LG 27UL500-W 27-Inch UHD (3840 x 2160) IPS Monitor with Radeon Freesync Technology and HDR10, White

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Who am I? A techy, with disposable income for new toys within reason. What am I using this monitor for? Xbox One X. I have NOT used this monitor with a computer yet...yet. Okay so I waited since like December for this thing, after looking at and comparing countless monitors. Finally an "HDR" Freesync Monitor, with good response time and 4K.... Every Xbox gamers dream right? I fired this thing up yesterday and boom.... underwhelmed..... it looked bad out of the box, then i played with all the settings. Turn the Brightness WAY up, and leave the black enhancement at low. And all of a sudden everything looked amazing. Day 1: Playing fortnite doesnt have HDR, so I loaded up destiny 2 (ew) for to see how to activate HDR, since i couldnt find any settings to just turn it on. Boom, on top right corner it displays HDR, and when you go into the settings its an entirely different picture menu, with a few different HDR settings, including a GAME HDR mode. I do not think you can have HDR on, and the input lag booster or freesync enabled at same time, as When HDR is on, the game settings menu gets grayed out. The game looked INSANE in 4k with the HDR mode on, so crisp and saw colors I had never seen before. For what its worth, the HDR mode that enables when you play an HDR game is PLENTY bright. It only goes up to 450 Nits of brightness in this mode, but for a 27 inch monitor, that is right in front of you, any brighter and you may have to look away or tone it down for gaming. So for all the people mentioning that this "is not a real HDR monitor, its not even 600 nits" Think about what you are using this screen for first. If it is gaming, this is very good. The HDR on this screen is far brighter than a middle range LG TV I have that has "HDR" as well. PSA: Both HDMI ports support 4K/60HZ and Freesync. For NON HDR Games, There is a cool mode called "HDR Effect" which bascally turns any content into super bright super vivid colors, and that seems to work with the gaming features since it is not actual HDR. I will continue to update this review, as well as try different modes (Ex: Hook it up to a iMac 5k, a Macbook, a PC, and watch a 4k HDR blue ray on it over the next 2 weeks.

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Ive been using this monitor a lot now with my Xbox One X, and it really is amazing! Ive tried other 4K monitors, like the Samsung U32H750, and the LG just blows it out of the water with crisp 4K, brilliant colors, and impressive contrast - and of course - HDR, which makes everything look noticeably better! I have a lot to say about this monitor and the best settings Ive found to be useful with Xbox One X games and media. To start, here are the settings I tend to use for non-HDR content, which are games w/o HDR and YouTube: Picture Mode: HDR Effect Brightness 85 Black Level - Low Deep Color On Freesync - On Extended Resp. Time - Fast All other settings are defaulted. On Xbox One X, Settings are as follows: Color Depth - 10bit Color Space - Standard (must be set to this due to HDR, trust me) HDMI - auto detect Allow YCC 4:2:2 - On With these settings, you will get a great picture when it comes to non-HDR content. Now, there is something very important to consider: make sure you have the monitors HDMI Black Level set to Low because it needs to match with Xbox Standard Color Space. So make sure you have it set to Low Black Level. Im pretty sure if its set to High and you cant change it to Low, fiddle around with it like change settings on Xbox, then monitor, and eventually it will go to Low Black Level. The monitors contrast ratio may be 1000:1, but lemme tell ya, its very very impressive, especially compared to another 4k monitor I tried which had 3000:1. I thought the LG looked 10 times better! One of the reasons I got this monitor was for the HDR, and for those who think it isnt good because it isnt "true HDR 1000nit brightness", it looks amazing, and most games look really good (MH World looks awful). Elder Scrolls Online looks really amazing with colors (make sure to turn brightness in-game way up), I mean just go to Coldharbour and youll see :). Some games dont have great HDR though, so its sometimes best to turn HDR off in Xbox Settings and go with Custom settings on monitor. The monitor has 4 HDR modes: HDR Vivid, HDR Game, HDR Standard, HDR Cinema. For gaming, HDR Game is the best and most accurate for colors, response time, etc. but if you dont care about accuracy and how you are losing life expenctancy of your monitor due to post processing, HDR Vivid can be spectacular with fantastic colors. HDR Standard and Cinema just looks too dim for me, so I always stick with Game. Now this monitor uses an IPS Panel, and its probably the reason why the contrast, brightness and colors are SO GOOD. There is some IPS Glow, and its luck-of-the-draw whether youll have a monitor with a lot of IPS Glow, or just a little. Ive been through 4 of these LG Monitors past 2 months, and finally settled on the one I have now because I got it really cheap and my previous ones display sadly wouldnt turn on so I returned it. The one I have now has minimal IPS Glow, thank god, but just expect to see IPS Glow because its on every IPS monitor. This monitor does use an external powerbrick unfortunately, but I mean, does it really matter? I have room for it, but the only thing I worry is when it gets really hot as my monitor is usually on for 10 hours a day. The only thing I have to complain with about this monitor is not being able to customize much settings when HDR content is detected or when using HDR Effect Mode.. This isnt a big deal though because most of the settings that are defaulted are actually what you want it set to. If you care about your monitor lasting for a long time, avoid using HDR Vivid (and HDR Effect mode) because they heavily rely on post-processing to create the amazing colors, contrast, brightness, but they are bad for your monitors life-expectancy. I still use HDR Effect Mode all the time because its too good... I give it a 4.8/5, must buy if you are in need of a 4k/HDR monitor for console and can get this monitor cheap like $385-490 or so. I got it for $435 and its a steal for what you are getting! 500 is too expensive, but thats only my opinion lol. ^_^

