(The UltraWide Time of Alan Walker – LG UltraWide Festival 2018)

For all you creators out there! LG understands there’s more to the final output. There’s also the “process.” All the hours spent working, toiling, creating, that no one ever sees. The endless brain-strain and ideating a creator dedicates to their goal is what makes up their UltraWide Time. Few will ever see or understand the process, where all the work and magic happen. But LG understands.   

One of the highlights of this year’s LG UltraWide Festival is Alan Walker, a multiple-platinum DJ/Producer. Alan says he spent years wondering if the countless hours at his computer desk would ever be rewarded. “Making music takes a lot of time and effort, not something that just happens with a snap. It takes time but is a very fun road to go.” He still spends long nights composing on his UltraWide monitor.

Then there’s Action Movie Kid. Daniel Hashimoto and his son created a smash hit YouTube channel. It features a kid surrounded by eye-popping special effects. For this dad and son, “quality time” is spent in front of a camera and computer. Daniel says “my UltraWide Time is for imagination. Every afternoon we come up with something amazing.”

The theme for this year’s LG UltraWide Festival is “My UltraWide Time.” LG focuses on the long hours and tireless effort of passionate creators. This year, instead of your final product, LG wants to know about your nitty gritty “process.” Who would have ever thought? It’s simple to enter. Take a short quiz, describe a moment, or share a story about your creative process. Get all the rules and details at LG UltraWide Festival event page, or simply do a search for ‘LG UltraWide’.

LG actually understands the hours it takes to create just a few moments of work, and is excited to show creators some support through this event. This is the 4th straight year since 2015 that LG has given a boost to deserving creators through the UltraWide Festival.

In fact, LG’s support for creators extends beyond the LG UltraWide Festival. LG equips world-class DJs with UltraWide monitors through the UltraWide Studio program. Also, LG’s UltraWide Academy Sponsorship nurtures the next generation of international artists. Top design, art, and animation schools are provided with state-of-the-art equipment and space for all things creative. The UltraWide Academy Sponsorship first sponsored a brand-new computer lab at Parsons School of Design in 2016. Next was the Royal College of Art in 2017. This year, LG decked out the Vancouver Film School, recently ranked the No.1 International Animation School, with an academy lab. LG is clearly showing its long-term commitment to gifted students in the process of honing their talents.

The new facilities impressed Vancouver Film School’s Head of Animation, Colin Giles. He says, “The creative digital art is an exciting canvas for any idea you can create with the possibilities being endless. The students will benefit from this strong partnership with LG and the LG UltraWide Monitor Academy Lab by having access to a literal canvas that removes any possible barrier to their imagination. With a wide, seamless screen that allows for a more immersive use of the software at hand and a color range that meets their own imagination their creations will jump into reality. ‘The more you see, the better you create’ has never been truer than at VFS.” To see photos of the VFS Academy Lab, head over to @LG_UltraWide Instagram account

Once in a great while, a company truly understands creators. It’s nice to see LG focusing on the long, hours of work others rarely see. It’s especially heartening that the process is getting some respect. It’s time worth cherishing, as much as the result.

‘Curve and Create‘ by @Littledrill featuring LG UltraWide Monitor 34UC98

A couple of months ago, we got the chance to test LG’s UltraWide monitor. To be frank, my expectations before the monitor arrived weren’t very high. I’m a typical mac user and I’m not much of a monitor user. But that was before I got to use an ultra wide monitor.

Besides the amazing and pixel-perfect quality of the images, the extra space has helped me out tremendously to split screen work. Right now, I have google docs on the right, while I read some of the monitor’s specs online to the left. The only disadvantage for me is that I’ve developed a gaming habit since I got the monitor. The refresh rate is amazing and the graphics are to die for. But we’ll get to that later.

Going back to productivity, it is actually proven that using a larger monitor helped participants complete tasks up to 52% faster, saving an average 2.5 hours each day, according to a study by the University of Utah.

Designers, architects, and photographers find wide monitors or dual monitors appealing.

The benefits of the ultra-wide monitor are as expansive as the displays themselves. Hands down, the best part of this monitor is the immersive feeling of it all. The 34-inch curved screen seems to suck you in and just fully submerge you into the screen content. The Monitor’s resolution is 3440X1440, which is almost 4x the resolution of standard HD monitors.

The LG is obviously a great choice for people from the creative industry and content creators. This is why LG has partnered with leading design institutions to provide UltraWide Monitors to help students produce work that’ll transform their industries, from architecture to product design.  

Parsons Making Center 3D Lab

The most recent partner in this grant program is The New School’s Parsons School for Design in New York City, which received a state-of-the-art computer lab featuring new LG 34” Class 21:9 UltraWide Monitors.

