I can never go back... - LG & Dell's 49" 32:9 Monitors Reviewed

sometimes high technology really can feel like every time you take two steps forward you've got to take a step back and that's definitely how i felt when we reviewed samsung's super ultra wide chd 90 almost exactly one year ago i mean that thing was a sight to behold as wide and as tall as two 27 inch regular monitors side by side and it had a 144 hertz refresh rate for gamers was basically the monitor of the future that is unless you were coming from a future where high resolution screens were a thing because with a vertical resolution of just 1080 pixels it was a blurry dog's breakfast compared to even cheap korean monitors off of ebay but today we've got some new options both lg and dell have released their own 49-inch 32x9 displays this time with over 75 percent more pixels that's right baby it's 1440p baby the hex gears nova mechanical keyboard is a wired entry level keyboard that features full metal construction and is available with kale box brown or box white switches check it out at the link below the first thing to know when comparing these two monitors is that as far as we can tell they are using the exact same panel as lg display actually makes display panels while dell does not but that's not a criticism because what a panel it is it features a 5120 by 1440 resolution which is the same exact number of pixels as two 27 inch qhd or 2560 by 1440 monitors side by side but then of course without gross bezels bifurcating your crosshairs if you're a gamer it's also over 7 million total pixels which for a lot of gamers might actually be the sweet spot so on the one hand this brings a noticeable improvement in image clarity compared to 1080 class displays of this size almost all of the test users spotted the upgrade in an experiment that we ran recently which you can check out up here on the other hand compared to gaming on even a single standard 16x9 4k display we're still actually working with almost a million fewer pixels so even though they're spread across 49 freaking inches of incredibly immersive gaming glory this panel is still not quite as hard to drive as more mainstream 4k displays so we were able to get 120 to 180 fps in cs go full screen max settings not that anyone plays like that and around 40 to 50 fps playing apex legends with an rtx 2070 now 40-50 fps is certainly playable but a lot of pc gamers really prefer to have higher frame rates in their games these days nvidia recently even shared a study on the practical competitive advantage of high refresh rate gaming so our next step then was to hook up a 2080 ti to this beast only to be a little bit disappointed because now our rig has the fps for a true pc master race experience but our monitors can't keep up if high refresh rate gaming is your thing you'll need to find another display because unlike the lower res samsung from last year that runs it up to 144 hertz these 1440p models max out at 60hz although with that said we were able to get a stable overclock on both of them up to around 76 hertz which isn't too bad so they're suitable for sightseeing and non-competitive gamers but i wouldn't say they're really for hardcore esports players moving on to productivity though totally different story 60 hertz is plenty for office work so these monitors are basically fantastic no like really fantastic you can easily get three or four windows open at the same time and with the 1440 vertical pixels text might not be the sharpest we've ever seen like on lg's 5k ultra fine but it's still nice and clear which is important because remember even though it's super wide you're still likely to end up sitting only about 30 inches away depending on the size of your desk another difference between this new panel and the samsung chg90 is the tightness of the curve now all of them are curved monitors because by the time you go this wide it actually does kind of make sense but the samsung uses a rounder 1800 r curve compared to the lg and the dell's more flat 3 800 r bend now which one you prefer is kind of down to how you intend to use it now if you'll always be close a really tight curve is fine but if you plan to also use your monitor as your dorm room tv you might prefer the flatter approach especially if you find yourself watching with friends now as for color accuracy our dell monitor shipped with calibration literature that we verified in our tests and it's great we're talking professional level delta e's of less than 2 and 98 coverage of the srgb color space as for our lg unit that one was good but not great though we should mention that ours is a pre-production engineering sample so it is possible although from our experience with lg not necessarily probable that the retail ready models will be better calibrated out of the box than ours if nothing else though ardell here shows us more or less what displays with this panel can be capable of okay then so by this time we've made our point that these two monitors share the same panel but we