LG 27UK650-W 27 cm Monitor LED - Black

So I've been on a fairly solid but uninspiring 24inch Samsung for over two years, and with HDR as well as just bigger and better monitors out there I decided to upgrade to this LG effort. Reviews were good, price was solid, and at worst if I didn't like it it could go back. Early impressions of the first day on the job are very promising, if not perfect. But they are close. Let's take the bog standard stuff - the picture quality. After a little adjustment of picture options (it has a tonne of different modes, I went with custom which essentially is a vanilla standard option) I was pretty happy to say the least with the picture - for the £410 I paid the clarity and fidelity are on point, and the IPS tech means there's good viewing angles and no TN darkness imbalance, for example. Frequency isn't great, with a seeming 60Hz as standard, but as I only desktop and game in 4K, this is kind of expected. Thing is, there's no higher frequency even at lower resolutions if you need them, so watch out for that. In terms of HDR, it's, predictably, with Windows' flaky HDR implementation, a mixed bag. It's not really the screen's fault, but the big problem is that in the majority of HDR games, (with HDR on) the saturation of colour is just too intense, and red REALLY dominates. This is particularly noticeable in Hitman 2, FFXV and a heck of a lot of others. I really assume this is Windows' fledgling HDR support which is well-known to be bad. The actual HDR impact, that aside, also varies. RE7 and RE2 are not standouts, but PES2019 and Far Cry New Dawn look nothing short of stunning. In short, there's a real varying effectiveness in the implementation of HDR but the truth is I didn't strictly buy this for that - but for a bigger screen with bolder colours. And I certainly got that. HDR was a bonus, where I can get it working. A major problem with HDR is you can't really have it on in the desktop without having to tinker with the colour options in your graphics card's control panel to get the 'least bad' effect, but mercifully a lot of games allow HDR independently of Windows own HDR setting - so for the most part you can leave it off on the desktop and still enable it in the game. Games you CAN'T do that with include Shadow of the Tomb Raider (not great HDR anyway) and FFXV. But that said turning it off and the games still, in places, look outstanding. Hitman 2, water flicking aside, is stupendous on this monitor, and the Division 2 looks much bigger and livelier as well. In terms of the physical unit, it looks VERY nice - the white rear is a nice touch, and something a bit different for this household, while the build quality is excellent - the stand and bezel all look great. The menu interface isn't the most in-depth I've ever seen but it's easy to navigate. In summary, a very good monitor for the money which suffers the in-built HDR issues inherent to Windows 10, but as a base display aside that, it's essentially faultless. (I've rated it based on the monitor's own credentials rather than apparent faults caused by Windows rubbish HDR build)

I have been using this monitor for a few months now and it is simply a fantastic monitor. It is pricey though and I bought it on a Black Friday deal so I will say nothing about VFM. This monitor is great for gaming, bright with fine detail and colour rendering, but also superb for photoviewing with astonishing colour rendition and detail. It is even great for business work with its ultra fine text rendition making document reading and writing a pleasure. I upgraded to this from a high quality 23" Dell ultrasharp monitor and you may not think it much of an upgrade but side by side the Dell looks rough and dull in comparison to this monitor. However you are provbaly most interested in the HDR Gaming results so here are the details: HDR Gaming - Playstion Pro - When the game does it properly this monitor is superb with the PS4 Pro and HDR. Different games have different approach to HDR, some work some dont. My experience so far. Horizion Zero Dawn: Astonishgly good. The game uses HDR to produce clean bright (not too bright) whites and deep rich colours which are a joy see. Having played the game twice already on a (fake HDR) TV I just had to play through again using this monitor so marvelous was the expeience. Detroit Become Human: Nice clean whites and bloom using HDR on this monitor. Far Cry 5: Ouch! When setting HDR mode it just makes everything far too bright and hurts my eyes. Turned the brightness down to 50% and was hust about OK. Not particular recommended (much like the game itself!) Red Dead Redemption 2: This game is not HDR but does have a fake HDR option - enabling that does not work with this monitor so dont use it. Instead the monitor's own built in HDR effect mode works very well with RDR2. PC Gaming: HDR isn't really an option for PC games right now - some do kinda work like Shadow of the Tomb Raider, but you have to turn HDR mode on manually in Windows first, which looks weird, then start the game which is OK but nothing to write home about! The main issue with PC gaming is that you will need a new grapics card! After the PS4 Pro 4k gaming experience, gaming in standard HD on this monitor no longer cuts it! I find I need to switch to QHD (2560x1440) at least. For that you are going to need an Nvidia 2060 RTX at least so factor that into your costing!