LG 34UM95 Monitor Review
by Chris Heinonen on June 18, 2014 7:00 AM EST_678x452.jpg)
21:9 monitors have done a good job of filling a couple niche positions in the marketplace. For someone that wants a single display to watch movies and use with the PC, the aspect ratio can work well. With many games, the wider field-of-view enhances games with more information on screen at once and a more immersive experience. Where they have fallen short is with their vertical resolution of 1080 pixels. Running two applications side-by-side makes everything feel cramped. For regular office work a 27” display for the same price has provided a better user experience.
Now we have the first 21:9 aspect ratio monitor with 1440 pixels of vertical resolution, the LG 34UM95. That provides the same vertical area as a 27” display but 3440 horizontal pixels instead of 2560. The larger size makes running two programs side-by-side equivalent to dual 20” displays at 1720x1440, or a 6:5 aspect ratio. Furthermore, the additional real estate makes it much easier to use for non-gaming or movie use. From spreadsheets to word processing, image editors to web browsers, the additional vertical space makes a large difference.
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The LG 34UM95 is also the first non-Apple display to include Thunderbolt support. With three integrated USB ports you can use a single cable to drive the 34UM95 display and connected devices from a Thunderbolt equipped computer. An additional Thunderbolt connection allows you to connect another device directly to the 34UM95 as well. Unlike the Apple display there isn’t an Ethernet port, but there is integrated audio.
For traditional video cards the display includes a DisplayPort input and two HDMI ports. The HDMI ports are still revision 1.4a so they cannot support 60Hz refresh rates at the monitor's native resolution, but DisplayPort will run at 3440x1440 at 60Hz without any issues, including audio support. The monitor includes a full color management system with a 1-point white balance. As with previous LG displays, I have found that the CMS doesn’t work well and should be avoided. It improves the 100% readings but makes everything below that worse.
The 34UM95 includes two “Reader Modes” designed to make reading documents on-screen easier. In use what they do is pump up the red in the white balance. Since most displays ship with an overly-blue image by default, and people are used to that, this will help those people. If you have the display calibrated correctly, you wind up with an image that is very red and large errors in gamma and grayscale. Since these are easy to enable and disable in the menu system, if you like them it is easy to utilize it.
| LG 34UM95 | |
| Video Inputs | 2x HDMI 1.4a, DisplayPort |
| Panel Type | IPS |
| Pixel Pitch | 0.2325mm |
| Colors | 1.07 Billion |
| Brightness | 320 cd/m2 |
| Contrast Ratio | 1000:1 |
| Response Time | 5ms GtG |
| Viewable Size | 34" |
| Resolution | 3440x1440 |
| Viewing Angle (H/V) | 178 / 178 |
| Backlight | LED |
| Power Consumption (operation) | 56W |
| Power Consumption (standby) | 1.2W |
| Screen Treatment | Anti-Glare |
| Height-Adjustable | No |
| Tilt | Yes, -5 to 15 degrees |
| Pivot | No |
| Swivel | No |
| VESA Wall Mounting | Yes, 100mm VESA |
| Dimensions w/ Base (WxHxD) | 32.7" x 18.5" x 6.8" |
| Weight | 17 lbs. |
| Additional Features | 3.5mm stereo out, 2x Thunderbolt, 2x USB 2.0, 1x USB 3.0, 2x7W speakers |
| Limited Warranty | 1 year |
| Accessories | DisplayPort Cable, HDMI Cable |
| Price | $999 |
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Samus - Wednesday, June 18, 2014 - link
So is every other corporate grade monitor. My 24" Dreamcolor Display cost $2000 a few years ago.marcosears - Thursday, October 9, 2014 - link
I agree. Most people will want to get one of the top monitors at a more reasonable price range. /Marco from http://www.consumertop.com/best-monitor-guide/evilspoons - Wednesday, June 18, 2014 - link
I don't understand the attraction some people have to 4:3 monitors. Human vision is naturally "widescreen" and looking up and down is much less comfortable than looking left and right. Natural selection 'trained' us to look along the horizon, not up and down. Our retina may be 4:3, but it's not like a single monitor encompasses our entire field of view... now, talk about selecting an LCD panel for a VR display like the Oculus Rift and 4:3 will have my complete support...DanNeely - Wednesday, June 18, 2014 - link
For anything text related, wider lines are harder to read; so making the screen wider doesn't bring a benefit; but wider screens tend to be shorter meaning that fewer lines of text can be shown at a time.bigboxes - Wednesday, June 18, 2014 - link
I have a 16:10 monitor, but I don't run MS Word or my browser at full screen. I size the windows ~4:3. I have room to move things around and watch video in widescreen. I think that 21:9 @1440 is great. Two full size windows on one screen instead of two 20" monitors with a bezel between them. It's niche, but not for enthusiasts.TegiriNenashi - Wednesday, June 18, 2014 - link
"Human vision is naturally "widescreen" "That widescreen propaganda is wrong, human vision is close to 4:3:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_eye#Field_of_vi...