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First of I am a gamer that plays nothing but FPS on PC and Xbox One X. I got this for my Xbox since it met all the specifications the X needs. I hooked it up to my X after using my 27in asus 144hz amd freesync on variable refresh rate (an xbox picture setting). My first impression was wow the graphics on COD black out look nice, then actually playing started noticing lots of lag drop frames. Went back to my Asus monitor and realized how much better my 1080p monitor was. Item was returned. Good try LG, nice monitor though if you just want to play on 4k HDR single player games, movies, 4k videos this is your monitor. If you want to compete and actually have an advantage, this is not your monitor. oh and the stand feels cheap. BTW I love LG products i own 2 4k TVs if that matters.

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27UL650-W is the 2019 model and not “(2018)” as is currently reported in the title’s description. I was blown away by the picture of a less expensive 2018 4K HDR LG 27UK600-W that was sitting next to several other non-HDR monitors (displaying non-HDR content) in a local BB store. A quick google search led me to this slightly better 2019 LG model 27UL650-W. One website that does a lot of reviews on TVs rated (in Nov. 2018) the 2018 LG 27UK650 as “…the best 4k monitor that weve tested so far”. That 2018 model is currently $449 list price at LGs website. While, the 3x more expensive Acer Predator X27 ($1,799 current Amazon price) was reviewed as the best monitor for HDR. This review is at the rtings website titled, “5 Best 4k Monitors - Winter 2019” (title of article is obviously incorrect and should be 2018). While they give the 2018 27UK650-W comparatively higher ratings, they also report a few disadvantages compared to the Predator X27 (like Local Dimming [none on the 2018 LG], HDR Peak Brightness and HDR Color Gamut not being quite as good as the more expensive Acer Predator X27). Denwereview.com also reviews the Predator X27 along with 2 other 27in 4K HDR monitors with 1000 nits brightness, which are currently slightly more expensive than the Predator by about $79-$100 (article: Best 4K HDR Gaming Monitor for Xbox One X, PS4 Pro and PC [2019]). But having said all that, the 2019 LG 27UL650-W looks beautiful, HDR content looks beautiful and is a great value for the price. I don’t think the 2019 LG 27UL650-W has local dimming either (not mentioned in specs at lg website) or how it compares to the Predator X27, but at $549.99 I’m extremely happy. If I was going to be looking at HDR content all the time (which I’m not), the Predator may be worth the price, but this LG gives me what I need and HDR content looks incredible. I got mine a couple days ago and it looked fantastic out of the box. LG says these are factory calibrated and provides a “Color Calibration Factory Report”. I don’t believe the 2018 model was factory calibrated. The default picture mode is Custom, and looks pretty good when viewing LG (& other’s) 4K HDR video demos at YouTube… but when I found the “HDR Effect” picture mode, I was even more blown away by the astonishing details and colors! This monitor comes with 11 picture modes. I’ve gone into all of them and it appears that other than brightness, the picture adjustments settings are disabled for all modes except Custom. As far I can tell, only the Custom picture mode has completely adjustable/calibratable settings. Not sure how I feel about that but I probably won’t use any other modes than Custom and HDR Effect. Picture modes are: Custom, Vivid, HDR Effect, Reader (?low blue light for night-time reading??), Cinema, FPS, RTS, Color Weakness, EBU, REC709 and SMPTE-C. *** April 