LG 32UL950 4K HDR Monitor Review

The LG 32 UL 950 Monitor Review: A Comprehensive Evaluation

The LG 32 UL 950 monitor stands out from its competitors with its sleek and modern design, featuring an exterior made of plastic that matches the silver color of the stand. The stand itself is sturdy and connects to the back of the panel without the need for any tools. Behind this, there are four screws for securing the 100mm base, which allows for easy attachment to a different stand or monitor arm.

One of the notable features of this monitor is its Kensington lock, located at the bottom in the center, allowing users to secure their device to a desk or table. Below this, there's a joystick control that doubles as the power button, making it easily accessible from just below the screen. The speaker volume can also be adjusted more quickly using this feature.

LG has provided its on-screen control center software, which allows users to control the monitor through Windows with their mouse normally. However, I found that this software worked seamlessly with DisplayPort only, leaving me slightly confused about the requirements for use. The software offers a range of features, including setting different screen splits, changing picture modes, updating the monitor, adjusting response time, and enabling FreeSync.

The LG 32 UL 950 comes with a generous assortment of cables, including two Type-C HDMI DisplayPort and power cables. However, it uses a rather large external power brick that matches the rest of the cables. To aid in cable management, there's a little plastic clip that can be stuck to the stand.

Adjustments are available on this monitor, including 5-20 degrees of tilt between 0 and 110mm of height adjustment, as well as 180-degree pivot. Unfortunately, there is no side-to-side swivel feature, which may be a drawback for some users. Despite its sleek design, I was able to get the cable management looking quite tidy with the provided clip.

When it comes to actual usage, I found that this LG monitor instantly looked better than my daily driver, the BenQ 32-inch 4K monitor. The colors were noticeably better, and the screen brightness was a welcome step up. Having features such as height adjustment was also a nice change from what I've experienced in the past.

The question remains: is it worth the extra cost? In the US, the LG 32 UL 950 appears to be priced around $1,100, while here in Australia, it costs around $2,600. While it's hard for me to compare with other monitors that have been tested at this price point, I do think it offers significant improvements over what I was using previously.

One of the main drawbacks is that there are other options available at a lower price point with similar specs. For example, LG's own LGA series and 5K ultra-wide monitors offer similar features at a lower cost. Additionally, I personally prefer curved screens, which may be an issue for this monitor despite its larger screen real estate.

