Guys, if there is one thing that I find irresistible, hmm, it's curvy LGs- they are just so sexy in wait, what? I'm talking about a computer monitors
with curved screens, it's not, oh my God! That's disgusting! Roll the intro. A couple of months ago,
smack in the middle of the Hero 4K!, I declared 4K to be dead to me,
at least for now. I have a new lover
and LG that I just wanted to put on my desk and stare at all day until okay, this joke is gross and it's old
and I'm done with it. Anyway, you can watch my video of the 34 UM95 here.
An IPS 3440 x 1440 34-inch monitor
that I though struck a perfect balance between pixel densities,
so no terrible Windows text icon scaling required. Overall size, 34 inches sounds a lot bigger than it is
when it's in a 21:9 UltraWide aspect ratio. And ergonomics and productivity- the ultra-wideness
without annoying bezels in the middle of what you're doing makes it great for watching movies, playing games,
and working because it's about equivalent to two 20 plus-ish square monitors side by side. But this video isn't really about that.
No, today's video is about the 34UC97,
a display thats mostly the same except for the one huge difference
compared to the previous model that I alluded to in my tasteless intro. The fact that the display is now gently curved. Unboxing and assembling this bad boy, I was about as excited as I've been about
opening a monitor, ever. I've using its late bloomer of its cousin
is my daily driver at the office since the second Brandon
finished shooting b-roll of it for a review.
I grabbed that thing
and I recommended it to tons of people because, aside from the slower pic,
slow response times that come with IPS. Is beautiful colors in great viewing angles, the only complain
I've ever really come up with about it is that I though like
it could be a bit better with a subtle curve. So, getting this thing in the mail basically
like Christmas morning. Physically, monitor is stunning.
It wows everyone who looks at it
before I even get a chance to turn it on for them. The panel itself has a semi-matte finish
that I find delivers a great balance between the contrast and color peppiness and anti-glare,
the tastefully clean bezel design from the last iteration returns,
as does the unassuming plain plastic backing. As far as changes from the flat model go,
these are a bit of mixed bag for me, so the bottom bezel now features a matte finish
instead of gloss. And the joystick for navigation for the OSD
is a bit harder to reach.
I think the TV-style chrome two-foot base
is a huge visual improvement over the previous plasticky looking one
that's cumbersome to set a height adjustment. But unlike predecessor,
the 34UC97 lacks any height adjustment at all. Just tilt. Now this would be a less of an issue
if LG included a VESA compatible arm mount on the back of it, but unfortunately,
at this time they're only planning to include that accessory in certain regions
and they don't plan to release it as a stand-alone accessory.
Although hopefully, if we shout loud enough
they will change their minds because I would personally like to buy one. The last change is IO.
By covering the inputs with a snap-on plastic piece, the appearance on the back is dramatically improved
for people who care about that. But the convenience of accessing the IO is reduced.
So it's up to you how you feel about that. Under the cover, though, we get some more nice upgrades. We traded a couple USB2
and Thurderbolt1 ports with USB3 and Thuderbolt2 30 Giga-bit with daisy chain support,
and an extra HDMI input. Not bad.
Alright, so let's briefly go over a couple
of the supposed benefits of curved displays. First of all, and this is a less of an issue
with a high quality IPS display like the one in front of you,
any horizontal gamma or color shifting should be reduced because as you turn your head side to side
you're actually looking more directly at the screen near the edges compared to a flat one. Number two. Aside from the angle,
because the distance between your eyes and the screen should be closer to equal at the center
and look at the edges there should be for a single use
less noticeable distortion or changes in sizes of objects moving around on the screen
making a viewing experience feel more natural.
Now, to be clear,
I basically laughed this stuff off When I was looking at all the curved TVs at CES this year
because when it comes to movie watching especially, unless you are talking about massive TVs, or theater projectors. At a reasonable distance the distortion of the image
from a flat panel versus curved is negligible. And on top of that I don't know about you,
but for me, TV movies are more social experience. And when I'm watching with anyone but my wife,
we don't sit with our heads right together.
So having a sweet spot where the image looks more natural
when seated dead center and a particular distance from the TV, is not particularly desirable
if it's going to make it look weird for everyone else. With 34-inch UltraWide PC monitor, however,
it's whole different ball game. We sit so close to monitors
that they fill enough of our field of view that the distance to the edges of a flat display
versus the center, the difference is about 25%. And since most of the time we're using a PC alone, worrying about sharing
that sweet spot is pretty much of no point.
