically used an iPad and Duet Display to compensate for the lack of a full-width browser window.
Ports: it charges via USB-C. C'mon fellas, it's a slow charge, but you do not need two cords to charge your MBP Touchbar laptop! I go to the office on Monday morning and plug in with one cord, and I always leave with 100% battery. I don't know why plugging in a single cord is as satisfying as it is, but it is. You will digg.
Colors:
It's not as good as the Apple Cinema Display, but it's much nicer than the Dell 34. Let's just say I am very satisfied with the color reproduction for churning out professional design and dev work for clients.
Monitor Build:
It's solid for what it is: plastic.
Speakers:
Are terrible. I have also not found a way to use the volume-up/down buttons on my computer to control the volume, you have to use the manual toggle at the base of the monitor. I have just chosen not to use the speakers at all.
Final thoughts:
This is an excellent monitor for its purpose - a big, wide-screened monitor with a single connection for the new Macbook Pro with Touchbar. If you don't like plastic bases or curved screens or want a retina screen, you shouldn't even be reading this. I purchased the monitor through bhphoto.com and at the time they were including a $200 gift card with each purchase; I'm not sure why they didn't just give me $200 off the price of the monitor but it did bring the price down. I would absolutely purchase this again and recommend the LG38 especially to my coder friends.
Not to split hairs if you are happy with it, but it didn't bring the price down. You paid full price. Gift cards bring down the price of the next product. Dell does this all the time to convince you to shop direct again. a/r aside, why did you do this instead of multiple displays? Surely coding isn't impaired by boarders. You could have a lot more screen for less. I get that one cord is cool, but was that really worth the cost? Couldn't you just use a hub that includes charging?
Major props on the gift card definition, dad! Bwahaha!!! (I just wanted people to know about this in case the bhphoto.com coupon was going on and folks were contemplating purchase). ;-)
All joking aside, I had two Apple Cinema Displays and the monitor borders you mentioned weren't impairing my coding, but my health. I ran a dual-monitor setup for years and developed a small bulge in my neck. If you can imagine people talking on their phone (without headphones) and pinching their phone between their shoulder and head, that's essentially what I was doing to my neck for 60+ hours per week.
I replaced the duals with a single Dell 34" Ultrawide, and that solved the neck issue. Added bonus was that I didn't feel like an air traffic controller whenever I was in the office. The Dell however, was annoyingly short in pixel height and dim, or washed-out when the brightness was up.
From a cash perspective, the $1,500 LG monitor is cheap. It's a tool that helps make me money. I lump it in with the cost of doing business and wanting to be efficient, which goes for any tool whether it's hardware or software.
At 1600 lines, does this display have the same vertical height as the old 30 inch cinema displays from Apple and Dell?
i.e. like before everything went widescreen to 1080/1440?
If so, this sounds like it could be amazing: like an old Dell 30 inch, but 1.5x as wide.
i.e. like before everything went widescreen to 1080/1440?
If so, this sounds like it could be amazing: like an old Dell 30 inch, but 1.5x as wide.
Yeah man, it's the same height resolution as the old 30s (1600px). Just a bit wider and with modern connections. It's super useful, you won't regret it.
For charging too, I came into the office this morning with 70% on my Apple Macbook Pro with Touchbar. Two hours later here, it's at 100%. I know some people were wondering whether you would need an additional charger because the monitor doesn't supply 85w power, and you won't.
Anyway, I'm outta this thread. Have a great one, everyone.
And my workplace provides dual 17" displays with their Dell Optiplex boxes. Yaaay! I am glad that I have one of the boxes with a 'quieter fan' (you only get that if you've been there long enough for your original computer to have broken... which isn't that long).
Agreed, and there will soon be a couple more options for this same 37½"/[3840x1600] panel.
In addition to it's native 75Hz (overclocked monitor default) and lower list price, the Acer XR382CQK monitor also has a better/longer warrantee than the LG/38UC99.
Compare specs:
http://www.displayspecifications.com/en/comparison/f4f51431c
However, the Acer rollout has been very slow for some reason - with limited availability even 3xQ after the initial announcement, and only in the Usa.
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That's an urban myth. It's not even perceivable the curve to add cognitive noise to do such a task (by design).
For those who do content creation or programming (especially back-end programming) for a living, 21:9 is extremely invaluable for productivity.
Ironically, most people don't realize that the curve makes your view less distorted because it partially corrects the perspective distortion of the plane of the monitor.
(Yes, you overlook this because you are used to it. The closer you are sitting to a painting, photo, screen etc, and the bigger it is, the more the original image is distorted towards the corners. Like when you are standing close to a billboard.)