The BIGGEST UltraWide Ever - LG 38UC99 Review
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2017-05-06
·
1,723 words · ~8 min read
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it's here the biggest baddest Ultra
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widest monitor yet LG's 38 u99 boasts
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38 in of productivity and gaming
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goodness with higher resolution higher refresh rate more inputs and AMD free
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sync among the improvements they've made since I first laid eyes on the 34
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u97 that's been my daily driver at the office since its release nearly 2 years
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ago but is it really a step forward can
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a monitor be simply too big no spoilers so for now the answer is
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maybe the dark Bass Pro 900 from be quiet! features a modular design to
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support a variety of layouts and configurations check out the link in the
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video description to learn more let's open with the speeds and feeds the 38
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u99 rocks a curved IPS 100% srgb rated
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panel with Max brightness that exceeds its 300 nit rating in my testing and
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that I would describe as freaking bright
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I used dark room profile one most of the
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time in my office it runs at a native resolution of 3840 by 1,600 which is
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about 34 as many pixels as UHD and it
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uses the extra bandwidth that it saves to break the 60 HZ barrier and offer up
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a 75 HZ maximum refresh rate on either
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its dp1.2 or USB type-c port very
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refreshing all of this amounts to nearly exactly the same pixel density as the
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older 34in 144 40p models and going
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further back in time the 16 by10 30in
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monitors that were hugely popular among Ballin ass Ballers about 10 years ago
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for good reason it is a great sweet spot
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because it's basically as fine as you can go without scaling something that
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Windows 8 and prior handled very poorly
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and even on Windows 10 is imperfect at
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least from a normal distance I found that with the UC 99 I needed to sit a
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little further back than I normally do to avoid significant head movements to
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interact with onscreen elements in the corners H let's continue for I/O we've
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got a headphone jack dp1.2 dual HDMI 2.0
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USB type-c that access both an Uplink
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for the Android BC 1.2 fast charge supporting Hub and as an alternate plug
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for the DisplayPort input and on the software side LG's onscreen control has
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many more window Arrangement modes and basically did what it was supposed to so
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no complaints here the stand though is one step forward one step back IMO the
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display clicks into it with no tools required thumbs up and the couple
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degrees of pivot adjustment actually makes it easier to compensate for slight
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misalignments but whether it's due to the weight of the panel or the plastic
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ARM I wasn't especially pleased with the screen wobble that I experienced while
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typing at my desk not on such a premium
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product the onscreen menu is Snappy to navigate thanks to the four Direction
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nipple button interface and much quicker
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onboard processor but to take it one
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step further I'd really like to see programmable shortcuts as it is left and
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right are volume adjustments which makes sense but up and down both both just
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show me my current input and current image profile while clicking the nipple
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brings up mostly sensible options Bluetooth audio is a neat feature that
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lets you use the UC 99's fairly decent speakers with your phone over Bluetooth
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for me that one would come up a lot less
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often than wanting to toggle the motion blur reduction mode that claims as low
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as 1 millisecond perceived pixel response times when you're running at
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the maximum 75 HZ for refresh rate over DisplayPort the principle here is
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similar to NVIDIA's light boost it rapidly strobes the backlight simulating
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the way that a CRT Works which results in a noticeable Improvement in image
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sharpness during quick movements in games but it looks like flickering butt
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outside of games and costs 16
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interactions with the menu button every time you want to toggle
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it this could be addressed by the onscreen control control application
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that at least allows picture modes to be adjusted a little more quickly but at
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this time that only supports a small subset of the monitors onboard controls
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so some convenience and comfort enhancing features are stuck buried so
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deep that I suspect many owners of this display will never even find them I'd
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like to see some improvement there while we're at it LG's dual linkup picture by
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picture mode is another great example of solid idea B minus implementation it
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lets you pull up plug in a compatible
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type-c port and boom with that one cable
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you can have your desktop on the one side your plugged in peripherals in the
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monitor working on your laptop and your laptop displayed on the other side and
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it charges laptops up to 60 watts too
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with Synergy this amazing Network mouse
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and keyboard sharing software that Luke showed off here this could be an amazing
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use case for folks like me who still use their laptop while they're out and about
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but prefer to sit at the desktop in the
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evening again though I can't make this the default behavior for when I plug
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something in and it's 11 clicks to toggle it every time not to mention that
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if you're using DisplayPort for your desktop for that 75 HZ refresh rate you
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will need to use HDMI for your laptop not the type-c input the two DP inputs
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cannot be used concurrently and while I'm at bone headed slip-ups in the
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attention to detail Department what the
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actual hell were they thinking putting a persistence icon in the bottom right of
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my screen when I have Bluetooth audio playing I mean if you must have an
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indicator so that I don't get confused and call support complaining that my
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speakers aren't working make it pop up when I adjust the volume or have a small
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LED off screen anything else would have
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been better than that on to the positive
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stuff though performance of the panel can't really be faulted backlight bleed
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was within reason and subjectively viewing angles and uniformity were very
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strong points especially for a display of this size with color accuracy out of
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the box in the custom profile of all things being pretty darn close but it
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does feel a little like LG tried to be everything to everyone and ended up
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achieving only 80% of every category
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they're trying to sell the extra screen real estate to content creators but this
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is a $1,500 srgb panel at the dawn of the age
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of HDR but while the 75 HZ refresh rate
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is an absolute godsend for gamers you
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can hate on this all you want but I'm not convinced too many of the folks
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gaming at near 4K resolutions are running AMD Hardware these days and I'd
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have preferred two separate SKS and at
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least 10 bit Adobe RGB preferably Rec 709 content creation model and a more
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gamer specific one with g-sync rather than free sync so LG is not going to
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like this but while the increased size of the 38 u99 makes the 3x1 vertical
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layout noticeably more usable which is a definite plus overall I found myself
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either sitting back further or moving my head more like I would with a multim
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monitor setup rather than being able to take it all in like I can with its 34in
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cousin and I'm not 100% sure that I
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prefer that it's not that it's a bad monitor at all it's in my top five
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probably even my top three but maybe I
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just came into this expecting an entirely new computering experience like
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LG has done to me in the past and when that wasn't what I got I was easily
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annoyed by small oversights that could have been avoided by talking to me for
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an hour before beginning the product development cycle though I would love to
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hear from you guys in the comments if you think I completely missed the mark
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and Jake con turnley here has already informed me that for his brother this
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would be amazing because he works on circuit design and the bigger the screen
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the better speaking of missing the mark
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you'd be missing the Mark if you weren't using brain tree for your mobile app if
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you're looking for a simple payments solution with the brain tree v.0 SDK
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which is one small snippet of code you can be all set up in less than 10
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minutes and if it takes you more than 10 minutes all you got to do is go that's
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okay I give up on this call their support staff and they will be happy to
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walk you through the process over the phone their code supports Android iOS
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and JavaScript clients and they have sdks in seven programming languages they
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make it easy to offer multiple Mobile payment types including PayPal Apple pay
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Bitcoin venmo Android pay credit cards
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and and more all of this with a single integration so to learn more and to get
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your first $50,000 in transactions with
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no fees go to Braintree payments.com Linus Linked In the video
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description so thanks for watching guys if this video sucked you know what to do
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but if it was awesome get subscribed hit that like button or check out the link
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to where to buy this monitor or anything else that we feature in our videos at
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Amazon in the video description also linked in the description is our merch
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store which has cool shirts like like this one and our community Forum which
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you should totally join now that you're done doing all that stuff you're
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probably wondering what to watch next so hey let's assume you're a new viewer and
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you've never seen our triple 34in
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ultrawide ifinity gaming video which you can check out right up there