So, what's it like to use it, Linus? Who is thing for? Well, creative professionals and Mac users often there is a fair bit of overlap there
will appreciate the greater than 99% sRGB color space support
and the Thunderbolt2 will pass through from the storage appliances
that these people inexplicable use instead of NASs. And the, in my opinion, perfect balance of resolution size
and form factor without text scaling delivers amazing flexibility from a productivity standpoint. It's not something I care about,
but it supports dual side by side inputs if you want. But far more interesting to me
is LG has a screen split software that lets you divide up your workspaces
in a number of different ways, and automatically snaps windows to the optimal size.
I am a big fan, personally of the three vertical split one. I use it all the time when I'm writing but that's it really part of the story,
like, OMG, this monitor is freaking awesome for movies. If you're one of those people
who prefer watching movies at a PC to a TV. And if you watch anything
in the more cinematic 2.35:1 Aspect ratio, it is unlike anything else
and I never had in my house.
I was using Iron Temple of Night
as one of my test cases, and I kept just finding myself watching the movie,
instead of working. LG's MAXX Audio-enabled speakers didn't impress me
much for movie watching, but I didn't really expect
when it is basically an EQ to blow my socks off. But with some noise isolating headphones on,
sitting in front of this thing is a pure bliss. And games are similar story
whether it's driving, third person, first person, I love gaming on this thing.
Without the bezels, which gave me pause
recommending Eyefinity set-up to most people, not so wide that everything looks stretched
without endless tinkering aspect ratio is truly much more immersive
and makes for a fantastic gaming experience. If you are willing to deal 60 Hertz refresh rate
and increase motion blur versus a TN panel a trade-off that elite-level
or even semi-competitive players who are not accustomed to gaming at lower refresh rate
with more blur and may be used to even 120 or 144 Hertz monitors might not take. Now you've probably noticed
that we've gotten ten minutes into this video without me talking about
how the curve affects the viewing experience, and that's for a good reason. It's pretty obvious from above or below the monitor but at angles where you might actually have your head
honestly it's very subtle.
And I find myself forgetting that it's there very quickly. The main difference is something
that I actually feel more than I see. It's lack of any fluctuations in brightness,
color contrast towards the edges and especially in the corners. It didn't take long, actually,
for me to decide to switch to this curved display at work and I definitely will give you guys
longer-term impressions on the podcast and in a follow-up video
because I think it's more important when you're fundamentally changing the type of display
that you're using, but, uh, I'm, overall, just so impressed by this thing.
It's not perfect, the lack of support for NVIDIA G Sink
is keeping it off my desk at home. And it's also got some pretty noticeable backlight bleed
in all four corners on dark background at least my sample does putting a mark on
what is otherwise my new top choice for a productivity-minded workstation display. Speaking of top choices, huge thanks to GIGABYTE
for sponsoring this episode of Linus Tech Tips. They asked us to highlight their new P25V2 gaming notebook and while, this actually arrived slightly
before us filming this video, so I haven't had a ton of time get my hands on with it.
Actually it looks pretty darn awesome. It features an Intel Core i7 mobile quad-core processor,
a 15.6 Inch 1080p IPS display, up to 16 gigs of ram and 2.5 Terabytes of
combined storage across one hard drive and two MSATA SSD. And the monstrous GeForce GTX 1880
and with eight games in 8 gigs of GDDR5. It's available in a couple different color
so theres an all black one or, I personally like
this one quite a bit better there is this awesome like
the mostly black and bright freaking vibrant yellow one.
And it features a white backlit keyboard and build quality I'm actually pretty pleased with
especially considering what kind of specs you are getting for this kind of a prices. So if you are looking for high-performance gaming notebook,
and you're like, wow, GIGABYTE sponsored Linus tech tips they sure are cool guys. And you are going to make sure you
check out p25 through the link in the video description. Thank you guys for watching today's video
on what is now, effectively my new favorite productivity monitor.
Like it and share; if you didn't dislike it, if you just liked it, leave a comment letting me know
how do you feel about the curved displays. Have you seen one before? What did you think? Check out the video link in the video description
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