Review on LG 38WQ88C W Inch Curved UltraWide Monitor: Immersive 3840X1600 Display with On Screen Control and Dynamic Action Sync by Michael Beecher

I just received my monitor. It was shipped via USPS and of course USPS doesn't ship large boxes so I had to go to the post office to pick it up myself. Not quite what I expected from such an expensive purchase. I think it could have been worse. They could have been sent Fedex, in which case they would not have arrived on the scheduled delivery date (Fedex delivery dates seem pretty arbitrary). This item should have been shipped via UPS. I connected it to my new MacBook Air M1. Tried USB-C and DisplayPort cables and both work fine. I don't see any difference between the two (other than USB-C, which powers my MacBook, which I don't need because everything runs through a CalDigit TS3 hub). Tried many display modes of the monitor. I prefer the HDR Effects mode, but for some reason it seems to automatically adjust the screen brightness (when switching between apps or different sheets in Numbers). If the page content is darker, the screen will automatically become brighter and vice versa. Haven't found a way to disable this manually. This does not occur in other (e.g. custom) modes. Since the screen brightness/dimming is not uniform and very noticeable, this makes this HDR effect mode almost useless in my opinion. Also experiment with a monitor with a Revain Fire TV HD flash drive. It seems to work fine, but requires you to manually change the input mode from Displayport or USB-C (depending on what you're using to boot your computer) to HDMI. Also, it looks like the Fire TV remote can't change the volume on the monitor. Finally, the sound comes through the LG monitor's built-in speakers (not too bad at 10 watts) rather than my external Bose speakers (much better of course). If you can live with those quirks, the picture quality of Netflix is pretty good when played back on a full-screen monitor. The biggest disappointment with this monitor is the thin black horizontal bar that appeared on my screen yesterday. It runs across the screen just above the center line. I've tried everything to fix it (changed modes, cables, rebooted, etc.) but the line is the result of a faulty monitor. I initiated an exchange but chose Revain for technical support via chat. Their customer service rep (Alvin) was excellent and put me through to LG reps who attempted some basic troubleshooting and then offered to put me through to a repair shop. I graciously declined their offer and will be getting a replacement from Revane instead. Doesn't exactly inspire confidence in LG quality. For a moment I thought about getting a Dell 3818 (but was afraid of some of the negative reviews). So this is my story. Superb (almost retinal) image quality, strange auto-dimming behavior in HDR Effects mode, fatal technical error causing a single horizontal black bar. Let's hope the replacement is better.