It‘s finally here. The long awaited LG 38wn95c-w.
Before i got the LG, I was using a 24 inch Dell full hd monitor, with the model name S2409w.
It‘s a 60 Hz display that can reproduce 16,7 Mio. colors. It has a brightness of 300:1 and a contrast ratio of 1000:1.
I mainly use my computer for music production and video editing. My favorite Digital Audio Workstation has been Cubase and the latest versions look really cramped on my old 24 inch monitor.
Same applies to video editing. Premiere Pro CC has been my video editing program of choice and on the 24 inch monitor I am forced to switch between menus and different window settings all the time.
Since I've been recently working more at home, I wanted a monitor that is compatible with my Macbook Pro 2019 from work. Working all day on a 13” inch laptop is not exactly ideal.
So it was time to upgrade.
The LG 38wn95c-w comes with all the bells and whistles I expected from a multi purpose monitor in 2020.
First of all, let’s look at the size. At 38“ inches the LG 38wn9c has 0.5 inches more screen real estate than its predecessor the 38wk95c. So that’s like having two regular 24 inch monitors side by side.
The resolution is 3840x1600, so compared to a 34 inch monitor it gives you way more horizontal and more vertical screen space.
I prefer to shoot music videos with an anamorphic lens and it is great that the monitor can display it without any black bars on the top and bottom, thanks to its 21:9 ratio.
Compared to my old 24 inch monitor, the pixel density also improved from 91 pixels per inch to 111 pixels per inch.
Let’s start with the packaging,
The monitor comes well packaged and includes everything you need.
There is the monitor.
The stand that you need to assemble.
And a box full of accessories to get it running.
It contains:
A power cable.
An HDMI-cable.
A Thunderbolt-cable.
A Display Port cable, where its worth mentioning that the monitor supports Display Port 1.4.
The box also contains a clip that you put on the monitor stand and that helps you to hold all the cables together.
And last but not least it comes also with a cd that includes the manual.
The monitor itself is plug and play, so it is not necessary to install any drivers.
As for the set-up, the only thing that needs to be assembled is the stand. The stand is very flexible and allows you to move the monitor horizontally, adjust the height and tilt it forwards and backwards.
Once the stand is assembled you can clip it to the monitor. LG recommends to lay the monitor flat on its front, while you put the stand on.
On the back of the monitor you can see all the available connections.
Here we have:
1 x DisplayPort, like I mentioned before it supports version 1.4
2 x HDMI 2.0 connections
1x Thunderbolt connection
2 x USB A plugs, that unfortunately only work with the computer that is plugged in via thunderbolt connection
1 x Headphone jack
And one connection for the power supply
At 8,32 kg (or about 18 pounds) the monitor is quite heavy and you might need some help setting it up and putting it on the right position on your desk.
After plugging in all the necessary cables you can tie the cables together by using the clip that comes with the stand. I find it very helpful to hide all the cables behind the stand so the desk looks less cluttered.
The UltraWide QHD+ monitor looks massive and is 89,54 cm wide (or about 35 inches), 47,3 cm high (or about 23 inches) and including the stand 28,5 cm deep (or about 11 inches).
Personally I find the stand solid and stable on my desk. The monitor doesn’t wobble when using my keyboards, but I noticed that it is slightly starting to shake when I print something since my printer is placed on top of my desk.
Once you plug in a device or computer to any of the mentioned ports, the monitor detects it automatically and turns on using the default user and color settings.
Now let’s talk about about the image quality
My first impression was that it looked gorgeous and compared to my old Dell monitor the display is definitely sharper and much, much brighter. Actually it is so bright that I have to adjust the brightness to around 70 percent to find it pleasing to the eyes.
Some people on the internet complained about the pixel density compared to smartphones and tablets, but I have to argue that I can’t detect a single pixel sitting around 80 cm to 1 m (or 31 to 40 inches) away from the monitor.
Compared to my Macbook Pro 2019 and iPad Pro 2020 I don‘t find the display worse in any regards. The Nano IPS panel displays 98% of the dci-p3 color spectrum that is 1,07 billion colors, which makes it great for video and photo editing. Even Cubase looks so much more vibrant than on my old 24 inch dell monitor.
