You've seen the commercials. You've heard the hype. You've uh probably read
about that whole router debacle with the faulty shielding. But that's fixed now.
And there's no denying then that the 27in LG 27 MD 5K ultra fine 5K monitor
is one of the slickest on the market
right now. But does the fact that it's
being aimed primarily at Apple zombies,
it even launched exclusively through the Apple Store mean that it's a nogo for
Windows geeks? I mean, it's just a monitor,
right? It should be okay, right? Well,
let's peel back the layers of this sexy little onion and see if she makes us
cry.
Synergy is the software that lets you share your mouse and keyboard between
multiple computers. Check it out now at the link in the video description. The
experience of unboxing the Ultrafine 5K,
though not quite on Apple's level, was definitely more pleasing than what we're
used to from LG. Immediately apparent upon unboxing the product and removing
it from its super cool shiny space suit
are a couple of unusual characteristics of the LG 5K's industrial design. It's
got a sophisticated matte finish. It's
disappointingly plastic rather than aluminum like the Apple Cinema Displays
of Yore, but it still looks and feels
pretty good. It lacks buttons entirely.
So that means no onscreen display for making adjustments to the inputs or
image quality, though at least one of those isn't important as we'll see
later. And the thickest side of the bezel, which would normally be on the
bottom, we'd call it the chin bar, is actually at the top. So do we call this
like a like a brow brow bar? But this is
interesting. It looks like they were
making room for the ambient light sensor
that should be enabled through a future software update at some
point, and the only disruption to the
5K's otherwise totally clean facade, the
very nice looking 1080p camera and
front-facing microphone. The base stands out from the
crowd as well. It's solidly constructed with a pleasing high quality vibe and
offers both a generous degree of tilt
and near giraffe-like vertical reach.
And if that's not enough, there's actually a vase amount included in the
box, which I guess brings us pretty well around to the back. The 6T power cord
attaches seamlessly Apple style to the
rear panel. And would you look at that IO? A single port type rules the entire
panel. Whether you like it or not, this is probably a window into the USB type-C
dominated future that we are headed for. So these three are USB 3.1 5 GB data
ports, each capable of pushing 7 1/2 watts of power. So enough to charge your
phone or other USB device. And this one,
which is the only input on this monitor,
that's right, just one, looks the same as the other ones, but has far more
going on under the hood. It's a Thunderbolt 3 input, which allows it to
not only carry the data for those USB ports and the
882 million pixels per second from your
machine to the display, but also to push
85 watts of power the other way. Enough
to charge your laptop. That's right, kids. This one cord solution lets you
leave your charger in your backpack because the included 6 and 1/2 foot
cable is all it takes to transform your
supported laptop into a full-on 5K
workstation. And they absolutely nailed
this whole experience with the 2016 MacBook Pro. Side by side, everything
about the image looks just right. From
the color to the eyepiercing 500 nit
brightness on max to the very similar
anti-glare glossy appearance to the
retina-like astonishing sharpness of the
218 pixel per inch panel. But we
promised this was a Windows users perspective, didn't we? So, let's plug
it into a Razor Blade.
Okay, there we go. And uh
wow, that actually looks really
sh. Wait a tick. There's no five in that number.
Why the heck is Windows capping the resolution somewhere between Ultra HD
and the native 5K that the display supports? Windows 10 can go up to 8K. So
what gives? Relax. Tech tips. Lionus.
Techquicky. Lionus. Is that you? It sure
is. So, you remember that one cord solution that you were all excited about
a second ago? Uh-huh. Well, it turns out that driving a 5K display over one cable
is an industry first. All other 5K and
up monitors use two DisplayPort cables.
Driving 5K over one is only achievable
right now using special Apple shenanigans. Why? Well, a Thunderbolt 3
cable can actually carry two Display
Port 1.2 two ports worth of data, but
the Thunderbolt 3 port on your Windows
machine can't send enough to fill those
eight DisplayPort lanes because of how it's hooked up internally. The reason
you can do this on your 2016 MacBook Pro
is because Apple implemented a special controller that funnels the resources of
two display ports into that single
Thunderbolt 3. That's why if you were to
try to plug in two ultrafine 5Ks in your
2016 MacBook Pro, which you can totally do by the way, you have to plug them in
two opposite sides of the machine for both to work. The more you know, right?
This episode was brought to you by Fresh Book. Hey, where you going from here?
Okay then. So, in a nutshell, the
ultrafine 5K is more like the ultra fine
4 and a bit K when it's used with anything but the 2016 MacBook Pro. And
unfortunately, it actually gets worse
than that. Because there's no onscreen display, you're relying on integration
with the OS to control the monitor, which is
fantastic on the Mac, but your mileage
may vary on Windows. We were able to control the volume of the surprisingly
decent internal speakers, but we couldn't manage to adjust the screen
brightness up or down. And it's not just
resolution difference and lack of control that are iffy because Windows
relies on applications to do all color
matching rather than doing it pixel by pixel on the OS level like the Mac. PC
users will never get to experience the
consistently awesome color accuracy
enabled by this factory calibrated display. To be clear, it's still a very
good 8bit IPS panel with AFRC to simulate 10- bit color, and it's got 99%
coverage of the DCIP3 color space. So,
even on a Windows machine, it'll be suitable for photo editing and graphics
work. But at $1,700, you'd be paying a premium for
oomph that you aren't receiving. And
this is especially true when you consider that both Dell and HP have 27in
5K offerings with somewhat similar specs at lower
price points. So while 5K at this size is
awesome. I mean really I can clearly
make out objects in the backgrounds of thumbnail sized images. And the LG
Ultrafine 5K will be arguably the best
display experience on the market for the MacBook Pro until Apple challenges it
with their own upcoming Cinema Display Refresh. On Windows, the experience
could be better described as fine than
ultra fine. Synergy is a software download
that solves the problem of having two keyboards and two mice cluttering up
your desk. It allows you to share one mouse and one keyboard between two or
even more computers, so you'll no longer get confused which keyboard or mouse
goes for which one. They've got a basic and a pro option with a one-time payment
for lifetime access. And features include things like clipboard sharing
between the computers, dragging and dropping files between the computers,
the ability to set up hotkeys, and more. And what's even more amazing is it works
crossplatform, Windows, Mac, and
Linux. So use our link in the video description to get 50% off Synergy
today. So thanks for watching, guys. If this video sucked, you know what to do.
But if it was awesome, get subscribed, hit that like button, or check out the
link to where to buy the stuff we featured in the video description. Also
down there is a link to our merch store, which has cool shirts like this one, and
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