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"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enLG have a new 32 inch 4k HDR monitor with free sync and Thunderbolt 3 so let's check it out and find out how well it handles content creation gaming and day-to-day tasks the Nano IPS panel is 31.5 inches with a 16 by 9 aspect ratio and runs with a 4k resolution it's just got a 60 Hertz refresh rate 5 millisecond greater gray response time and has free sync so should do OK for gaming too however for most games you're going to need some pretty serious GPU power to maintain good FPS at 4k LG just lists that the monitor has support for 98% of the DCI p3 color space and unfortunately my software can't confirm this using the spider 5 Pro I did measure the panel with 100% of srgb 83% of ntsc and 89% of Adobe RGB so it seems a little better when compared with MSI's create a monitor I recently tested in this regard LG also listed contrast ratio of 1,300 to 1 and I measured mine at 950 to 1 so I have noticed my tool always comes in below what's specified they note that it's got a 450 net typical brightness and 715 at peak brightness and when a 100% brightness in the center I measured 423 notes ghosting isn't something I'm personally sensitive to however you can see the differences between the 4 response time settings here which are having it off set to normal fast or faster and in this test faster did look noticeably better but I can only really tell that after reviewing the playback in slow-motion viewing angles were fine regardless of angle LG nert that it's good for up to 178 degrees both horizontally and vertically the monitor is certified for vase a display HDR 600 and HDR content looked good better when compared to SDR content at least though I still don't have tools to properly test HDR and it's not really something I can show you either my camera isn't recording in HDR and you may not have a HDR monitor to view the result anyway with HDR mode enabled it enables local dimming while I didn't see the number of zone listed in the specs I counted 15 the bezels aren't too thick I measured them in around one point one centimeters on all four sides though I honestly can't say I noticed them given how large the panel is there was some backlight bleed mainly towards the bottom corners though I could only see this during this worst case test I never noticed it while normally viewing darker content but this will vary between monitor it's not all just about the panel though taking a look at the rest of the monitor it's got a curved metal base with a silver finish I did find this a bit less stable than I'd like the monitor would shake a little while typing however I did like that there was plenty of space compared to other stands on my desk the exterior of the stand is the same silver color but it's made of plastic the stand connects to the back of the panel without any tools required and behind this there are four screws for the 100 millimeter base amount if you want to attach the panel to a different stand or monitor arm down the bottom in the center there's a Kensington lock and below this is the single joystick fawned screen display navigation more on that soon with the 2 5 watt speakers found on either side the speakers sound pretty good at least for a monitor definitely above average out of the ones I've used there was even a little base and there was still quite clear at higher volumes otherwise the back also has the i/o in the center facing out there's a HDMI 2.0 and DisplayPort 1.4 input power input 3.5 millimeter headphone jack 2 type-c ports 4 Thunderbolt 3 and the bottom one also supports DisplayPort and to type a USB ports which can be used if you're connected to your computer with Thunderbolt the Thunderbolt 3 port can apparently be used to daisy chain to 4k monitors together with one port however as I've just got the one I haven't tested this LG note that the monitor can provide up to 60 watts of power delivery over this port - so you could potentially charge your laptop with a single cable to the monitor if it supports Type C charging like say the Dell XPS or MacBook the on-screen display was pretty easy to navigate using the joystick it was easy to reach from just below the screen compared to others that you have to reach around the side to get to this doubles as the power button if you hold it when you power it on it makes a beep which can be disabled and you can also move it left and right speaker volume more quickly mute LG also provide their on-screen control center software which lets you control the screen through windows with your mouse normally software like this needs a USB connection to the PC or laptop so you can manage it however I found it to work with just DisplayPort only which I'm still a little confused about the software lets you set different screen splits change picture modes update the monitor adjust response time enable free sync and more I found the screen split option nice by default in Windows 10 it's easy to set two windows side-by-side however you can select from a lot more custom splits through the software dragging a window into one of these zones will automatically maximize it within the specific zone the monitor comes with a nice assortment of cables including two type-c hdmi displayport and power cable the monitor uses quite a large external power brick as well it's white and matches the rest of the cables there's a little plastic clip that you can stick on the stand to aid with cable management - and I was able to get things looking pretty tiny with it there are a few adjustments available including - 5 to 20 degrees of tilt between 0 and 110 millimetres of height adjustment and there's even 180 degrees of pivot so unfortunately no side-to-side swivel here so far the monitor looks pretty good but how is it to actually use day to day I normally use a 32 inch 4k monitor as my daily driver the Ben q1 which I've previously reviewed in the past I can easily say that this LG one instantly looked better in about every way the colors were obviously better and screen brightness was a noticeable step up even just having something as simple as height adjustment was a nice change after editing a few videos on it I'm a little sad that I don't get to keep it great so how much does it cost and is it worth it for updated pricing check the links in the description as prices will change over time in the US it appears to be going for around 1,100 u.s. dollars at the moment while here in Australia at the recommended retail prices 2600 Australian dollars on the LG website though you can buy it for around 1,400 Australian dollars it's definitely not cheap and honestly it's hard for me to compare with others that I've tested as I haven't tested many close to this price point while I think it's a nice monitor better than what I was using previously it would be hard for me to justify the extra money for the improvements at least while there are other options like LGA and 5k ultra-wide for less money with similar specs I do personally prefer the larger screen real estate granted I'd prefer a curved option at that length let me know what you thought of LG's 32 UL 950 monitor down in the comments let me know if you found any monitors that are great for video editing I'm still on the lookout to try more and if you're new to the channel considered