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Curved-screen gaming monitors are great if you want a more immersive playing experience than you’d get with a flat-screen display, but as is usually the case, the bigger the screen, the more you can expect to pay. Such is the case with the LG 34UC98-W ($1,199.99), a massive 34-inch monitor that offers a steeper curve than you get with most displays, as well as a steep price tag. It’s an In-Plane Switching (IPS) screen that uses AMD’s FreeSync technology to deliver very smooth gaming performance, and it comes with plenty of features, including Thunderbolt and USB ports, powerful speakers, and a handful of gamer presets. Out-of-the-box color accuracy is good, but not as good as with our top pick for big-screen, ultra-wide gaming monitors, the 34-inch Acer Predator X34 ($2,399.00 at Amazon)(Opens in a new window) .
Design and Features
The 34UC98-W($2,800.00 at Amazon)(Opens in a new window) is a beautifully designed monitor. Its 34-inch IPS panel has a 3,440-by-1,440 resolution, a matte, anti-glare coating, and a 300-nit brightness level. It’s housed in a white cabinet that features a zero-bezel design and is supported by a curved brushed-metal stand with a telescoping arm that offers height and tilt adjustments. The panel has a 1,900R curvature ratio. (This means that if you put these monitors edge to edge to create a complete circle, the circle’s radius would be 1,900mm.) It’s a much more pronounced curve than the Dell UltraSharp U3415W ($799.99 at Dell)(Opens in a new window) and the Acer Predator X34, both of which have a curvature ratio of 3,800R.
The rear of the cabinet holds a nice selection of I/O ports, all of which face outward. Here, you’ll find two HDMI 2.0 inputs, two USB 3.0 downstream ports (one with USB Quick Charge), two Thunderbolt 2 ports, a DisplayPort input, and a headphone jack. The 34UC98-W is equipped with two 7-watt speakers that are loud and provide clear audio, with a decent amount of bass and no distortion.
You get lots of picture and gamer settings with this monitor. In addition to Brightness, Contrast, Sharpness, and Black Level adjustments, there are 11 Picture modes, which include two Custom (user-defined) modes, two First-Person Shooter (FPS) modes, a Real-Time Strategy (RTS) mode, two Dark-Room modes (optimized for working in a dark environment), a Cinema mode, a Photo mode, a Reader mode (optimized for reading documents), and a Color Weakness mode (for users who have trouble distinguishing between red and green colors). Color adjustments include three Gamma settings, four Color Temperature settings, Red, Green, and Blue intensity settings, and Six-Color settings with individual Hue and Saturation adjustments for each color. Game Adjust settings comprise four Response Time settings, a FreeSync On/Off switch, and a Black Stabilizer for enhancing shadow detail in dark scenes. The Picture-By-Picture (PBP) settings allow you to choose two input sources to display on the screen, and the Audio settings let you adjust the MaxxAudio Bass, Treble, and 3D sound settings.
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LG covers the 34UC98-W with a one-year warranty on parts, labor, and backlight. This is rather stingy, considering the monitor’s lofty price (Acer, BenQ, and Asus offer three-year warranties). Included in the box are HDMI and DisplayPort cables.
Performance
The 34UC98-W’s IPS panel delivers rich, evenly saturated colors against a nice dark-black background. Out-of-the-box color accuracy was good, but could be better; as shown on the chromaticity chart below, the red color measurement (represented by the colored dot) is almost entirely outside of its ideal coordinate zone (represented by the box), while green straddles the border. Neither color appeared oversaturated in my tests, nor was tinting an issue. The good news is you can bring the colors into alignment using the above-mentioned Six-Color Hue and Saturation settings.
The panel’s 5-millisecond (gray-to-gray) pixel response did a relatively good job of delivering ghost-free gameplay, and I saw no obvious screen tearing or stuttering while playing Crysis 3 on the PC. Results were similar while playing Grand Theft Auto V on the Sony PlayStation 4 ($799.95 at Amazon)(Opens in a new window) . When I enabled FreeSync, I noticed a marked improvement in overall performance, as gameplay appeared smoother and more fluid. The 34UC98-W delivered an input lag (the time it takes for the monitor to react to a controller command) of 10.5 milliseconds, as measured by the Leo Bodnar Video Signal Lag Tester. That’s fast enough to prevent being blown away while waiting for the monitor to react to your fire command, but not quite as fast as the BenQ XL2430T ($449.00 at Walmart)(Opens in a new window) (9.5 milliseconds).
See How We Test Monitors
The panel aced the DisplayMate 64-Step Gray-Scale test, accurately displaying every shade of gray from dark to light, resulting in crisp shadow and highlight detail in my test images. Colors and black levels remained intact, and there was no loss of luminance when viewed from an angle.
The 34UC98-W consumed 54 watts of power during testing. That’s a bit higher than the BenQ XR3501 ( at Amazon)(Opens in a new window) (50 watts), the Acer Predator X34 (49 watts), and the Acer Predator Z35 ($832.18 at Amazon)(Opens in a new window) (51 watts).
Conclusion
With the LG 34UC98-W, you get solid gaming performance and a sharp, highly detailed picture on a spacious 34-inch, widescreen panel. Its 1,900R curvature ratio puts you a bit closer to the action than other curved big-screen monitors that we’ve reviewed, and it offers a nice feature set that includes the latest I/O ports, a height-adjustable stand, FreeSync technology, and powerful speakers. That said, you may have to utilize the advanced color settings, as our testing showed reds and greens were slightly misaligned. If you can live without Thunderbolt ports, the identically sized Acer Predator X34 offers extremely accurate colors out of the box, as well as Nvidia’s G-Sync technology and lots of gamer-friendly features, for just $100 more. It’s our Editors’ Choice for big screen, ultra-wide gaming monitors.
3.5
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The 34-inch LG 34UC98-W is an attractive curved-screen monitor that offers AMD’s FreeSync anti-tearing technology, a solid feature set, and very good gaming performance.
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Source link : https://www.pcmag.com/reviews/lg-34uc98-w
