Better than the C2? - LG 42C3 review

I know what you all want to know is whether the C3 is better than last year's C2 model should you upgrade to the newer version we'll come to that a little bit later we're testing LG's 2023 42 inch C3 display today and we'll tell you exactly how it performs as a desktop monitor we'll answer all of your questions and much much more so stick around [Applause] [Music] the C3 is probably the most popular of LG's 2023 OLED display lineup and it comes in a range of sizes all the way up to 83 inches the most sensible option for a desktop monitor is their 42 inch model and the C3 is a direct replacement to last year's C2 which was actually the first time the company produced and offered a 42 inch size model is still built around LG's W OLED panel technology and it offers familiar specs and features in line with last year too including a 3840x2 160 4K resolution a 120 hertz refresh rate adapter sync variable refresh rates high-end HDR support 4 HDMI 2.1 inputs and a range of TV features like decent integrated speakers Smart TV apps image processing enhancements and Technologies we talked last year about this 42 inch screen size and in our opinion it's the limit really for what is going to be a reasonable monitor size for most people anything bigger and personally I think it starts to become really impractical on a desktop 42 inches is still huge but it is usable on a desk and it's got a comfortable Tech size too at 4K in fact the font size is similar to a 1440p 27 inch monitor just with much more desktop real estate thanks to the 4K resolution which you can use here without any operating system scaling given the live screen size the screen is more suited to those wanding a display mostly for gaming for videos for multimedia is well suited to Dynamic content and also console or PC gaming from a controller where you're going to sit a little bit further away from your desk what's new for 2023 with the C3 there's quite a lot of talk in the OLED Market about LG's meta panels their MLA or micro lens array technology and also their brightness booster we've got a detailed article about all of this on our main site which I'll link to below which will give you a lot more information but these are new technologies that are designed primarily to help try and improve the brightness of LG's Wale panels LG talk about how this can help improve brightness actually by up to 60 in some cases while MLA is featured on some of LG's new 2023 OLED TVs in their premium G3 range it's not actually used at all in any of their C3 range models so you can unfortunately forget about having MLA here on any of the c3s the brightness booster technology is included on some of the C3 models but only on those that 55 inches or larger and it also doesn't seem to boost the brightness much or certainly is not as much as on the G3 range where MLA is also used on the 42 inches 48 inch C3 models neither are actually featured and so the actual panel is very similar to last year's C2 model so what actually is new then the 2023 models include the company's latest A9 AI 4K Gen 6 processor so that is what powers the screen and the software and all the apps and it's an update from last year's Gen 5 processor expect this to be a bit quicker than last year's model in some places although it's not something that we've got a chance to test really without being able to compare it side by side to last year model this also brings support for their latest web OS operating system with a few new features and design changes as well as improved image upscaling and additional Technologies like that without having access to both screens side by side it's going to be hard to evaluate those particular areas of the suggested improvements LG also talk about sound improvements from their new AI Sound Pro engine for more immersive sound and simulated 9.1.2 surround sound that's now being offered but it's also now possible to pair the screen with some of LG's own separate sound bars for what they call wow Orchestra so that will offer you joined up sound including control for the Soundbar settings via the TV's on-screen display menu although you're going to have to purchase a separate Soundbar for that and it will also need to be from a pretty defined list of LG Zone range as well the C3 model also includes support for qms or quick media switching so that will help reduce the momentary black screen that you get when switching between certain modes like when you're using different refresh rates the support from this from actual input devices is currently very limited though and having that quick black screen is probably hardly a deal break for most people anyway but it is of course nice to see it included here nonetheless finally there's of course the price the new C3 42 inch model has a standard retail price at the moment at launch of 1300 US dollars although you will find some additional discounts off that already bringing it down by 100 or so at the time of this video last year's 42 inch C2 is still available though and currently that's listed at a much lower 800 US dollars is the C3 really worth that additional cost well with there being only a few updates in features and specs since last year's C2 model which may or may not of course be relevant when you're considering this as a desktop monitor it's probably going to come down to the question of whether this becomes a better screen in terms of performance let's run it through a wide range of tests and see exactly how it performs being an OLED screen there's some familiar performance when it comes to gaming in a few areas the screen has near instant