Short screens are ridiculous waste of pixels on the sides.
TegiriNenashi - Wednesday, June 18, 2014 - link
Here is verbatim quote: "The approximate field of view of an individual human eye is 95° away from the nose, 75° downward, 60° toward the nose, and 60° upward"Let's do arithmetic, shall we? (95+95)/(75+60)=1.4Let me put it this way. Humans have 2 (two) eyes. Each eyeball is round. Even if both eyes vision didn't overlap, the maximally wide FOV covered by two eyes would be two adjacent squares. Which makes the aspect ratio to 2:1 max. However, non-overlapping view this is extreme scenario, more applicable to lower species (such as fish).
To summarize, 2.35:1 is ridiculous invention from previous century. The framing of most scenes in movies is awkward, with actors top of the forehead chopped off. Hollywood should kill it once and for all.
Sabresiberian - Wednesday, June 18, 2014 - link
No, human vision is not "naturally widescreen". It isn't just the retina alone that determines field of view, and normal field of view is 4:3. Also, I don't know why you would have more trouble looking up and down than side to side - I certainly don't.Your comment about "natural selection" - you are just making that up. Personally, I'm a big fan of watching where I put my feet, that doesn't involve looking at the horizon. I think that's pretty much normal, but maybe I'm wrong.
You are confusing societal conditioning with the fundamental man. If you lived in a different kind of society, one that hunted animals in trees, for example, your conditioning would be entirely different, and you wouldn't think "wide-screen" was so "natural" because it would be "natural" for you to look above you as much as to the side. Movies are made wide-screen because of the limitations of seating arrangements for audiences more than anything else. There are scenes in which that view works well - like looking at a horizon with an unobstructed view, say from the deck of a ship or a mountain top, but there are areas where the wide screen utterly fails, as in the experience of walking down a city street between tall buildings.
Movies largely turn us into floating entities without feet living in a sky-less world. It isn't natural, we are just conditioned to it.
Ktracho - Wednesday, June 18, 2014 - link
I may be betraying my age, but on my 30" 2560x1600 display + 24" 1920x1200 display set up, it is much easier for me to look at the bottom half of the display than the top half, and in fact, I prefer moving my head sideways a greater distance (towards the 24" display) than tilting it up. If it's just for a few seconds then it's not a big deal, but for longer periods of time, my body definitely has a preference.Also, I'm not sure field of view is the relevant thing to measure. Even if I were to only use a 24" or a 20" display, I am not trying to see the entire display as a whole, but a specific area at a time, so length:width ratio of the display is not significant. Length:width ratio of the window I am focusing on is far more significant, especially in terms of readability of text. Watching videos full screen or playing games would be a different matter, of course.
I suspect for my scenario/working habits, a wider display (which allows moving less frequently-used windows off to the side) would be preferable to a taller but narrower display, requiring me to tilt my head more often (or waste real estate), as well as to having a dual-display set up as in my current one.
MrSpadge - Thursday, June 19, 2014 - link
I seconds this, although with "just" one 16:9 or 16:10 monitor. I tend to put things I focus on at about the same height, independnet of how much space is left above and below it.