Designers are taking full advantage of this monitor.

The 21:9 UltraWide displays offer more visual information on screen at once, creating a workspace that enables designers to be more productive compared to the usual two-monitor setup. They also utilize sRGB over 99% IPS technology, that guarantees color accuracy with factory color calibration and eliminating frustrating color shifting and distortion that is common with traditional monitors.  It’s easy to adjust settings via the On-Screen Control and the monitors have a Screen Split function with 14 options for simple multitasking.

Parsons student experiences LG UltraWide Monitor

“Personally, I think creative professionals would definitely benefit from it,” said Joe, an illustration alumni from Parsons. “The monitor is basically the new drawing board. The color correction and what you see on screen should be exactly what you printed. And if you’re video editing, then there should be no lag whatsoever.”

People are already praising the new LG monitor. According to a survey of Parsons students, over 70 percent felt the UltraWide’s expansive display made multitasking easier and improved productivity.

Parsons Making Center Graphic Lab

“It’s  very wide and makes it easy to create 3D models or use Adobe Creative Suite, as the screen’s big enough to accommodate all the panels.” said Lorraine, a Product Design student.

It’s awesome to see corporations like LG making the lives of fellow designers and creative folk easier.
If you haven’t tried an ultra wide monitor yet, I definitely recommend it. It’s an amazing and immersive experience and most definitely would make you more productive.

Parsons Making Center 3D Lab

Samuel, who is studying illustration said “I think the 21:9 monitor is the future of screens.  You are putting yourself inside the screen as it curves around you. It’s user oriented. It’s ergonomic. This brings full immersion; the future of virtual reality.”

For 2017, LG is considering a range different specialized schools — including institutes for photography, film and design — to receive the UltraWide Academy Sponsorship Program, furthering its commitment to giving talented individuals the freedom and comfort to create.

Ultrawide monitors are largely considered to be the next big thing in the computer monitor world, and a number of ultrawide monitor models have been released over the past few years – such as the Dell U3415W or the Samsung S34E790C. Still, while most of those monitors offer a resolution of 2,560 x 1,080 or sometimes 3,440 x 1,440, LG wants to take things to the next level. Introducing the LG 38UC99.

So what makes the LG 38UC99 so special? Quite a few things, actually. For example, the monitor offers an eye-burning 3,840 x 1,600 resolution with a 21:9 aspect ratio, a 75Hz refresh rate, and a 38-inch screen. Oh, and did we mention it’s curved?

There’s no denying that the 39UC99 is an absolute beast, but it has a price tag to match. Is it worth the $1,500? We put it through the paces to find out.

This thing ain’t small

Let’s get something out of the way before we look at the monitor’s design. You’re going to need a pretty huge desk. Even LG’s press shots for the monitor don’t really do it justice. If you have a large desk, you’ll probably be good to go, but if you’re unsure, you’re going to want to take a look at it for yourself. For reference, the base of the monitor sits at around 20.5-inches wide, so you’ll need at least that much to really use this monitor at all.

The 38UC99 features LG’s classic white and silver look, which gives it a very sleek and premium feel. The stand follows along with that trend – it’s a smooth metallic silver that looks as modern as the monitor is. Speaking of the stand, you get quite a few options with monitor placement – you can easily adjust the higher and tilt of the monitor simply by moving it to where you want.

On the back of the curved monitor, you actually get quite a few port options. You’ll find two HDMI ports, a DisplayPort, two USB 3.0 ports, and even a USB-C port. If that isn’t enough, the monitor has Bluetooth connectivity, so you can quickly and easily connect Bluetooth peripherals to it. For example, you can connect your phone to the monitor to wirelessly stream music to the monitor’s speakers. As an audio buff (and editor-in-chief of HeadphoneReview.com), those speakers don’t sound amazing, but they’re certainly not bad and should suit most day-to-day purposes.

Those extra ports are pretty nice, and they turn the monitor into something of a content hub – you can charge your devices straight from your monitor, which isn’t a necessary feature, but an added bonus nonetheless.

On the bottom, LG has taken an interesting approach to the monitor’s controls. Instead of a D-Pad or simply a series of buttons, there’s a joystick, which is extremely easy to control. Simple press on the joystick to turn the monitor on and off, then follow the on-screen prompts to control the monitor. Quick settings you can change with that joystick include things like Brightness, Contrast, Volume, Screen Off, and Bluetooth Audio. Screen Off is a little confusing, but it basically turns the display off when the monitor is connected to a Bluetooth audio source.

Instead of having to tweak all those settings yourself to find what you like, you’ll also get access to a number of presets – which include two “Dark Room” presets, and a few options for gaming.