7, 2017 Edit: If you are getting a monitor specifically for its HDR capability, check out: displayhdr.org/certified-products/. The site lists VESA certified monitors. Currently, there are VESA 400 (low end, less expensive), 600 and 1000 (high end, more expensive). *** A warning: be extremely careful when pulling the monitor out of its box. The side and top edges are very thin (1mm?) and you don’t want to potentially damage the screen by wrapping your finger tips around on the screen when lifting it out of the box. Included in the box are a 1.5 m (4’ 10.5”) DisplayPort cable and an HDMI cable I didnt measure. Wish the DP cable was a little longer. I needed 6’ and purchased a different manufacturer’s DP cable and oddly got the message “(Caution) Make Sure to Use Supplied Input Cables” when booting or logging in (with the option to “Do Not Display Again” as the default selection). When I googled that message, I didn’t find anything other information than to just select “do not display again”. Everything is working perfect, so I’m not sure why that message popped up. The supplied disk (with manuals, driver, and 2 apps) asks that you set your default Web browser to Internet Explorer (it didn’t work properly with my default Firefox browser). If you don’t want to change your default browser, just open Internet Explorer and copy the URL from your default browser to the Internet Explorer browser. Two apps come with the monitor: an OnScreen Control and a Dual Controller. If you’re like me, you’ll want to pin the OnScreen Control to your taskbar if only for quick easy access to different Picture Modes and brightness. And don’t bother to install the Dual Controller app unless you have 2 computers and want the monitor to show both of the computer screens. To get maximum color experience with this monitor, go into your graphics card’s Control Panel and, if possible, increase the Output Color Depth setting from 8 bpc (8 bits [of color] per [R/G/B] channel; or a 16.7 million color palette) to 10 bpc (1.07 billion colors). Bottom line, this will increase the number of colors and overall color accuracy. However, I don’t think (*NO EXPERT HERE*) that increasing your setting above 10 bpc will do anything as this monitor’s maximum Color Depth is 1.07B colors. Note: This doesn’t do anything for applications, photos, or videos that don’t support content higher than 8 bpc. And one of the following videos reports that the YouTube videos are compressed to 8 bpc, so it may not help with content there either. For more information about color depth, take a look at a couple YouTube videos: “Color Depth: 10-Bit vs 8-Bit in Under 5 Minutes” and/or “8 bit vs 10 bit Color: Whats the Difference?” According to rtings.com: “…it matters [in] HDR content like HDR video games or HDR UHD [4K] movies. [It] won’t matter for regular Blu-ray movies, SDR video game or desktop environment content displayed from a Windows PC. Those are limited to 8-bit color.” And I don’t know if this is true as I don’t see it in the lg.com specs, but according to a couple review sites, this monitor is 10-bit (8-bit +FCR [Frame Rate Control]), which is not true 10-bit color, but is still better than 8-bit. No complaints with this monitor... My only complaint is how 4K resolution is handled in Window 7 (hopefully Win10 is better?). 4K photos and videos are incredible, but everything else is tiny! And as far as I can tell, the only fix is to go into Screen Resolution (R click on a blank portion of the desktop) and click on “Make text and other items larger or smaller” and increase the setting from 100% to 150%. Some applications/fonts still look weird (different than my previous 1920x1200 Dell monitor), but are more tolerable.

