SUPER UltraWide 144hz Monitor
LG
OK, have a look at this. This is one of my favorite monitors of all time. It’s the 38 Wn 95 C from LG 38-inch ultrawide. Love this. But check this out.
Actually have to shimmy a bit further off the desk so you can see the whole thing. This is a 49-inch super duper Ultrawide. That’s not a technical term, but it should be. So the question is, is it worth buying?
IPS panel
But what makes this LG 49 WQ 95 C even more special? Is it the first 49-inch 144 Hz Super Ultra-wide to get an IPS panel instead of VA, which is more common? And that means on top of being a multitask game monster, this should have fantastic image quality and accurate colors for your creative work and also some very smooth, tasty-looking gaming. But at one £300 or one $700, which seems like a lot for my American friends, this is obviously very pricey. And the other issue is it doesn’t get as bright as some of those VA alternatives which also impacts the HDR performance.
Ultrawide
Now, the idea with any Ultrawide is to give you more desktop screen, and real estate screen space, and obviously, you get that with this.
In terms of what’s different between this and my outgoing 38-inch, Ultrawide the 32 by nine aspect ratio means you’ve got 227-inch quad HD, effectively monitors side by side, but without a bezel in the middle. So this is like a seamless dual 27-inch QHD setup, which is great if you want to work with two apps in native quality HD res side by side. And of course, the lack of bezels means this is even better for gaming. And that wide field of view can be really immersive unless like in overwatch two, your games don’t support the two x nine.
Monitor Watching
Then, like with TV and movies, or if you plug in a games console, you’ll need to get used to some hefty black bars on either side. But let’s talk about the panel. And the 51 20 x IPS display covers 98% of the DCP three-color gamut. We get FreeSync Premium Pro and G Sync compatibility. There’s also a built-in KVM switch.
DisplayPort
SUPER UltraWide 144hz Monitor
We get ten-watt stereo speakers, which actually sounds pretty good. HDMI two, which is great for your consoles, and DisplayPort one four, which I’d use to hook up to my PC. And then we’ve also got USBC with DisplayPort and 90-watt power delivery, which is what you’re going to want to use if you’re hooking up a laptop.
And all with this fairly subtle 3800 R curve. And I do mean subtle compared to some of the other Ultra-wise we’ve seen recently, particularly from the likes of Samsung.
You’re not getting any of that kind of hyper distortion. This feels nice, but crucially, it is this IPS no that makes this unique. We’ve seen a whole bunch of VA Ultrawide and until now that’s really been the only way to get high-res big ultrawide with high refresh and HDR as well. Until now it seems. I mean as I say at the beginning, I’ll come back to it in a second.
IPS Display
The compromise is lower brightness and therefore less impressive HDR performance, but I would take an IPS panel over VA any day, particularly if you’re doing any kind of color grading. But while LG’s nano IPS display here is very nice, the downside compared to a VA panel is that we’re not getting quite the same contrast ratio and also unlike a lot of high-end VA ultrawide, there isn’t any kind of mini Led backlighting here.
So we do still have issues with blooming IPS light bleed and we’re not seeing those sort of inky deeper blacks that you might get with a better backlighting system. Also remember that while this is a five K x two K resolution, that is essentially just a wider quad HD and so if you’re working with 4K content and need to watch it back natively you can’t on this. But dual quad HD is still more than sharp enough for this size and of course, you’re going to get a higher frame rate in your games as well, which look incredible by the way, at this size.
HD 4K Video
My only criticism really is that compared to some ultrawide like the other LG I’ve been used to using that have a by ten aspect ratio, a 21 x ten I believe that is. This 32 x nine is a little bit narrow, it feels a bit letterbox. So in my ideal world, this would be a 32 x ten. I think that would make a big difference actually. But games can look fantastic on this thing.
PC playing games maxed
SUPER UltraWide 144hz Monitor
It’s not the visual feast that you might get on the likes of the Samsung Odyssey Neo G Nine with its mini Led 240 Hz panel. But then this LG isn’t really targeting the gaming audiences strongly and it’s also about £250 cheaper. And there’s something about those IPS colors and a massive sweeping size that makes the likes of Red Dead Two or Flight SIM just look incredible.