response times with no need for overdrive to be used and therefore nice clean pixel transition times these remain consistent at different fixed refresh rates and during variable refresh rate as well and we measured around 0.46 milliseconds here greater great average in all situations and at all refresh rates there's no meaningful difference of course here in response times Behavior compared with the C3 and other Euler panels including last year's C2 as there wasn't really anything to improve here in the first place combined though with the native 120 hertz refresh rate you get some nice motion Clarity from the OLED panel certainly ahead of 60 hertz OLED screens it's roughly the equivalent of a good 180 Hertz refresh rate LCD in terms of motion clarity because it has 4K resolution and because it's also positioned primarily as a TV the 120 hertz refresh rate is quite a long way behind other modern OLED panel options in smaller sizes and in lower resolutions there's a wide range of 240 hertz OLED monitors now available in the 27 inch 45 inch Ultra wide and also Now 49 inch Ultra wide options available if you're after a display for Competitive Gaming and you want the absolute best motion Clarity available and the highest frame rate support there are going to be better options out there for sure in the monitor space what the C3 does do well however is it handles 4K gaming with high resolution and detail while supporting the 120hz refresh rate offered on Modern games consoles like the Xbox series X and the PlayStation 5. there is support here as well for variable refresh rates with adapter sync being used and the screen being certified under nvidia's g-sync compatible and the AMD freesync premium schemes we measured the input lag in a range of modes and in the expert bright mode we were using for the accurate desktop use the lag was quite High measuring around 9.1 milliseconds at 120 hertz and 13.1 milliseconds at 60 hertz thankfully there's also the game Optimizer preset mode which Cuts some of the image processing stuff out and will significantly reduce the input lag as well we measured a very impressive one millisecond total lag at 120 hertz increasing a little bit to 4.25 milliseconds at 60 hertz in the game Optimizer menu there's also a boost setting for impact lag which helps a fair bit at 60 hertz dropping it to 1.6 milliseconds now from that roughly four milliseconds before but not really making a difference at 120 hertz because it was already at a very low one millisecond anyway so in the best case for 120 hertz gaming in the game Optimizer mode you're really going to get good input lag equivalent to competitive high-end LCD monitors in the gaming space there's about 0.88 milliseconds of that which is from the signal processing delay which is the bit that you'd feel so this is actually the first time we've seen super low lag for Competitive Gaming on what is supposed to be a TV this is one area that has nicely improved though compared with last year's C2 model which in the best case reached down to 4.3 milliseconds lag at 120 hertz and 9.2 milliseconds at 60 hertz the overall gaming experience when it comes to response times and motion Clarity is the same as last year's C2 but there is a bit of a reduction input lag especially when using 60 hertz inputs like older games consoles or even if you're just using your modern Xbox series X or PS5 but focusing on resolution and detail instead of refresh rate and running at 60 hertz since LG released their 42 inch C2 OLED display last year we've seen a few other 42-inch OLED screens released to Market including the Asus Rog Swift pg42 uq and ktc's g42p5 both have been reviewed and are linked to those in the description below as well but those models were designed specifically as desktop monitors whereas LG continued to position their C3 as a TV it doesn't have the monitor-like features that competing displays might have so there's no display port connection there's no adjustable stand PC USB hub ports or even a standby mode those things alone make it a bit of a pain to use as a desktop monster sometimes and in some cases for instance having to turn the screen off via the remote control when you turn your PC off or into standby is annoying and then when you turn it back on you've got the smart menu app dashboard that appears and you have to select your PC input again the lack of a DisplayPort connection also means that you're going to need a very modern graphics card with HDMI 2.1 connection to be able to run the screen at 4K 120 hertz all the cards with only HDMI 2.0 can still be used but only for 4K at 60 hertz unless you're willing to drop the chroma level to get 120 hertz which we wouldn't really recommend for desktop use it's probably okay for gaming but then you've got other challenges like trying to push 4K 120 hertz frame rates in the first place you are going to need a powerful system to run this screen but without DisplayPort it does make it a bit less accessible to those who've got slightly older graphics cards and older systems keep in mind you may still need to Fork out for a top end card to go along with this screen we would have liked to have seen DisplayPort available here it seems odd not to include it when there are competing models available and it opens up that option to use it in a simpler and easier way for most people another note about the connections is that the USB ports act like they would on any other TV allowing you to stream photos and videos to the TV directly but they do not act like USB hub ports like they would on a monitor stand is also super limited with no adjustments available at all