Review on LG UltraWide 34WK650 W: 31.5" 2560X1440P, 75Hz, Anti-Glare, Wall Mountable - Compatible with 32QN600-B HD by Rich Pesce

I've had two 32" VA panels so far and both had major issues. I thought this IPS panel would be much better. So far, so good. It takes a 10-bit YCbCr 4:4:4 signal and displays it with no problems. which is very nice. Recognizes an HDR10 compatible display correctly with all my stuff as it should without the fun stuff. Games with good HDR implementations will detect it and switch modes automatically, although some require you to toggle it manually in Windows. I bought a model with an adjustable stand and it works great for my use. The stand isn't super great, but it's pretty stable. The monitor is well supported and doesn't wobble like crazy or anything. Don't let other reviews put you off because of the stand. Everything OK. The adjustment feels firm, works well, and holds the monitor in place. Everything is nice and tight and your tilt settings and everything stays in place. Raw response time on older panels was good, but gray response to gray SE was very slow. So these panels had great color and contrast, but were a little washed out with movement. Games didn't feel smooth and crisp, even though they looked that way with still images. Movies didn't retain their clarity even in motion. Even discounting the 75Hz refresh rate of this monitor, the actual response of the IPS panel is much better than the VA. This makes it a solid monitor for gaming and watching movies. 75 Hz is also a pleasure. I have a Club3D HBR3 DisplayPort cable. The big fat one who always works, no matter what. It works great with this monitor and 75Hz is recognized immediately. It's not exactly "high fps games" but my 1070 can push my games to 75fps most of the time with no issues. Combined with the best response times, this monitor is very smooth and easy to watch on the go. It has greatly improved my desktop and gaming experience. Then add Freesync on top. This monitor has a FreeSync range of 48 to 75 fps. On my older monitors, this area was wasted as they were actually 60Hz displays. That 75Hz figure means it's a pretty decent range, and many games stay within that range 99% of the time. Especially when almost all my old games are blocking vsync. However, I would add that Freesync disables color management on this display in favor of some overexposed presets. On my old VA panels, Freesync could be enabled independently of other image controls. Buying this display for freesync is a very weak point. I've decided to disable freesync to go old school. It behaves very well in terms of screen tearing and works great with unlocked framerate. Plain old V-Sync is good too, and the locked 75Hz is as smooth as it gets. This monitor is a winner for me as sometimes a gaming monitor is. Contrast is okay, and with a little fiddling, I tweaked the color and brightness. The black values are not convincing, but are appropriate for this type of monitor. It calibrates perfectly with THX SDR display images. Although backlight is present, it is constant and generally does not affect image quality. The pixel density is roughly the same as 24-inch 1080p, so it's not surprising, but clear enough for most people. With my settings, this monitor's color and brightness settings are great, and I get accurate and colorful images. However, I chose this monitor over other similar ones because it supports HDR10. This promise is actually kept. It took me some work, but I got MadVR to recognize my HDR videos by adding the folder name "hdr=on". In the MadVR monitor settings, I set HDR to display. It then toggles and displays HDR in the top right corner of the monitor when videos are playing full screen. It works amazingly well and the videos look very vivid and colorful. I've seen some people say that this monitor is a bit underwhelming with HDR and I think I have to agree. It doesn't get super bright and doesn't exhibit the glare and true super brightness of a much more expensive display. It also seems to compress part of the range. However, it still looks great and I find it to be an almost universal improvement over SDR video. It's just above the level where the black onslaught starts, which keeps it from being really awful. Most of my 4K HDR videos look amazing on it (and it's really great with SDR content). LOTR and Star Wars at least look great. HDR10 doesn't have a very good universal standard, so some video content depends on the display's brightness capabilities to make the picture look right. In that regard, this display will let you down. Some HDR content just isn't bright enough on this display. It's not true 1000 nits HDR, just 350 nits with HDR10 compatibility. Really well-tuned content looks fantastic on this display, though. Far Cry 5 has an amazingly versatile HDR implementation and it looks AMAZING. Out of all the content I've tried, this is the best so far. Looks impressive.