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I hate to complain but this monitor at its asking price is just not worth it, I ordered 3 panels and I see issues on all 3 of them with one in particular being worst than the rest. What issue you ask? color uniformity, one of the monitors has a reddish tint on 1/3 of the monitor and the other two seems to get a bit darker on the edges. This is suppose to be an IPS monitor yet it has terrible viewing angles, what am I comparing it to? I am comparing it to my 6 year old dell ultrasharp u2713hm that I was hoping to replace and even my Hp 27es ips monitor has better viewing angles and a more uniform display although it is a 1080 display, it can be had for $150 and performs better than LGs 27uk650-w $550 display. To simply put it , this monitor is not worth the asking price, back to dell I go. For those that say this is a great monitor please tell me you did not pay more than $300 for this Because I didnt and I am still unhappy with it, But I am happy for you.

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Absolutely love this monitor. Use it for my Xbox One X and Ps4 Pro. The HDR pops nicely and the monitor notifies you when it is being used. I bought this monitor after using a Benq rl2755 for the longest time and haven’t noticed any more input lag than before. I’m still hitting all my combos nicely on USF4, GGXRD and T7. On X1X Tomb Raider looks fantastic and is noticeably different on the different graphics options. I love that the screen goes completely vertical as well! Gunbird for Nintendo Switch is a blast vertical as well as Namco Museum. All in all definitely worth the money spent. Won’t be looking for another monitor anytime soon!

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Using this as a primary display for my PS4 Pro. Pros: - Fast response time - HDR looks gorgeous - Screen size is perfect if sitting 3-4 ft away - LG had gamers in mind when creating this beauty. Cons: - Owned the unit for less than 24 hours and it developed a small group of dead pixels in the center of screen. Amazon handled the situation professionally. I had Amazon exchange the unit because I believe the picture quality this unit provides is worth it. Contacted LG initially with the issue and they weren’t willing to provide quick turn times and customer service was unpleasant. Thank you Amazon for being uber awesome as always.

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This Monitor Exceeded my expectations (Reviewer that does extensive research on Displays and Displays technology). I was torn between this model and the 850-w model. The only difference is speakers (which this does not have), USB-C (not included), and a special calibration done to the 850-w. I am pleased with the build quality, screen resolution also exceeds my expectations. Their is IPS bleed when you have those black screen visiuals. The IPS bleed does not bother me what so ever. Most of my games I play on this bad boy are very bright which it does an amazing job at displaying bright colors and HDR content. ( Yes I do realize this is an 8 bit + FRC panel and the nit brightness does not exceed 350) this monitor is still extremely bright and when compared to a 10 bit panel that does exceed 400 nits brightness their is little to no difference to the naked eye (1000 nits would be much much brigher obviously). Also to add their are currently no monitors that can push past 4k at over 60HZ. Those 2000 dollar monitors by Asus and Acer will lower the resolution automaticly to meet the bandwith capability of the HDMI 2.0 specifications. So aside from G sync you are throwing some money away for a perk that can not be utilized. No firmware update can fix that in the future as this is a hardware issue and not a software issue. Soon as they release HDMI 2.1 on monitors the Asus ROG Swift PG27UQ and Acer Predator X27 will be obsolete which will be soon since HDMI 2.1 specifications have already been released. Those two monitors mentioned are still amazing but not worth the money and very misleading.

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This is an incredible monitor! I was looking for a monitor that i could use with my Xbox One, but also wanted a monitor that I could use for hi-end video editing. This monitor covers both my needs perfectly. The colors when compared my MacBook Pro are nearly identical. I researched monitors for weeks on end and finally found this one. If you are a video editor, then you cant go wrong with this monitor. If youre a console gamer then look no further, this is the monitor for you.

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I got this for my ps4 pro and Im loving it so far. I wanted a monitor that looked as good as my samsung 4k hdr QLED TV. Dark scenes are not as dark but I feel the colors look just as amazing, response times are great, and everything is super sharp and crisp. I also like simulated hdr effect mode. One of the first games I tried was Monster Hunter Would, which is already known to have poor hdr support although is does have it. I turned off hdr in the game menu and simulated hdr on the monitor and, to me at least, it look as if that what it should have looked in the first place lol.

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