not even a simple tilt so we did find the screen did look a bit too vertical on your desk as a result and we would have liked to have seen a stand with at least some kind of basic tilt adjustment offered in return you do however get tv-like features like smart TV apps a built-in tuner and a whole load of image processing features and Technologies you may want to use for gaming and movies the screen comes out the box in the auto power saving preset mode with settings like energy saving mode enabled this is one of the first things actually that we turned off as the default Auto setting will basically try to control your brightness level depending on your ambient room conditions but it will also severely limit your Peak brightness especially in HDR mode in fact we measured only 320 nits Peak brightness in HDR with this turn to Auto at the time of testing using the other modes also restricts your brightness as well all in the name of saving energy so bottom line is to make the most out of the screen especially in HDR where you want the highest peak brightness you need to turn this off and it's a single setting for the whole screen as well so we turn that straightway to off before we did any more testing we measure the screen in its default auto power saving preset Mode still and the main problem with this mode is that it has a very cool color temperature which is typical for previous LG OLED displays everything looks too cool and blue and it then skews the accuracy as well of the grayscale and colors the gamma curve was at least nice and accurate very close to our 2.2 gamma Target but the white point was measured at a very cool 9540k and the grayscale accuracy was impacted as a result with very poor Delta e average of 11.1 it's been a very similar story really from last year's C2 model which showed very comparable results in its default eco mode as it was called then you can see from the diagram on the left here that the native color space of the screen extends quite a reasonable Way Beyond the srgb reference space with 126 relative coverage measured this is basically the same as last year's C2 model again the accuracy of srgb colors was poor in this mode though with Delta e of 7.1 average partly because of the screen's native white gamut but mainly because of that overly cool color temperature and white point if we compare the screen now Against The Wider DC ip3 color gamut that's used for a lot of HDR content you can see from the left hand diagram that the screen's native color space actually very closely matches the DCI 3p reference the accuracy of those P3 colors was poor though because the image was still far too cool with a deltree measured of 7.0 average let's see if we can improve things with one of the other preset modes we then switch simply to the expert bright preset mode in the on-screen display menu which you can immediately tell with the naked eye is a much warmer setup than the auto power saving mode remember for this actually had a really nice accurate setup as well it had a good gamma curve a game very close to 2.2 a decent RGB balance and a nice accurate color temperature across the grayscale at 6466k there was also now a very accurate white Point basically spot onto the target at 6468k and a good grayscale accuracy too with a Delta e average of 0.9 a very strong result in this mode the color accuracy was now much better to with some inaccuracy added to srgb Colors because of the wide gamut mode that it was running in and so we measured an average Delta e of 2.5 but for dcip3 colors where the screen very closely matched this color space there was now very good color accuracy with a Delta e of only 0.7 this was an impressive Factory calibration in the expert bright mode and we definitely recommend switching to this mode if you own this screen you can also easily switch to an srgb emulation mode on the screen by simply changing the color gamut setting in the on-screen display menu you just change that to Auto detect which will then detect the SDR gamma for Windows and switch you to the screen's srgb emulated mode unlike many desktop monitors you do still have access to all of the other screen settings like brightness and color controls which is of course very welcome we measured the screen again in the expert bright mode but this time with the color gamut set up to Auto detect to trigger the srgb emulation gamma color temperature and grayscale remains nice and accurate as before no significant change to what we had before there was however now a nice accurate clamping of the color space back to srgb here with a 100.5 relative coverage measured and cutting down all of the over coverage that we'd seen before and with the SDR Master content matching the display's color space accurately now we now had a very good color accuracy for srgb colors which was great this was now measured at an average deltree of only 0.8 even without further calibration or adjustments the screen offers a very accurate setup for both wide gamma and srgb content in this expert bright mode there is nothing meaningful really though to separate this from last year's performance of the C2 model in the optimal expert bright mode or when using that srgb emulation option either it showed a very similar accurate setup in this mode then too maybe a slightly better RGB balance this time and white point on the C3 but it was very minor really we calibrated and profiled the screen as normal in this expert bright mode as well with the screen scanner and the left or native but the profile created back to sidb for color aware applications this can produce very good results of course as you'd