LG 32UD89 and 32UD99 ‘4K’ UHD monitors
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Although personal opinions and experiences vary, when it comes to the ‘4K’ UHD resolution we feel the ~32” screen size works particularly nicely. The LG 32UD89 (32UD89-W with silver stand and 32UD89-P with black stand) and 32UD99 (32UD99-W with silver stand and 32UD99-P with black stand) take some design cues from the visually appealing 27UD68, including the ‘inverted smile’ stand base. The dual-stage bezels with slim panel border and very slim hard outer bezel component have been replaced by a single-stage slender bezel. The included stand offers good ergonomic freedom; tilt (2° forwards, 15° backwards), height adjustment (110mm or 4.33 inches) and pivot (90° clockwise rotation into portrait).
The monitors feature 31.5” ‘4K’ UHD (3840 x 2160) panels with LG AH-IPS technology. Although not specified currently, we expect the usual 1000:1 static contrast alongside a 60Hz refresh rate. AMD FreeSync is also supported (VESA Adaptive Sync on the monitor) with a 40 – 60Hz variable refresh rate range expected. A light matte anti-glare screen surface is employed and 178°/178° viewing angles specified. Both models boast a typical maximum luminance of 350 cd/m² – with the UD99 able to boast that to 550 cd/m² as part (or all?) of its effort to support HDR10. It isn’t yet clear whether any other enhancements have been made to bolster its support for this High Dynamic Range standard. A flicker-free backlight is employed which is LED-based and yields 95% DCI-P3 colour gamut coverage. This means the colour gamut will extend quite some way beyond sRGB in some regions; it’s likely that a GB-LED backlight is used, specifically. Other features include a ‘Reader Mode’ Low Blue Light setting for more relaxing evening viewing and something dubbed ‘Color weakness mode’. We believe this will be similar to the ‘Eye Saver Mode’ found on Samsung screens, which purposefully restricts contrast to decrease the time spent by the iris adapting to changing lighting conditions. The Dynamic Action Sync (DAS) low input lag mode also features alongside gaming features such as ‘Game Mode’ and Black Stabilizer. The former includes artificial saturation ‘enhancement’ whilst the latter is a gamma booster to enhance visibility in dark scenes, similar to BenQ’s ‘Black eQualizer’.
The rear of the monitors are glossy white plastic (‘W’ suffix) or black plastic (‘P’ suffix) with the stand appearing to attach by 100 x 100mm VESA. This would allow the stand to be removed for alternative mounting. Ports are backwards-facing and include; DC power input (external power brick), USB Type-C, DP 1.2a (supports FreeSync) and 2 x HDMI 2.0 (2.0a on UD98, supports FreeSync). The UD99 also features 2 USB 3.0 ports, whilst both models feature 5W x 2 ‘Rich Bass’ speakers for (potentially reasonable) sound output. Further information on the UD89 and UD99 can be found on LG’s website. The monitor is listed for around $1000 in the US.
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