LG 4K UHD 27UD88-W 27" LED-Lit Monitor with USB Type-C

Beautiful Image Quality. Great SpecsI have had the LG 27UD88-W monitor for about two weeks now, using it in Gaming, Web browsing, everything else I normally do. In a word…WOW! No complaints so far. (the seller Video & Audio Ctr did a great job shipping & answering questions.. see below).Now for some background. I did an exhaustive 3 month search online for the ideal monitor for my needs. 2K, 4K, G-Sync, non G-Sync, curved, half a dozen or so manufacturers. Upgrading from a Samsung Syncmaster TN 1080p panel that was about six years old and still going strong, this upgrade is just jaw dropping beautiful! I am an avid gamer and also do a lot of surfing & reading and writing online. I stare at my screen 3 to 12 hours a day. My greatest concern moving up to 4K was not the image quality. I knew that was going to be great. It was the text size and other elements of the GUI being drastically smaller than 1080 or even 1440p.I have no problems with small text size although I prefer to either zoom text larger or just use Win10 scaling. Less eye strain (I wear glasses). However my wife has visual challenges that would have totally prevented her from using 4K quality with only a 27” panel size (at default, 100% normal scaling, everything readable is incredibly SMALL). So I gambled with this monitor knowing I would be very happy with the quality, backlight, pixels, panel design… but the text??? The scaling BETTER be good! So once it was set up, the first thing I did was play around with scaling, just in Windows10. At 200% scaling, everything looks much more readable, about the same as it was for my wife on the 1080p Samsung monitor. So the gamble paid off. I post this info for anyone who, like me, didn’t want to pay the premium and move up to 30” or higher that 4K would scale better without tweaking windows. I have read and agree that at 4K resolution, 30 to 32” is really a ‘sweet spot’ which just makes reading better. But both windows and LG did a great job with scaling.So LG's web site has a bunch of software/driver downloads and I got the latest Windows driver, also tried the TrueColorPro 3.5.8 which I liked the idea being able to calibrate the color. I just could NOT get this software to work. I could tweak a couple things (Gamma, brightness) but the software won’t even recognize this device. Also this software requires the monitor be plugged via USB port to the PC. Did that. Then the software gave an error on every boot up, and takes too much memory to run in the back ground. Uninstalled it. Fortunately LG factor calibration really is just great. I don’t really see the need to tweak for my needs. As for the other necessary piece of software.. OnScreenControl; LG did a nice job but don’t expect EVERY menu setting that is available to the joystick OSD menu to be in this menu that you access via your mouse. Disappointing that. But LG does make additional UI scaling options ABOVE what Win10 gives. So for those of you wanting to go crazy and scale up above 200% you can. It goes as high as 300% (windows caps out at 200%). In this stratosphere expect some tweaking to get things to behave and fit. Takes a bit of patience if you got it. A side note – my wife and I share 1 PC and each have our own user account. She has a higher windows scaling set and mine’s lower. Windows will save/remember/allow this environment no issues. But, change the desktop resolution? It will be global and change both user accounts at the same time. So no custom resolution folks. As a nod to LG I think they just kept the On Screen Control simple and yielded most used settings quickly accessible via a right click on the task tray icon.As for the infamous backlight bleed notorious with IPS tech, this monitor has very very minor bleed on the lower corner(s) and even less at the top. Honestly if I didn’t know what it was and didn’t look for it, I would not even notice. Also there is NO application that I have used so far which even shows it. Just when the monitor is not plugged into a source but is on. Dead Pixels? None (yay!). I am also pleased with all the design elements of this monitor, from the height adjustment which is a breeze to raise & lower, to the rotation (I will never use that), to the USB ports in the back, to the fact that this monitor does NOT have built-in speakers. It is very hard to find a quality & high end monitor that puts all of it’s design, build and money into what I WANT (image) and not into something I will never use (crappy speakers). So that was a plus. There is NO Pivot option, which I actually need, so my fix? Place hand towel below each leg, a towel that has one side some nylon stitching embedded face down. This thing pivots like it’s factory made to do that. Just don’t turn it unless you grab the stand, not the panel.Coming from an older TN panel I had just gotten used to the lame color reproduction and crappy viewing angles and especially the off whites and brightness. Imagine TN tech yields very bright panels but the whites look light beige or washed out dull. LG did a fantastic job here. I mean whites are like bleached and bright, and the colors just POP! Watching 4K videos are really great, I even took a magnifier and looked up close at the screen… NO visible pixels. To anyone not sure what that is about, it means no matter how close you sit or how awesome your vision, this monitor is going to look clear, bright, colorful and great. EXCEPT – if the image source is less than optimal. Don’t expect a great experience if you are watching a 720p video or lower on youtube. So in essence this monitor is going to reproduce an experience for you that I can best describe as ‘what you see (stream) is what you get’. If you have a great video, photo or game that is hi-rez you will love it. Which nowadays is not an issue as almost all newer game titles and all the web sites are using modern software and embedded elements that just look fantastic.My graphics card is a bit dated at GeForce GTX 750Ti so I ran Warframe at 3840 x 2160 and it played good, looked great but I had to dial it back a bit to keep it running smooth. At 4K resolution it was between 10 and 30Hz. I keep this game at 1440p until I get a better graphics card. Planetside2 and DCUniverse also look great. Even though my experience is not fully realized at the higher rez, everything else is a HUGE bump for me. I just never get tired of looking at this monitor.Sleek thin bezel design, stable not to wobbly stand, comfortable joystick navigation for On Screen Display (menu). After several months comparing just about every high end monitor (over 20 models) it came down to about six and I had to pull the trigger on something. This model had way too many great features and so many positive reviews so I was confident and have no regrets. While I would have loved G-Sync (yes, I should get AMD card but am Nvidia loyalist) and wish it were a larger screen, turns out you can’t have G-Sync and 4K over 28” size. And that 1 choice yields a TN panel. Why bother. So at 27” to have Gsync you get a couple other choices, one from ASUS and another ACER, both of which are sweet but close to $900. Wasn’t worth it for me at this time. In a couple years I give this monitor to my wife and pull the trigger on a larger 4K or 1440p Gsync gaming monitor.I have to compliment this retailer Video & Audio Center. I never heard of them, but have 4,778 reviews as of this writing, with 100% positive reviews. I figured this is a good bet. The item shipped within 24 hours which was great, and I didn’t get a usable tracking number right away (for some reason UPS didn’t have it in their system) so I contacted the seller by phone to ask why. They answered right away and the rep was very nice, informative, English, and helpful. They sent an email response as well. The item was trackable the next day, and was delivered within 5 days of order. It arrived packaged very well (original box inside another cushioned box) no damage to product.