getting subscribed for future tech videos like this oneLG have a new 32 inch 4k HDR monitor with free sync and Thunderbolt 3 so let's check it out and find out how well it handles content creation gaming and day-to-day tasks the Nano IPS panel is 31.5 inches with a 16 by 9 aspect ratio and runs with a 4k resolution it's just got a 60 Hertz refresh rate 5 millisecond greater gray response time and has free sync so should do OK for gaming too however for most games you're going to need some pretty serious GPU power to maintain good FPS at 4k LG just lists that the monitor has support for 98% of the DCI p3 color space and unfortunately my software can't confirm this using the spider 5 Pro I did measure the panel with 100% of srgb 83% of ntsc and 89% of Adobe RGB so it seems a little better when compared with MSI's create a monitor I recently tested in this regard LG also listed contrast ratio of 1,300 to 1 and I measured mine at 950 to 1 so I have noticed my tool always comes in below what's specified they note that it's got a 450 net typical brightness and 715 at peak brightness and when a 100% brightness in the center I measured 423 notes ghosting isn't something I'm personally sensitive to however you can see the differences between the 4 response time settings here which are having it off set to normal fast or faster and in this test faster did look noticeably better but I can only really tell that after reviewing the playback in slow-motion viewing angles were fine regardless of angle LG nert that it's good for up to 178 degrees both horizontally and vertically the monitor is certified for vase a display HDR 600 and HDR content looked good better when compared to SDR content at least though I still don't have tools to properly test HDR and it's not really something I can show you either my camera isn't recording in HDR and you may not have a HDR monitor to view the result anyway with HDR mode enabled it enables local dimming while I didn't see the number of zone listed in the specs I counted 15 the bezels aren't too thick I measured them in around one point one centimeters on all four sides though I honestly can't say I noticed them given how large the panel is there was some backlight bleed mainly towards the bottom corners though I could only see this during this worst case test I never noticed it while normally viewing darker content but this will vary between monitor it's not all just about the panel though taking a look at the rest of the monitor it's got a curved metal base with a silver finish I did find this a bit less stable than I'd like the monitor would shake a little while typing however I did like that there was plenty of space compared to other stands on my desk the exterior of the stand is the same silver color but it's made of plastic the stand connects to the back of the panel without any tools required and behind this there are four screws for the 100 millimeter base amount if you want to attach the panel to a different stand or monitor arm down the bottom in the center there's a Kensington lock and below this is the single joystick fawned screen display navigation more on that soon with the 2 5 watt speakers found on either side the speakers sound pretty good at least for a monitor definitely above average out of the ones I've used there was even a little base and there was still quite clear at higher volumes otherwise the back also has the i/o in the center facing out there's a HDMI 2.0 and DisplayPort 1.4 input power input 3.5 millimeter headphone jack 2 type-c ports 4 Thunderbolt 3 and the bottom one also supports DisplayPort and to type a USB ports which can be used if you're connected to your computer with Thunderbolt the Thunderbolt 3 port can apparently be used to daisy chain to 4k monitors together with one port however as I've just got the one I haven't tested this LG note that the monitor can provide up to 60 watts of power delivery over this port - so you could potentially charge your laptop with a single cable to the monitor if it supports Type C charging like say the Dell XPS or MacBook the on-screen display was pretty easy to navigate using the joystick it was easy to reach from just below the screen compared to others that you have to reach around the side to get to this doubles as the power button if you hold it when you power it on it makes a beep which can be disabled and you can also move it left and right speaker volume more quickly mute LG also provide their on-screen control center software which lets you control the screen through windows with your mouse normally software like this needs a USB connection to the PC or laptop so you can manage it however I found it to work with just DisplayPort only which I'm still a little confused about the software lets you set different screen splits change picture modes update the monitor adjust response time enable free sync and more I found the screen split option nice by default in Windows 10 it's easy to set two windows side-by-side however you can select from a lot more custom splits through the software dragging a window into one of these zones will automatically maximize it within the specific zone the monitor comes with a nice assortment of cables including two type-c hdmi displayport and power cable the monitor uses quite a large external power brick as well it's white and matches the rest of the cables there's a little plastic clip that you can stick on the stand to aid with cable management - and I was able to get things looking pretty tiny with it there are a few adjustments available including - 5 to 20 degrees of tilt between 0 and 110 millimetres of height adjustment and there's even 180 degrees of pivot so unfortunately no side-to-side swivel here so far the monitor looks pretty good but how is it to actually use day to day I normally use a 32 inch 4k monitor as my daily driver the Ben q1 which I've previously reviewed in the past I can easily say that this LG one instantly looked better in about every way the colors were obviously better and screen brightness was a noticeable step up even just having something as simple as height adjustment was a nice change after editing a few videos on it I'm a little sad that I don't get to keep it great so how much does it cost and is it worth it for updated pricing check the links in the description as prices will change over time in the US it appears to be going for around 1,100 u.s. dollars at the moment while here in Australia at the recommended retail prices 2600 Australian dollars on the LG website though you can buy it for around 1,400 Australian dollars it's definitely not cheap and honestly it's hard for me to compare with others that I've tested as I haven't tested many close to this price point while I think it's a nice monitor better than what I was using previously it would be hard for me to justify the extra money for the improvements at least while there are other options like LGA and 5k ultra-wide for less money with similar specs I do personally prefer the larger screen real estate granted I'd prefer a curved option at that length let me know what you thought of LG's 32 UL 950 monitor down in the comments let me know if you found any monitors that are great for video editing I'm still on the lookout to try more and if you're new to the channel considered getting subscribed for future tech videos like this one\n"