LG’s striking red-and-black gaming monitor certainly looks the part — that’s relatively unusual for a company that doesn’t have a dedicated gaming brand — and with a fast IPS panel, high refresh rate, G-Sync and a roomy slightly curved screen, it’s a nice package for many types of games. But a few drawbacks diminish the appeal.
LG’s price for the monitor is just under $1,000; most places seem to sell it for about $900. That’s a couple hundred less than Alienware’s recently announced but not-yet-shipping AW3418HW, which has similar specs, at least based on the few that are available. For that money, though, you get more ports and basic lighting effects. The 34UC89G doesn’t seem to be available yet in the UK or Australia, but the US price directly converts to about £765 and AU$1,250. The 34UC79G is the corresponding FreeSync version, though it doesn’t have identical specs.
Basic specifications
| Price (MSRP) | $999 |
|---|---|
| Panel type | IPS |
| Backlight type | LED |
| Size (diagonal) | 34 |
| Curve radius | 3800R |
| Resolution | WFHD/UWUXGA (2,560×1,080) |
| Aspect ratio | 21:9 |
| Pixel pitch (mm) | 0.31 |
| Maximum gamut | 99 percent sRGB |
| Rotates vertically | No |
| Typical brightness (nits) | 300 |
| Sync standard | G-Sync |
| Maximum vertical refresh rate (at HD or higher resolution) | 144Hz (166Hz with overclocking) |
| Gray/gray response time (milliseconds) | 5 |
| Release date | June 2017 |
The stand is well designed; connectors are easily accessible in the back and there’s a snap-in piece for managing cables and hanging your headset. You can also raise and lower it sufficiently to accommodate most people, and tilt it about 20 degrees back as well as a touch forward.
LIke a lot of monitors, the 34UC89G uses a single joystick control for its settings and menu navigation. LG’s is particularly nice. Located right in the middle of the bottom under the logo so you don’t have to grope for it, easy to maneuver, and the onscreen menu display defaults to the bottom middle rather than stretched across the bottom or on the side.
LG doesn’t offer any particularly novel features, but it includes all the basics, at least for gaming. Black Stabilizer is LG’s name for its shadow-brightening option for games where enemies lurking in dark corners. It works by adjusting the gamma curve below middle gray, but locks black so contrast seems unchanged. On the low and medium settings the effect is pretty subtle, but it’s quite noticeable on high. Observer, for instance, may not have the best graphics but it’s very dark and atmospheric and really benefited from the high boost. For purists, it’s not as good as actually having a truly large dynamic range, though.
You’ll also see LG tout its Dynamic Action Sync, but confusingly makes it seem like a setting (and it is on some other LG monitors). But here it’s just a branded name for the technology LG uses to decrease the input lag of the display, since IPS panels can be a little slow for speed-sensitive games. And the monitor’s input lag is pretty good, about 14ms on average.
The monitor can display red or green crosshairs or a dot in the center, which is nice and really helps to quickly orient a target in your sights, but you can’t tie them to profiles. They’re always globally on or off — though yes, I occasionally want to blast a hole through my email — and it can’t automatically switch from a red crosshair in FPS mode to a green one in RTS, for example.
While the monitor supports split-screen and picture-in-picture, you don’t get it in hardware. You have to download LG’s OnScreen Control utility, which also duplicates a handful of the functions of the built-in menus.
