FHD and ultra-wide, two budget LG monitors explored

FHD and ultra-wide, two budget LG monitors explored

  September 02, 2019    Kategat

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LG monitors are quite expensive – notably their high-end OLD monitors. LG are the pioneers of both the older IPS panel displays as well as their current flagships, the OLEDs. OLEDs don’t have plasma; their pixels are purely driven by LEDs and each LEDs output both colour and light. IPS panels on the other hand, drive colour using LCDs and light using backlit LEDs. The biggest advantage of OLEDs are their contrast ratios, with black being true back without any backlight (the LED pixels on the black spot are switched off). On IPS panels, the LCD portion switches-off but the backlight remains, giving a faint (usually blue) hue.

But going for an LG television does not mean going for an expensive OLED. You should ask yourself – do you really need an OLED? Do you need those total blacks? Or could you make do with an excellent IPS panel with immaculate colour reproduction at a fraction of the cost? In this post we look at two stunning LG offerings under the $250 (£215) mark.

32ML600M-B

The 32ML600M is a 32” Full HS monitor (1080p) at a maximum refresh rate of 75Hz. The panel is a stunning high-gamut HDR10 IPS display that gives you amazing and accurate colour so you experience movies, TV and games just as the director intended. It has a full 179-degree viewing angle, so anyone next to you gets the full colour (95% of P3-DCI) experience, compared to cheaper panels that has a lower colour gamut and loses colour as your viewing angle changes.

32ML600M front face

For gamers, 32ML600M has Dynamic Action Sync – which is a ultra-low latency mode that does not buffer frames, instead of waiting for frames to buffer, the monitor directly displays partial frames straight off the cable, you have several partial un-buffered frames on the panel at a given times and hence resulting in almost no-input lag. This may at times result in parts of your monitor out of sync if you don’t have good graphics hardware, so uses would have to try out games with and without DAS turned on before selected whether to use it.

32ML600M side view

The monitor has two HDMI outputs and one audio out to a speaker. It has flicker safe and anti-glare coatings which helps with readability in both bright light and in rooms with incandescent lighting. Most monitor functions can be controlled with the on-screen control app for windows, so you don’t have to deal with physical buttons.

29WK600-W

The 29WK600-W is an ultra-wide monitor which measures 29 inches diagonally. Since it’s ultra-wide, it may look a little small when using applications like a word-processor or web browser. It features a 2560x1080 resolution which gives crisp quality for most applications. This monitor features HDR10 but does not have the wider colour gamut that the 32ML600M-B has so if you are a designer, the other one is better. 29WK600 has 99% of the sRGB spectrum which is only a subset of the P3-DCI spectrum.

29WK600

The 29WK600 also has gaming features such as DAS, AMD FreeSync (which is like DAS but requires an AMD graphics card), anti-tearing and anti-stuttering. But the response times will still be greater than 32ML600M because of larger frame sizes to be rendered.

Whether you choose the 32ML or the 29WK, will depend on whether or not you value widescreen displays. However, at the under-$250 price point Kategat recommends you go for the FHD monitor that is great for regular work, movies, gaming and more. You also get a larger display with an wider colour gamut.