LGElectronics 42.5" Screen LED-lit Monitor (43UD79-B)

INITIAL REVIEW (11/2018): I've been watching this monitor for a couple months and jumped at the chance to get it for less than $500. My understanding is that it is the same panel used in the much more expensive 42" Dell monitors. Regardless, the picture is clear and sharp - and BIG! Definitely a solid 5-star rating in my book.I got this primarily because I sometimes work from home, my work laptop is capable of driving 4k, and I've been jealous of the lucky few in the office who have [Dell] 42" monitors. I was hesitant because I have an older Mac that will not drive 4k but discovered afterward that this is actually a bonus. Most of my personal computer use involves browsing, reading, organizing, and budgeting. After staring at a computer screen for 6-8 hours for work, it's nice to have the bigger text with my personal machine (it runs at 2560 x 1440 pixels rather than the standard 4k resolution of 3840 x 2160 pixels). Maybe this is more a factor of my age than anything else, but I'm in less of a hurry to upgrade my home laptop.In terms of quality, I don't see any of the issues reported with the screen by other reviewers, but perhaps I'm just not as particular or discerning. The sound output is much better than I expected - perfect for casual listening and with pretty decent bass response for what it is.Having the remote is a big bonus. Nice to have that control at my fingertips, even though the joystick control on the bottom of the display is actually pretty easy to use. Ny eventual plan is to have this monitor serve as both a computer monitor and a monitor for streamed content; the remote - and the better sound output than most TVs - will make it perfect for that.The only down side besides being a bit pricey is the size. It's big. I have it mounted to a swing arm on my desk and had to tighten all the swivel points to handle this monster. I also had to buy the VESA 100mmm to 200mm adapter as my arm was 100mm and the monitor os 200mm.UPDATE 7/2/2020: VERY DISAPPOINTED to report that I'm suddenly seeing two vertical color bars along the right side of the monitor (see picture). This happens with either of my 2 computers connected and even with no computer connected, so it's definitely the monitor. It does not clear up by resetting the picture or resetting the monitor.Over the years (ok, decades), I've had more monitors than I can count -- this is the first one I've had go bad (and happens to be the second LG product I had go bad, which really sours my opinion of LG product quality). I've used monitors for far, far longer without ever having any issues. My only option is to tolerate the substandard display, investigate repair options (not expecting much from LG here), and start my research over again for a monitor that has reasonable build quality and lifespan. Getting less than 2 years out of a monitor this expensive is utterly ridiculous.UPDATE 7/31/2020: LG has re-earned my respect by standing behind their product. They sent a service tech out to the house today to replace the screen free of charge. Took him less than a half hour, and my monitor is now as good as new, with no dead pixels/vertical lines. Can only hope this one lasts longer than the first one. I’ll update again if any other issues develop. In the meantime, Bravo, LG!

I was very nervous buying a 4K monitor because every one had a high percentage of negative reviews, making a purchase risky. Decided to go with this monitor because it is new (assumed LG learned from previous models), because it is LG (a top LED panel manufacturer that makes good to excellent products) and because it is huge.Size: Gambled the size would work and it is better than I dared hope. I usually have a half dozen or more screens active at any given time and ofter work with 3 or 4 simultaneously. With this monitor I can view them all and arrange them for greatest efficiency. The source doc goes in the middle and the multiple reference documents, sites, applications surround it as needed. Way better than the 2 HD monitors used prior - maybe twice the space. Occasionally have to move my head a bit to best view something in off to the side of the screen (can use the exercise!). Or can just drag the doc over a bit for a minute and put it back when done. I have it positioned about 2.5 feet away so not retinal-level resolution but as good or better than the 2 HD monitors I used to have in the same position. This monitor actually frees up a lot of desk space over the 2 much smaller monitors.Picture Quality: I do not see any issues people complain about in negative reviews - no shadow around the edge, no dark corners, no rainbow with white screen. Only issue so far is that dimensions are not perfect - it stretches the screen a tiny bit width wise making circles a bit off. I rarely notice it as an issue and have taken no steps to fix it yet. Will do when life slows down a bit.Speakers: Working well for conference calls and general but not great for music as they are mostly mid-range. Makes sense they can't have base in the monitor both for size and vibration. Speakers are a bonus as far as I'm concerned and these are great that way.Misc: The stand is heavy and puts the bottom of the viewable screen about 4 inches above desk surface which is perfect. Very solid and heavy. Comes with a remote to quickly adjust volume and brightness.I highly recommend this monitor for work or life.