expect our calibrated ICC profile and recommended settings are available already for patreon subscribers if you'd like to help support the site then please do consider subscribing I'll leave a link in the description below to that as well for behind the scenes updates Early Access to content and everything else another great thing about LG's OLED C3 range is that they support Hardware level calibration using software such as portrait displays common package and what they call LG autocal we've got a full detailed article on everything you need to use LG autocal to calibrate the screen fully that will be linked in the descriptions below but we're pleased to say that this is already supported on the LG C3 with the latest update account to the Kalman software released in June we also measured the brightness adjustment range while in this expert bright preset mode that we've been using and using the OLED light setting in the on-screen display menu you can adjust the screen brightness between about 37 nits and 245 nits giving you a decent adjustment range for a variety of room conditions and ambient lighting including in Darker rooms as with most Ola panels a feature called automatic brightness limiter or abl is used even in SDR mode that will reduce the screen's brightness depending on the content being shown the typical test for this is to measure a series of different sized white Windows representing different average picture levels or apls so for a desktop monitor usage ideally you don't want the screen brightness to be fluctuating or changing as you change your content or as you resize windows or move them around on the C3 we found the abl behavior to be pretty modest to be honest in its usage with the screen calibrated to our typical 120 nits level represented by the blue line on this graph we actually found that abl wasn't used at all with 120 nits sustained for the all window sizes including a full 100 white window at 150 nits level abl did kick in only for the largest 100 white window sizes reducing the brightness by a small amount down to around 132 nits hardly noticeable in practice really and we expect for most people if you set the screen to somewhere under 150 nits for desktop use you probably won't see any ill effects of abl or in real SDR use if you want to run a screen at a brighter level like 200 nits then the abl again does kick in but only for those maximum 100 window sizes in these tests reducing the brightness down to 147 nits which will be more noticeable if you're regularly switching between full screen bright content and smaller sized windows you may notice this in practice on o load screens that have been specifically designed for monitor usage it's often possible to avoid abl in SDR mode by using a specifically designed option to eliminate it for instance Asus offer their so-called uniform brightness mode on their 42 inch OLED PQ 42 uq that can support up to 200 nits without abl being used at all that's not an option here on the LG C3 and it's a bit of a shame to be honest for desktop usage the performance in this area is basically the same as last year's C2 model really one final note about brightness is that the screen does not use pwm for backlight dimming of course because there is no backlight here and so it can be considered flicker free there is some minor brightness fluctuation that's in sync with the refresh rate that you'll see on OLED screens but this shouldn't cause any real issues in practice at all we should talk here also about the other OLED brightness and panel care features that are available in the on-screen display menu their unchanged from last year's C2 model as well the screen includes an automatic static brightness limiter or asbl so this is something that LG actually called TPC which is basically a feature that will detect static content on the screen and dim the brightness to help try and reduce the risk of image retention and burning it isn't something you're going to see during Dynamic content like gaming or videos or movies and we certainly didn't detect it in action in any of those uses at all but when you're using the screen as a desktop monitor for static usage like web browsing or office work it does unfortunately kick in the brightness of the whole screen dims a bit in small but noticeable steps only to then increase in one jump again when you change the picture significantly and when it thinks that the content is no longer what it would consider static because the screen is designed as a TV and not a monitor LG have not provided a setting in the on-screen menu sadly that would allow you to disable this feature that's something that Asus did offer on their pg42 uq so the asbl in itself does get quite annoying for static desktop usage there's also the familiar pixel shifter setting which basically moves the image a few pixels at a time periodically again not something that you should notice at all during any kind of dynamic content but personally I find this quite annoying during static usage and desktop use thankfully that's something you can turn off in the on-screen menu this one there's also a logo dimmer feature which can be useful when watching content with static on-screen logos when using the PC input mode though for PC usage this did not cause any kind of problems with dimming documents or text or areas of screen which is of course good news it's more used for those non-pc inputs like the TV and streaming content there's also an Olo panel cleaning function that will run automatically periodically whenever needed for PC desktop usage you may of course want to use the screen for office and internet