4K
And of course, there’s always an advantage to playing competitive games with an extra wide field of view and seeing your enemies earlier. Remember though that dual quad HD only has about 10% fewer pixels and 4K, so you’re going to need a pretty beefy PC playing games maxed out on this ultra-wide mode.
Game Performance
You have to admit this does look a bit good, although what would be the first game you’d play on this if you had this in your setup right now? Let me know in the comments below. Now on the far right at the back, we have this little joystick to control the onscreen display which is easy enough to navigate although I do feel like this joystick should maybe be in the center underneath and there are plenty of pictures presets images, and input controls and also picture in picture and picture by picture mode. Which lets you mix and match from different sources and different inputs. This is what a regular 16-by-nine video from YouTube looks like.
RGB Gamut
SUPER UltraWide 144hz Monitor
On this, you can see how much space you’ve got out of the side that might actually bother you if you do not continue using this in a sort of multitasking pro-user way. Regular videos. It’s kind of funny actually, but Go maps the screen. This LG covered 99% sRGB, 98% P three, and 86% of the Adobe RGB Gamut, and it’s using an eight-bit plus FRC to get a Dittered ten-bit panel, so really serious video and graphics pros may be better off with a 4K true ten-bit model. Viewing angles are also a strong suit of an IPS panel over a VA, with color, brightness, and contrast staying consistent from pretty much any angle, which is important given how bloody wide this thing is.
Brightness
Okay, I admit this is a bit of a stupid place to put the joystick on the right-hand side. It’s a bit awkward, although thinking about it, one of the reasons they’ve done that in the past is so that if you actually want to stack two of these on top of each other, which you might be able to do, then you can access the joystick on both without it being covered underneath. Now, this is rated for display HDR 400, which basically means a minimum peak brightness of 400 nits, which is very average for any monitor these days and especially at this price point.
HDR
Now I measured a max peak brightness of 450 nits, which is plenty bright enough for day-to-day use, but less good if you plan on watching, editing, or playing HDR content. Also, HDR black levels are okay, but the relatively low contrast and the lack of any proper local dimming means it’s still not as impressive as most VA panels, even ones costing hundreds less.
Screen Quality
And it’s also no contest versus pricier mini lady or OLED options. Then we have the five millisecond response time, which is fast enough for everyday use. I didn’t notice any blurriness with fast motion. The good news though is that even crankiness to the fastest response time didn’t produce much in verse. Ghosting Impalaga is around four milliseconds, which is nice and low, and adaptive sync with either gym compatibility or FreeSync Premium Pro VR helps to deal with a stutter and tearing in your games.
Editing
SUPER UltraWide 144hz Monitor
What does really help with the usability of this screen space though, is having the Windows Snap tool, or if you download it, like Magnet on Mac, which I would definitely recommend, you can snap its other side you can do into quadrants or that on the middle, that on the left, that on the right. Pretty usable triple-screen setup, I would say. In terms of the design, this looks like any LG monitor, really, from the last few years. Just a bit wider and has some nice glossy edging around the sides. The crescent stand base has a slimmer taper design, but the rear is the same.
Backward
It’s smart and pretty understated. There isn’t any kind of RGB going on here, so this would blend nicely into any office. Well, as much as any 49-inch ultrawide would blend in. There’s also plenty of height adjustment. You can tilt it forward and backward and also rotate bash in my lamp, then I’m going everywhere on my desk.
Colors
It does feel a little wobbly and because you can rotate it a little bit like this sometimes it’s hard to get it exactly back to normal. You can see how wobbly that is. It feels a little cheap sometimes. So let’s wrap up. And for me, this is easily the best super ultra-wide around for anyone who wants accurate colors.
VA Panels
It’s that simple, as most other super ultras have VA panels. Alternatively, if you want something this size but don’t want to spend this much, or there’s something about this you don’t like, you could check out the AOC Aegon gaming 49 inch which is a great dual quad HD 120 Hz option that comes in at around £900. Or if you’re more into your gaming then Samsung’s Odyssey G Nine or CRG Nine gaming monitors are fantastic at just over a grand. Although maybe the best gaming super ultrawide is still the Odyssey Neoge Nine will set you back around one £700. But what do you think?
Desktop Monitor
SUPER UltraWide 144hz Monitor
Tempted by something like this? Or is it just a bit of a monstrosity? Let me know what you make of this 49-inch ultrawide in the comments below and also let me know what you’re using at the moment as your desktop monitor.