Este monitor es muy bueno y excelentes sus caracteristicas

Considering the size and price, this is monitor is an amazing value. This monitor is great for those that need to work with multiple documents, applications, etc. - the 42.5" of real estate gives your windows plenty of space.This monitor does take a day or two to get used to - when you first get it, you'll be awestruck by the size ... and you'll wonder if it is too big. But after a few days of using it, I think I'm fully adjusted to it.I calibrated the monitor with an old i1Display 2 colorimeter and it come out to just over 100% sRGB ... so for web, documents, light photo editing, video, etc. it should be good enough for most people. Color reproduction is fine and very accurate.Couple of tips:1. Get a window manager like AquaSnap - it's much better than LG's OnScreen Control app. AquaSnap lets you resize windows to sections of the monitor so that you can neatly arrange multiple apps on the monitor.2. Enable underscan if you find the edges of the screen blurry3. Lower the brightness down to 15 or so - the factory brightness is WAY too high and harsh on the eyes.Very happy with the purchase, highly recommended.

Very bright, good contrast, comfortable to work with as a monitor, and the remote is quite handy, much better than fiddling with buttons on the monitor itself. From time to time the monitor will disconnect/go dark for a second or two and then resume, I'm not sure if it's a cabling issue, my other 43" monitor doesn't do that, but it still works really great and I'm keeping it. Other than that issue, the display is always stable, clear, and comfortable to read. For a desk monitor, 43" is the max size I would go for a flat (uncurved) screen, it's already quite amazing the amount of windows and data you can put on such a display.