content the screen side is manageable for this obviously still very large so make sure you've got a big enough desk for it but it's still comfortable and we think that once you get used to it the 4K resolution can be used here without any kind of os scaling so you get a really nice large desktop area to work with and that's all at a similar text size of course to a common 27 inch 1440p display the lack of any stand adjustments may come into play here though as the screen does feel very vertical we'd have liked really to have seen some kind of simple Tilt at least for the stand for maybe more comfortable positioning because the screen has an unusual rwbg subpixel layout instead of the normal RGB layout that is expected by Windows rendering of fonts is not perfect and you get some typical fringing in certain situations on fonts and different colors this is the same as otherwoler panels so it shouldn't come as any surprise really and it's the same as last year's C2 as well but nothing has changed here unfortunately and still it's fine a lot of the time and certainly nothing that you should notice in games or dynamic content but if you're doing a lot of text work you may find it an issue sometimes the C3 has got a glossy screen coating as well common in the TV space instead of a matte coating used on the OLED screens aimed more at the monitor market so far this does help provide a cleaner and more Vivid image with colors and blacks that pop a bit more but it does on the other hand lead to a lot more Reflections so you will need to be careful about the positioning of your screen relative to Windows and light sources We compare glossy versus Matte on the 42 inch oleds a lot more in our shootout video Linked In the description below more annoying is the asbl feature that we just talked about which kicks in whenever it detects static content that alone makes this screen hard to recommend for anything more than you know infrequent occasional static uses this feature is there to help reduce the risk of image retention and burn-in which is actually another thing that's always plays on your mind when you're using an OLED panel for this kind of content it's a technology that is more suited to Dynamic content like gaming and video so if you're more interested in lots of static content office internet that kind of thing there may be an LCD screen would be a better choice for you and more Suited for more information you may want to check out our five things to know before you buy an OLED screen video which I'll link in the description below the screen is part of the isafe certified Hardware low blue light range with the blue spectral Peak just outside the supposedly harmful range measured at 455 nanometers there is a single reduce blue light setting in the on-screen display menu which basically makes the image and Screen much warmer down to around 5800k from our calibrated State at 6500k so this may be useful for extended office work or perhaps for reading at night the C3 is very well equipped to handle HDR content and its OLED panel means you get per pixel level dimming meaning true blacks are basically infinite contrast ratio and no Halos are blooming at all during usage these are just some of the things that make OLED so popular for HDR gaming and for HDR movies the C3 also supports multiple HDR formats including HDR 10 hybrid log gamma and Dolby Vision something that you won't find on any OLED desktop monitor so far there's a range of HDR preset modes available once you enable HDR and windows or from your input device with the screen automatically switching over into HDR mode when it detects that we tested the cinema mode here which is set to a d65 color temperature unlike the overly cool Vivid and standard modes we also turned off for now Dynamic toe mapping and the expression enhancer feature so that we could take these measurements this mode offers a pretty reliable color temperature and rdb balance with only a three percent deviance for the white point being ever so slightly too cool than the intended at 6717k the tracking of the peaky curve was very good overall so the brightness of the image being displayed in this mode is very closely matching the Creator's intent there is a smooth and gradual roll-off of the top end as we'd seen on previous LG OLED TVs including last year's C2 this can help preserve some details and brighter content given the screens overall lower Peak brightness than competing LCD mini LED backlights and so on speaking of speed brightness the 42 inch model here reached around 730 nits maximum very similar to last year's C2 model again with only a very minor Improvement this tailed off quite quickly once the window size reached above 10 as well as is common for other OLED screens as well that's also very similar to last year's C2 model not quite as drastic here but it should result in some minor improvements in those kind of moderately lit scenes only the 55 inch and above models in the C3 range feature the brightness booster technology which seems to be able to increase Peak brightness by another 100 nits or so from tests that we've seen online none of these C3 models can reach the same Peak brightness that you get from some competing OLED monitor models in more monitor-sized form factors even from LG Zone W OLED or from qdo panels they can typically reach up to around 1 000 nits in some situations here on the C3 certainly the 42 inch model we're limited to around 730 nits the screen includes an option for dynamic tone mapping which will accentuate some of the brightness in mid and lighter tones and that's something we expect probably a lot of people