Top positive review
5.0 out of 5 starsPerfect 'Work From Home' Macbook Pro USB-C Productivity Monitor - 49 inch
Reviewed in the United States on July 8, 2020
Summary: No issues for me at all. Multi-tasking heaven. High-quality screen resolution and easy to setup. Stop your search and just buy this!
This review is for the 49 inch LG 49WL95C-W. You can read the tech specs everywhere but this a review for the person working from home and wanting to know in plain English if this is a great monitor. Answer: YES!!
Easy setup: This monitor is absolutely perfect for Macbook Pro users like myself. The monitor came with a USB-C cable (among many other cable types). Out of the box, connecting the stand and mounting the monitor to it was a breeze. Then it's literally two cables: one to power the monitor into the wall and then the USB-C to connect the laptop. (The monitor will charge your laptop). After reading that some users were having issues with the screen flickering/blacking out while I was researching, I was sure to immediately go to the LG support page to download any firmware updates. I've had this for a week now and I haven't had a single issue. Don't let any negative reviews deter you. The final step was to adjust the display resolution under system preferences on my laptop, then everything looked even better than I was expecting. The monitor itself gives you some settings for further customization, but I spent a minimal amount of time messing with that. It's just a small push knob on the back panel towards the right side.. very easy to use. The whole process from opening the box to being completely up and running was just a few minutes and I found it to be easy and I think most others would too.
High-Quality Screen Resolution: To me, the 5120 x 1440 screen resolution gives a very similar picture quality to my laptop's display. It's obviously unrealistic to have it look better than the laptop considering there's MUCH more real estate to work with, but I'm VERY pleased with the quality. I can watch 4k videos on YouTube and I think it looks fantastic. Text is also crisp. The resolution just everything 99% of people will ever need for work, browsing the web, or any common productivity tasks. To organize your windows, LG's OnScreen Control (that you can download from LG's website) allows you to split the screen in a variety of ways. I like using the 3 screen split, but you can split it up to 8 screens. I know people are talking about 3rd party software for more screen splitting customization, but I haven't tried that. I like splitting the screen vertically into thirds. This way, each of the 3 screens is a little bigger than the size of my 15 inch laptop screen, and I have 3 windows side by side, all looking incredible. It's easy to switch between layouts and move windows around. It just solves so many annoying problems that I used to have with tiling windows behind each other. No more!
Sound: The monitor itself has speakers as well as a port for your headphones. Audiophiles probably wouldn't be salivating over it, but I think it sounds decent. I would still give the edge to my 2018 Macbook Pro speakers, but I just use headphones most of the time anyway. Just buy separate speakers if top-quality sound is super important to you.
Conclusion: I bought this monitor because I'm working from home as a software developer and I need to multi-task with several programs visible at the same time. This is absolutely everything I was hoping for and more! The screen is large and wide, but not obnoxiously so. The quality is excellent and I have no issues. Zero dead pixels, no flicker or black out issues. Working from home is now so much more convenient and enjoyable, that's really the bottom line. I can imagine this would be the perfect monitor for stock traders as well who are looking to analyze several charts simultaneously. I'm not a gamer, so I can't speak to that at all regarding refresh rates, but for work or regular internet use, 60Hz is definitely all you need. If you can afford it, go for it!! This monitor is quality and I couldn't be happier with my purchase. My girlfriend jokes that I won't spend time with her in the evenings as much anymore because of this thing. Haha, she's not entirely wrong.