LG 34UM65-P Ultrawide 34 Inch IPS LED Monitor

Peeps

After a week of using my new LG 34UM65-P Ultrawide 34 Inch IPS LED Monitor, here is my initial views.

Manufacturer Specifications

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-e...13-no/spec.PNG

Whats in the Box

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-W...220_202029.jpg

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-X...220_202341.jpg

The obvious one is the monitor itself, but we will come to that later.

Accessories wise, it comes with power supply with UK cable, 2m HDMI cable, Stand with screw cover, some screws and a sticky clear pad for when using a VESA mount. Also has the driver CD and instructions and that's about it.

Setting Up


Setting up was rather easy. Just 2 screws hold the base onto the swivel mount on the bottom of the monitor. i had to watch i didn't damaged the monitor controls joystick, which is on the bottom of the monitor. Without the base on, you could inadvertently lay it down on it and break it. Within 5 mins it was on my desk.

Round the Back

http://hwzone.com/media/5/-/p/lg-34um65-p_9.jpg

It has the following ports

DVI - D port
Full size Display Port
2 x HDMI
Audio Input from PC
Audio Output to Headphone
Power Supply input.

Initially i set up with the DVI- D port but it wouldnt display the image correctly. Not sure why as i would have expected it to work. Ended up using the supplied HDMI cable and away it went.

Round the Front

The stand is partly clear and it looks like the monitor is floating, which is a nice touch. The stand is hard plastic and feels tough and well made. The screen only tilts up and down and there is no swivel unless you move the whole base. It has no height adjustement either.
There is a little joystick which has several control on it. Moving left and right adjusts the volume. Pulling towards you mutes and un mutes when adjusting the volume.
Pulling towards you twice turns it off. Pushing the button opens up the menu that allows you to adjust the usual settings you would expect. It also has a PBP mode that allows you to display 2 inputs at once, each taking up half of the screen. You can select what input you want to choose.


First Look

Having moved on from this

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-o...220_100755.jpg

to this

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-J...226_221702.jpg

initially i was like wow. i had to sit back from it to take it all in. Its one thing having 2 screens, its another having 1 so big. Its a really nice looking screen, both in the picture quality and the physical look. Well chuffed.

In Use

Movies

Guardians of the Galaxy
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-8...2-24-27-82.bmp

The Shawshank Redemption

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-7...2-25-03-34.bmp

Some movies will use the whole screen and some will not. the black bars at the side are quite common on Youtube as well. Watching in such a large screen feel weird at first and you always want to move back a bit. Trust me you get used to it. Generally looks very nice.

Multitasking

This is where the screen is good. It comes with some bundled software called Screen Split. This allows you to set pre determined window sizes and the windows/apps/browser snaps to it.

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-n...226_224919.jpg

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-X...226_224830.jpg

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-P...226_224849.jpg

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-C...226_224841.jpg

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-R...226_224858.jpg

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-K...226_224913.jpg

You will see the choices in the software and how a couple of them look. This is a really good feature as it saves you trying to adjust the screen manually. It is as simple as picking the choice and the open windows snap as needed. really cool feature. Coming from 2 screens where i was used to having 1 screen with a video on it and the other with a web page on it, this really helps to have this software to bridge the gap. I think without it, it would be very annoying to use.

Gaming

This was why i bought the screen and where my biggest worry was. i had a fear that my GPU would not handle the games as good as i would have liked. Happily the FPS hit is not to bad. Still very playable at the same quality settings. I prefer as high as possible as long as FPS is above 40.

Here are some games with a before and after screen shot with the FPS in the corner. The only setting in the game that was changed was the resolution.

Alien Isolation

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-f...0-16-00-37.bmp

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-S...1-41-00-39.bmp

Far Cry 4

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-n...0-12-45-29.bmp

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-h...1-44-26-40.bmp

Elite Dangerous

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-Q...0-20-10-35.bmp

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-a...1-47-44-53.bmp

Far Cry 4 was the only game above that i felt going down to medium settings would make the game more playable. Elite ran fine and so did Alien playing so i kept them as they were. I did run Dues Ex - Human Revolution and Euro Truck Simulator 2 and these old titles supported the Native resolution.

Websites

The big downside to the screens is when using websites that dont make use of all the space on the screen. You can get a lot of white spaces

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-f...h839-no/FB.PNG

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-t...42-no/twit.PNG

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-b...no/youtube.PNG

Good to see one site makes use of it :hexlub:

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-y...9-no/hexus.PNG

Final Thoughts


Really Impressed with this monitor. The picture quality is awesome and the desktop space is unreal. Having spent the last 8 years with 2 monitors at 1680 x 1050 each, the change is nice. Glad to be able to play my games on one screen and not have to look to one side. The build quality is awesome and it looks really nice. The added software really makes it easy to use for multitasking and features PBP can be useful in the right situation. The menu is easy to navigate and simple to use. The speakers on it are loud enough for general use and are tinny with no decent low end. Might not be good for those who use it mainly for audio / video consumption. If i had the money, i would have got the curved version of it as it would mean i wouldn't have to move my head as much. One thing that i hope improves is websites that don't make use of all the screen space.

The Good

Picture Quality.
Build Quality.
Software.

The Not so Good

The lack of USB hub.
Headphone socket is on the back.
No height adjustment on stand.

Overall a good screen, worth every penny. If you are looking for a good ultrawide monitor, this is the one.

If i have missed anything from the review that you would like to know more about, please let me know and i will update best i can.

Thanks for reading.

Chris

What's the stand like? Will you be using a VESA stand in the future?

The stand is good. Its like a single piece of plastic about 10mm thick bent to shape. Nice and stable. its very much designed to be set in the one position and not moved.
Not planning to use a VESA mount yet. If you were to use one, the stand can be removed and the monitor would float nicely

Shame because the stand really is poor considering the price. No ergonomic adjustment

Nice review man, good to see some else's thoughts. I'm guessing DVI didn't work because you didn't use a dual link cable?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MrRockliffe

Shame because the stand really is poor considering the price. No ergonomic adjustment

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I agree. The tilt is ok, but some height adjustement would be good.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Biscuit

Nice review man, good to see some else's thoughts. I'm guessing DVI didn't work because you didn't use a dual link cable?

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Yup. using the cable that i used with my old monitors. HDMI will do for now. Might get a display port cable as i presume this would be best best of the 3?

Yep, it offers the highest bandwidth :)

Then that's the one for me.