will prefer to use actually because it despite it not being strictly in line with the artistic intent of the content the PQ tracking moves above the target yellow line a little bit and this represents an overall Brighter Image in Parts with a later roll-off point to you may lose some of the details in brighter areas but overall the image pops and feels a bit brighter to look at and so we recommend that people at least try this setting out color wise the color space of the screen closely matches the DCI P3 color space as we talked about earlier that's used for a lot of HDR content as well that color space represents around 73 of the larger Rec 2020 color space which is only moderate really for a wide gamut display color accuracy of Rec 2020 colors is very good though when running in HDR mode with only the colors that fall outside of the available color gamut leading to higher errors as you might expect we've also included color volume here which is a measure that considers the luminance as well as color saturation and Hue and it's an important measure for modern HDR capable discrete screens and we'll look to include that more in our future testing and reviews we've also included the color accuracy where the luminance error is included here which again shows very good accuracy by those colors that fall outside of the available color gamma and the capabilities of the panel the actual HDR experience is very pleasing thanks to the Euler panel you've got amazing blacks contrast ratio and the complete Freedom From Any blooming or halos being a TV The Wider HDR format support is also very welcome and added features like Dynamic tone mapping can create a pleasing experience to HDR content there's better support for streaming services and game consoles here as well that want to use Dolby vision and the glossy panel coating also helps the image pop a bit more and for blacks to look deeper and more Inky that's as long as you can restrict your ambient light sources and windows I don't think there's really much to separate the C3 though from last year's C2 model in that way in terms of HDR performance and experience is the C3 better than last year's C2 and is it worth the extra money in a word no don't get me wrong it's still a great display just like last year's C2 was but there's not really enough new or improved here for my liking to Warrant a 50 price premium of 400 US dollars at the time of this video if you can still find the C2 and assuming you don't specifically need some of the new features that the C3 might offer then that's going to be the better choice and the better buy right now that model of course will stop being sold soon though leaving us with only the C3 available but this will still be a very good choice for those looking for a larger format display for gaming for video and of course the price for the C3 will come down after a little while as well and and if you're after a large OLED display it will be a great choice the overall performance was excellent with a wide range of mode settings and enhancements available it's got very accurate performance once you switch away from the default Eco modes and we're impressed by the accuracy for P3 and srgb content being an OLED panel you of course get the amazing black depth near infinite contrast ratio and the near instant response times for gaming 4K 120 hertz is an attractive option for PC and console gaming and it was actually nice to see that the input lag had also been improved quite a lot compared with last year's model it was now possible to get monitor-like lag from this TV even very close to it at 60 hertz as well HDR support was very good again thanks to the OLED panel and it's amazing contrast and pixel level dimming we would have liked to have seen a better peat brightness and a brightness improvement over last year's CT model here as well even on this 42 inch size and the 48 inch C3 as well it's a shame that that's not featured here and it's a shame that it doesn't feature modern Technologies like MLA and brightness booster still the HDR setup was nice and accurate and with HDR 10 hlg and Dolby Vision support you get excellent capabilities for HDR gaming and video thinking about using this screen now specifically as a desktop monitor there's a few usual limitations with OLED it isn't ideal for static and desktop internet usage anyway with the ever-present concern of image retention and burning and that unusual subpixel structure that leads to some text Clarity issues in places that can become a bit annoying the inability to disable the asbl feature from the main menu was also annoying and we'd like to see LG include that really in the future for the for these kind of models so that you can use the screen for more static uses if you want to because it's a TV things like the lack of a standby mode DisplayPort connection USB hub you know they do become a bit annoying too but on the other hand you do get all the TV extras like smart TV apps image processing enhancements and so on the C3 is still certainly usable for General and office and static applications but it's really a screen aimed at Dynamic content gaming and video which is where it really excels you can check out current pricing and availability via our affiliate links that are linked below and please do let us know in the comments if you're thinking of buying the C3 screen what you think of it and whether you consider upgrading thanks for watching we'll see you next time

Channel: TFTCentral

Views: 47,879

Keywords: LG 42C3, LG OLED, LG C3

Id: JEpui7XWHmU

Length: 36min 35sec (2195 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 27 2023