The monitor support vesa hdr 600 that has twice as much peak brightness than regular monitors, but like I mentioned earlier I find the display actually too bright for doing regular office work. Maybe the hdr comes in handy during game play or watching movies, which I may have to test in the future.
The LG comes equipped with plenty of settings that you can adjust in a menu that is accessible through a joystick underneath the monitor panel. There are four main selection on the menus, “Turn off”, “Source”, “Settings” and “Game Mode”.
After trying different color settings I stuck to the DCI-P3 color setting, 120 Hz and 10-bit color depth.
One of the reason why I went for the LG 38wn95c is the thunderbolt connection, which makes it possible to charge my Macbook Pro and iPad simultaneously while using them.
Speaking of which, some of you may wonder, How the LG monitor holds up against the Macbook Pro 2019.
As you can see, the display is brighter, but compared to the Macbook Pro, the LG looks way more saturated at least on this shot. This is due to the color settings and I have to admit, that it took me quite some time to figure out the right settings. In windows 10 I initially turned on HDR and it made the home screen look very bad and full of artifacts. I also tested it with 4k, HDR YouTube videos, but it looked like harsh codec compression. Also I noticed that when turning on HDR on Windows 10, the pc switches constantly between SDR and HDR settings, depending which application you use. That causes the LG monitor to turn black between setting changes, which got me really concerned in the beginning.
I then decided to write the LG support team about those issues and they got back to me just 24 hours after sending my email. So shout out to the lg support team for responding so quickly.
Speaking of support its worth mentioning that the monitor comes with a two year warranty in europe.
So what about the gaming capabilities of the LG 38wn95-c?
First of all let’s compare 120 Hz vs 60 Hz and talk about the 1 ms response time.
I have to admit that I hardly notice any difference, even on the 144 Hz setting I couldn’t notice any major improvements. Again maybe only gamers can take full advantage of those features. With gaming it is also worth mentioning that LG promotes the 1 ms response time. It is also NVIDIA G Sync and AMD Free Sync compatible and since I do run a NVIDIA RTX 2080 Super graphic card I am happy about this feature. Since I use my pc exclusively for office work and media editing, I can't really comment on how it will perform when used for gaming. Having said that, I haven't ruled out testing the monitor for gaming in the future .
Built in speakers.
Honestly I always use my studio monitor speakers and that is why sound quality was not important on my purchase decision. But if I compare the LG speakers to my Macbook Pro 2019 and iPad Pro 2020 I have to say that the speakers of the LG sound more bassy. I was also surprised how loud you can turn them up.
So you might be wondering, if there are things that I don’t like about the LG 38wn95c-w?
First of all I was really looking forward to the split screen feature, but unfortunately it is not possible to use the Display Port & Thunderbolt connection at the same time. You can only combine the Thunderbolt or Display Port connection with one of the two HDMI connections, which to me, makes no sense.
The other thing I noticed is that it seems like they added an anti glare foil to prevent reflections. The viewing angle is indeed really good, but on mine, the foil seal on edges is slightly uneven. It's very slight though, you can only see it when light shines on the corners, so I doesnt bother me too much. Maybe it's just my copy that’s like this but for the price of the monitor I expected better quality.
Another thing I dislike is that the 144 Hz will only work with 8-bit color settings. The 10-bit color setting only works at 120 Hz, which LG noted to me on the email. This might only become an issues for games as I mentioned earlier, but still.
Ok, so let’s sum it all up.
Compared to my 24 inch dell full hd monitor from 2008 the LG 38wn95c is literally a big upgrade. Having that much screen real estate makes working and multi tasking so much faster and more efficient. On Cubase I can easily work on a 3 minute song without even scrolling, and video editing is so much more fun, since I can show all the necessary windows and menus at the same time. If you own already the previous model 38wk95c I don’t think it’s worth upgrading, since the panel itself is basically the same. But if you've never owned a wide screen monitor, you should definitely check out the latest LG model.
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Thanks for reading & watching and have a great one.