mostly haven't talked about what's actually different about them so which one is better well most of the differences have to do with the industrial design the chassis the stand and the controls for the on-screen display looks wise i'd say it's a coin flip they both have a plastic back but the dell is gray while the lg is white so io is a bit of a mixed bag too they both have two hdmi 2.0 ports and a single displayport 1.4 port but the dell has a couple more usb ports than the lg five downstream type a's so that's where you plug your stuff in two upstream type b's and a very appreciated usb type c by the way you might be wondering why there are two upstream ports on it at all it's actually really cool it's so you can connect two computers to this display simultaneously viewing their output in picture by picture mode and then controlling them with a single set of peripherals thanks to the monitor's integrated kvm cool the lg actually shares these features though but it has four downstream usb ports a headphone jack and the only usb port labeled upstream is the usb-c which just like the usb-c on the dell has displayport alternate mode and a whopping 90 watts of power delivery that means you can actually dock your macbook pro to either of these with a single cable which is pretty sweet especially considering that neither of these monitors have bulky external power bricks which crap we got into the similarities again right uh sorry differences uh the lg does offer a few goodies that are completely absent on the dell first there's the stand which actually swivels in addition to being able to go lower than the dell and even rotate a little bit in case your floor isn't level and then again shame on dell's product page which claims the 4914 dw can swivel between -170 and plus 170 degrees but it doesn't swivel at all i think they're talking about viewing angles but that's still wrong second the lg has an ambient light sensor on the top so the brightness can adjust automatically and it actually manages to progress a nice gradual steps unlike some tvs that i've seen which can be pretty jarring and then finally there's hdr maybe the lg product page says it supports hdr 10 and the toggle is there in windows but i mean this is some pretty low level hdr i mean the dell is a nearly identical product when it comes to the tech specs and it doesn't have it so i mean i wouldn't be surprised if lg pulled off the vasa display hdr 400 certification by the time it launches and i guess that's better than nothing but don't buy this monitor if an awesome hdr viewing experience is what you're after so then if you're in the market for a super ultra wide should you buy one of these and if so which one well if you don't mind a lower resolution in exchange for high not to mention variable refresh rate gaming you're actually still better off with the 144hz model from samsung for 350 less or maybe the upcoming comparable from rog however if you really value the higher resolution for work or you're a non-competitive gamer with a machine that can push this many pixels so then if you're basically like me then i'd recommend one of these as for which one i'd love to say go lg straight up actually i didn't even mention it's got speakers built into it and the dell doesn't but it's going to cost you it's going to be about 150 dollars more when it launches in mid april so it's up to you whether the lg only features are worth it i mean they're both awesome displays that are great for productivity and immersive gaming in games like apex legends destiny 2 cs go deus ex mankind divided anything that's designed with super duper wide gaming in mind so anything but this benchmark which you can clearly tell is super stretched thermal takes a 500 aluminum mid tower case features a minimalistic design with a brushed aluminum surface for a clean uninterrupted look it's got hinged tempered glass panels on both sides it fits up to a 420 millimeter radiator at the front it can take up to four three and a half or two and a half inch hard drives inside the left side panel or the top of the power supply cover and it's got a type-c usb port on the front panel check it out today at the link in the video description so thanks for watching guys if you disliked this video you know where that is but if you hit like then you liked it i guess also get subscribed check out the link to where to buy the stuff we featured and also join our forum it's really cool all those things are linked below oh right our merch store it has shirts and other stuff like cable ties

Channel: Linus Tech Tips

Views: 2,902,437

Rating: 4.9120092 out of 5

Keywords: dell, lg, super ultrawide, monitor, 49, ulta, wide, super, gaming, 60hz, 144hz, surround

Id: jBhQrGXYyw4

Length: 11min 1sec (661 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 30 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/zeddsnotdeadyet]

okay, but at least you can run the 1080 pixel high panel at 144hz..

[u/badass2000]

I've seen The Dell monitor and it's awesome!