Setup

We should take a moment to mention that this monitor is a super high performer, so don’t expect every computer to work well with it. For example, while the monitor worked well on most computers we tested with, my slightly aging 2012 MacBook Pro with Retina Display didn’t fare so well – it could only handle the 3,840 x 1,440 resolution at around a 25Hz refresh rate, which is far less than ideal. In the end for the MacBook Pro we switched over to a 2,560 x 1,066 resolution, which offered a much nicer (but still not amazing) 47Hz refresh rate. None of this could be done through Apple’s stock display settings, so instead we had to use SwitchResX to build a custom resolution.

Things were a little easier on the Windows side of things, so if you’re a gamer that will be good to hear. A little more about gaming later.

Great, but how does it perform?

The LG 38UC99 doesn’t just look great on the outside – the actual screen is pretty darn beautiful too. In fact, it looks great out-of-the-box, so you don’t really need to do all that much to make it look good.

While super high, the resolution isn’t perfect does take some getting used to. Because the MacBook Pro with Retina Display has a pixel density of 226ppi, the 110ppi on the LG monitor looks a little blurry, especially when you first set up the display. You will get used to it eventually, but just something to keep in mind. And, of course, if you’re using the monitor as a primary display rather than a secondary one, or don’t have eyes that are used to the Retina Display, you won’t have any issues with that resolution.

One cool feature about the display is that it offers AMD’s FreeSync technology, along with LG’s self-developed “1ms Motion Blur Reduction.” So what do those do? Well, if you do have a computer that supports the display’s resolution, FreeSync will help boost the normal refresh rate of 60Hz up to a hefty 75Hz. Motion Blur will smooth out that picture even more, and combined the LG 38UC99 will be up to even the most demanding games and videos.

Speaking of gaming, the 38UC99 really has a lot to offer, and that’s partly due to the curve of the screen. Considering how big the display is, plus that curve, gaming on the monitor is really quite an immersive experience.

The contrast on the monitor is quite good at 660:1, but it’s still not on the same level as some other ultrawide monitors, many of which hit the 700:1 mark. Still, while blacks aren’t as dark as they could be, they are pretty dark – and the contrast will be plenty for most people. That’s true of the color accuracy too – colors look pretty damn good, but nothing pops out as much as it could.

In other words, the image quality on this monitor is very similar to other, smaller models. Those models, however, just aren’t as impressive, because as we all know bigger is better. Okay, maybe that’s not always true, but in this case a larger monitor with the same image quality is certainly better.

Warranty

Normally warranty can be covered off in one sentence, but we want to highlight one of the only negatives about the LG 38UC99 – that’s the fact that it only has a 1-year warranty on parts, labor and the backlight.

For a monitor of this price, you really should be getting a longer warranty, and while the short warranty doesn’t outright say that LG doesn’t have faith in its product, it certainly is suggestive.

Conclusions

The LG 38UC99 is an impressive monitor. It offers near 4K resolution, FreeSync and Motion Blur for top-notch gaming experiences, and is stunningly beautiful.

But do you need the LG 38UC99? Probably not, but you certainly might want it – it’s a lot of fun. At a massive $1,500, few people really need this monitor. There are plenty of perfectly good ultrawide options out there for a fraction of the price of this one. But, if you have a pile of cash to spend on a monitor, enjoy the ultrawide form factor, feel like you need something big, and really want the best of the best, then the LG 38UC99 is an excellent – and dare we say the best – choice.

Score: 9.5/10

Designers rejoice, LG has just launched a groundbreaking display that changes the game of big, beautiful displays. This 34 inch masterpiece is as beautiful as it is powerful, and is the perfect companion for web designers, graphic designers, photographers and anyone else who creates digitally.

I use dual monitors now, why do I care about this?

What often frustrates the designers is lack of color consistency when moving images from one monitor to another, which ultimately adds strains to rely on one (high-end) monitor as referencing color fidelity. 34UM95 supports expressing over 99 percent of the sRGB color space, meaning, you have a solid color range. On top of that, you no longer have to worry about how the same image will look on the other side of the bezel (next monitor), as all the work can be done in one monitor. LG‘s own True Color Finder software and built-in scaler also robustly sustains color consistency round clock, across all of your images.

Perfect Ratio

If there was such thing as a golden ratio for a single monitor, 3440 x 1440 QHD resolution would definitely be a candidate. Big monitors should never sacrifice vertical pixels for width. With legacy screen space, photographers had to juggle image files and folders fighting for space with the images they were actually working on. With a 21:9 ratio packed with dense pixels, there is ample space for Photoshop, which can handle more images than before, and toolbars, which can claim a space of their own.

[This was a sponsored post via BuySellAds.]