I have had this monitor for any two years now. At first I used it at Wework a couple times a week for a few hours each time. It just needing 2 cables to function made for a very clean and minimalistic environment.Last year I left the shared space and set up a home studio for myself. I got a desk that had a laptop basket at the bottom and I now use this monitor as my dedicated computer monitor. I have only opened my MacBook maybe 5-6 times in the last year for a total use time of maybe an hour. Pretty much every time it's related to updating my MacBook Pro. (So much for a touch bar haha)I have a MacBook Pro 15" 2018 now and at Wework I would use a 13" 2017 model. This monitor is just perfect and very well priced for it having USB-C and being 4K, truly outstanding!The included mount is very good, but you can always use your own VESA mount as it's compatible.I've used it for hundreds of hours playing MMORPG games online and it performs magnificently. The color settings are great and I often use dimmed settings to read manga late at night with the room lights dimmed.The colors are great for editing pictures and the screen size is just perfect for drawing on Photoshop using a tablet or iPad! Between the MacBook and the monitor's ports, I can connect many devices. This includes my Blue Yeti microphone that I use for video and audio work, as well as my desk fan and cable hub for when I need to plug extra devices such as eReaders, SD cards, and the rare ethernet for intensive online shooters.It's a perfect monitor for anyone wanting the simplicity of USB-C PD pass through and 4K screen quality.

I'm not sure I've ever written a review on Amazon, but I labored over this purchase for a while because of the cost and discovered a few interesting things once I got the monitor. I've given it a 5 Star review, because I do think it's an impressive piece of gear and it's definitely meeting/exceeding my needs. I also seriously considered the UltraFine option in this same size, but ultimately picked this one.Some of my opinion comes down to use model, but I'm guessing there are a lot of people in that same boat. I do some video editing, but I am neither a professional photographer nor a professional video production person. I run Apple Logic sometimes, but that's no longer my job. What I am is a tech dork that also cares about aesthetic and I want maximum usability in my devices. I'm driving this monitor with a 2017 MacBook Pro 15" w/ Retina and Touchbar.So, I took this bad boy out of the box, set it up on my desk plugged it in over USB-C and it worked immediately. As an aside, the charging works fine - I don't know if it's perfect and I haven't driven it too hard with games or anything, but it charges the laptop fine even though it's a lower wattage than the specified requirements. Anyway, I set it up to the max resolution (3840 x 2160), which is slightly less than the UltraFine. Here's the thing - I couldn't read anything. It was just too small to be comfortable for productivity work. I'm running it at (3008x1692) and it's perfectly functional for me now and it looks great. But, I'm pretty sure I bought more monitor than I needed, because I can't run it at it's 'coolest' settings. Additionally, looking at a monitor this big is a little weird, and I might have been happier with an Ultra Wide screen because I could spread applications out horizontally which seems like it might be more conducive to a typical workflow.Anyway, if you're thinking hard about the resolution specs and all of that, and you're not sure you want to spend the money on this monitor, this is just a real world data point. I think it's awesome, but I'm not sure I needed it and I can't really leverage everything it has to offer.