for years I did very few monitor videos because I don't really like making
videos about them unless there's some really compelling new feature or design
idea that I'm excited about now as you may have noticed over the last year or
so I've done a lot of monitor videos it's been a heck of a year g-sync free
sync slim bezels High refresh rate Ultra HD Ultra wide the list goes kind of on
and on doesn't it well now it's going to go on some more because the LG 31 m97 is
the first monitor I've ever laid eyes on that features a 17 by9 aspect ratio and
a true 4K native resolution so what's it
like then
e save on select Intel Core i7 processors and 730 series ssds with
instant rebates during Valentine's week February 14th to 21st 2015 click now to
learn more let's get this out of the way right now this is not a gaming monitor
it's not intended to be a gaming Monitor and frankly the gaming experience won't
light anyone's world on fire I measured total input lag as high as 27
milliseconds or so so more than a frame and almost no one has a graphics card
that's capable of driving modern tripa games at its 4096 X 2160 resolution
anyway that's 8.85 million pixels or 4
and A4 times as many as 1080p even the
3840 X 2160 resolution that most consumers refer to as 4K but is
technically actually UHD is only 8.3
million pixels so hold on a second then lus what the actual devil is this weird
resolution for the answer is professional work and when you re-exam
in the 31 mu 97 in that context the
$1,400 price point makes a lot more sense let's begin with a physical tour
though the ID is plain looking and definitely businesslike with a mostly
gladish not particularly thin front bezel design simple LG branding on the
front and an unassuming looking plastic covered metal stand but there's some
good news here the ergonomics and functionality of the aformentioned stand
are pretty businesslike as well it lacks
swivel something I kind of wish it had although an LG's defense the same
functionality can be achieved by simply repositioning the entire base but it
does have tilt a wide range of height adjust pivot yes for those of you who
love portrait mode and a Vasa compliant mount on the back that I was able to use
easily with three of these bad boys on a
yes so yes 25 million pixels on an OBU
gaming slw workstation cockpit setup in this video here that was freaking
awesome I have never seen screen real estate like that before on the bottom of
the display we find a pretty healthy mix of IO these dual HDMI ports are
unfortunately not HDMI 2.0 compliant
which would allow them to operate at 60 HZ at Native resolution but the dual
DisplayPort 1.2 inputs one of which is full size and one of which is a mini
kind of makes up for that for me with the included fulls size to mini cable it
gives users the flexibility to easily connect this monitor to either a desktop
or a notebook without buying any adapters or new cables out of the box
finally down here we've got the Uplink for the 3port USB 3.0 Hub that should
accommodate most of what sits on the desk next to your monitor and the
control joystick that LG has been including on at least their high-end
monitors lately and that I personally really really like finally the front
where we find the satisfyingly large 31in panel which is actually a great
size for someone coming from an older 30-in professional grade monitor since
the vertical height is almost identical with the extra inch contributing to a
slightly wider field of view although I suspect a good number of those folks
will be upgrading with the misguided notion that they'll be able to utilize
the 31 muu 97's 35% more vertical
pixels which likely won't be the case
now I have pretty good Vision a little shy of 2020 so I do have a prescription
that sharpens things up a little bit and at a reasonable distance without my
glasses I can use this display without
scaling and with my glasses everything is actually reasonably sharp but for
long periods it wasn't comfortable to use like that under either scenario so I
think most people would require scaling within their operating system for
optimal text readability for those that can handle it though it is definitely
cool to have easily enough horizontal pixels for three to four pieces of
content but frankly if my goal was pure business and productivity and spreading
things out I would choose LG's own 3497 or 34 UC 97 over this one since
they require no scaling and the ultra wide format makes side by side by side a
total pleasure to use all right then so this monitor is for professionals if not
necessarily the ones who are focused on spreadsheets well then which ones ah
video and Imaging Professionals and it's got some pretty neat features to appeal
to those folks so first up is the 10bit LED backlit matte finish IPS panel
something that will benefit the folks with appropriate Hardware software and
more than anything else the need for it so content creators because While most
LCD computer displays out there are 8 bit or even 6bit with f FRC tricks to
achieve more than the native number of colors more granularity allows content
creators to more accurately match a Target color in the original work so
that regardless of which medium it eventually ends up being displayed on
web print broadcast Cinema whatever the case may be it will be as close as
possible to what they were trying to achieve which leads us into what really
is the killer app of this monitor for me now the number of bits per channel for
color actually has little to do with the
total color gamut or range of colors that a monitor can represent it's just
how many intermediary steps there are within that range and that is where the
31 m97 really shines compared to a typical consumer monitor or even the
entrylevel prosumer ones that I've seen in the past it comes pre-calibrated from
the factory with a handy dandy little report that you get in the box and
covers one 100% of the srgb color space so this would be suitable for work that
will be viewed on the web or realistically most General use color
applications 99.5% of the Adobe RGB color space
considered suitable for working with higher bit depth images and depending on
your printer setup sometimes desired for print and then this is where the video
Geeks Jaws will drop 97% of the dcip P3 Digital Cinema color
space which I guess makes sense since given it digal Cinema standard
resolution that will also make users able to preview their Cinema bound work
at one to1 on this display means this is kind of who they were targeting with
this now to be clear this is not the best available grading display for DCI
you can get 100% coverage with a Dolby PRM 4220 a 42in 1080p display that
features specialized dual modulation dimming technology and costs tens of
thousands of dollars but at under under 5% of the cost for this Monitor and a
solid calibration system to keep it running at Peak efficiency for 97% of
the results it looks pretty darn appealing and there's one more super
cool feature too being able to preview one color space next to another one
that's in use on the rest of the monitor is amazing that way if a project is
going to be utilized in multiple ways you can quickly ensure that you're going
to get the desired results across different media
but while PC users with DisplayPort 1.2 outputs can rejoice and basically go
start buying these puppies up some mac users have been complaining now I've
been saying for some time that due to its lack of expandability limited RAM
capacity and a number of other reasons the late 2013 Mac Pro is not a serious
workstation and now I'm getting some more ammunition for my gun Apple users
are reporting that single tile 4K that is real 4K not Ultra HD displays like
the 30 1 m97 are only capable of running
at 50 HZ on the Mac Pro at their native resolution it appears to be a driver
issue since there's no problem running at 60 HZ on similar class AMD cards in
Windows so hopefully this is something that Apple will address because aside
from still not supporting 10 pit color per Channel like Windows users have been
enjoying an adobe applications like Photoshop for years Apple users won't be
able to run at full res and refresh rate on their shiny new toy SL productivity
tool which would definitely be a fly in
my glass of milk speaking of flies and
milk glasses someone should make a website dedicated to like beautifully
shot and graded images or like short
video clips of people reacting to a fly in the bottom of their glass of milk and
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