This review is for the LG 43UD79-B 42.5" Screen LED-Lit Monitor**Important Note: For Canadians buying from Amazon.ca, you will need to make sure that you have the required USB C cable for the very necessary firmware upgrade, or buy one if you purchase this monitor. It is not included. More belowMy monitor shipped with a 6ft power cable, a 6ft DP cable, a 6 ft HDMI cable and a USB 3 type A male to type C female adapter - but again, not the required USB cable.Pros:- One of the cheaper 43” options- After calibration colors are very good (not superb but very good)- Comes with a remote. That is a fantastic feature & super handy. It made me wish all monitors shipped with remotes to access the menu.- Multiple inputs and screen split, Picture by Picture or PiP options, controlled by either hardware or software. your mileage may vary though.- You can use multiple inputs from a single source.- 6ft long power cable that does not use a power brickEDIT Amended: The 10 bit color is actually not true 10 bit. It's 8 bit + FRCCons:- a small ~ 10 pixel screen border where items or text appear slightly blurred only if viewing the screen off angle. It was a non issue for me, but it's worth mentioning- This monitor is not flicker free. It uses PWM. There is a firmware update to try and resolve this, but I found even with the firmware update applied it was difficult to look at this monitor for more than a few hours before my eyes became sore. This is only if you are sensitive to PWM flickering. For me it it made the monitor unusable.- Even though this monitor is calibrated out of the box the colors seem slightly washed out to me. This is made slightly more complicated by the fact that there is a lack of a single saturation setting to raise overall saturation. That alone would make things so, so much easier. More further below- For Canadian Amazon.ca orders the monitor does not ship with the required USB Type C cable. More on this further below.- The 200 x 200 mm VESA mounting holes are in a square area that is both recessed (1 inch deep) and has many vertical tabs protruding into the recessed area potentially blocking many aftermarket mounting solutions.- No height adjustment if using the supplied stand.- Only one year warranty. The industry standard on most monitors is at least two years, and usually three. That doesn’t inspire purchasing confidence for this model. But LG seem to offer only one year on a lot of their monitors, unlike most other brand name companies.Further notes:Screen split is basically handled in two ways; one by hardware and one by software. If you plug multiple cables into this monitor, either from multiple devices or from a single device multi out like a GPU, then you can use the on screen controls, or the remote to switch inputs or access multiple inputs at once in a split screen, PiP or PbP configuration. So that is accessing split screen by hardware.But the On Screen Display software can also create the same thing, but with customization that can be saved as templates - all software based. You can have only one device (one cable) plugged into the monitor and still create split screen. It’s LG’s proprietary version of other 3rd party software setups like display fusion, except display fusion does it much better.Hardware based input switching via remote was kind of flaky - even after the firmware update. If you plug in multiple cables It correctly displays the configuration you boot to, but if you then select another configuration it doesn’t seem to play nice with Windows. I even reinstalled Windows 10 hoping for better results. It works best if you make your changes then reboot. So switching on the fly via the remote didn't work for me. For that you can use the On Screen Display software to split the monitor, but LG’s implementation of this is inferior to something like Display Fusion (but that software costs $30). Be prepared to save your work and then restart the PC any time you select a new input for the monitor. Vegas Pro 15 editing software did not play nice with this monitor, but that's also because Vegas Pro has it's own scaling problems.For reference I was connecting multiple inputs from a desktop PC running Win 10 1803, using DP and HDMI outs on an MSI GTX 1080.Re saturation adjust:The menu uses the increasing popular six color menu style. Saturation is in the menu layer under: Picture > Color Adjust > Six Color – where you’ll find 12 independent sliders for Hue and Saturation of Red, Green, Blue, Cyan, Magenta and Yellow – but no independent slider to raise all saturation at once. That is a major oversight imo. If you’re using a colorimeter or a LUT to set the levels then this may be a non issue. But for an average user just trying to raise all color at once, and amateur-sleuth adjust, there is no way to do it without messing with multiple sliders in a hit and miss scenario. Great for minuscule, granular fine tuning; terrible for convenience. The monitor has your standard preset Picture Modes like Custom, Photo, Cinema, Dark Room, etc. YMMV with those. It has an independent Picture Adjust, but that only includes your standard Brightness, Contrast and Gamma – no saturation. So if you’re satisfied with the actual “balance” of color, raising it means potentially raising 12 sliders independently. And that’s without knowing whether that particular attempt will be enough. It's a very annoying method, it takes forever and requires tons of patience. Fortunately if you get it right it can then be saved.Don’t use the included driver CD. There are two separate newer driver \ firmware downloads you’ll need from the LG site. This is for Windows 10:1) The monitor drivers.As of this writing (June 2018) the current driver for Windows 10 is on LG’s site for this monitor under Software, Firmware and Drivers > 43UD79 Win10 R3 Driver > file “LG_ULTRA_HD.zip” dated Nov 27 2017. This will allow you to go into Windows > Device Manager > Monitors and load the ULTRA HD.inf to change it from Win 10 Generic. It then loads and lists as LG ULTRA HD.2) The more important and necessary download is the OnScreen Control software which functions as both a software control and firmware update platform. This is found on LG’s site under Software, Firmware and Drivers > [Windows] OnScreen Control - version 2.86 > file Win_OSC_2.89.zip (date June 5 2018)On launching this software it tells you “To update monitor software you must have a USB cable”. (the one that should be supplied but is not) This monitor “software” upgrade is also the firmware upgrade. Ignore the info about optionally using a Type A to Type B USB cable. That’s incorrect; this monitor doesn’t have a Type B uplink port like some other monitors. It has a Type C uplink port and It’s this Type C port you need to be plugged into from your source to do the firmware upgrade. What you need is either a USB 3 type C male to male cable (if your source also has Type C). Or the other more common option to connect is to use a USB 3 cable that is Type A male (from PC) to Type C male (on monitor).You need this firmware upgrade:1) to provide the necessary uplink power2) to mnake sure the USB 3 Type A ports on the monitor continue to work properly (so they don’t disconnect randomly or provide insufficient power \ amps)3) to install the "On Screen Display" software and4) to ensure the hardware split screen options work without cutting out.If you need to buy and include a USB cable from Amazon.ca, I bought this cable It’s Type A male to Type C male and it worked for the firmware upgrade and to provide continuous uplink power. It’s rated for 5Gbps transfer and 3 amps, sufficient for the monitor’s two USB Type A ports (They are 0.9 and 1.9 amps)Amazon and LG: how come there is no mention in the description that this USB cable isn’t included for Canadian orders from Amazon.ca. The required cable isn’t for luxury or peripheral; it’s necessary for the monitor to function properly.All things considered, this 4K monitor is hard to beat at this price point for Canadian shoppers. After adjusting color the 4K content looks very good - not HDR TV good, but still it's rich. And the extra 4K real estate is great.The PWM problem:I returned the monitor because of the lack of flicker free. I tried the firmware update (dated June 5 2018 at time of writing this) That didn’t solve the problem for me. I tried LED bias lights behind the monitor but that made little difference. I tried flux and Iris software; that didn’t solve the problem either. My other monitors are Low Blue Light with Flicker Free tech. I never realized what a world of difference that makes until I tried this monitor. Not everyone is sensitive to this, or affected by PWM. If you know you're not affected then this monitor may be fine for you. In the end I couldn’t stand it. My eyes became way too sore looking at this and it also affected my sleep. So I ended up returning it.A note on initial delivery.Amazon.ca's new contracted delivery standard for couriers is "OSNR" - Original Signature Not Required. Purolator just left this monitor sitting in the hallway, at the door of my 3rd floor apartment. There are 20 apartments on that floor in one long hallway. Luckily it wasn't taken. Purolator's counter is that it is up to Amazon to designate signature required, and Amazon bases this on purchase amount. So a $900 Plus (after tax) order is not enough to require a signature? How is it OK to leave a monitor this expensive just sitting in an apartment hallway? As a customer you sit in the middle of this terrible arrangement and reap the angst.

Initially, I got this monitor to replace my 4 smaller 21" monitors that were used to monitor my servers. It has a great 4 screen solution that has met all of my needs.What surprised me was that I was able to game on this monitor. I have been using this monitor more and more as the extra monitor space is great for some games.