Top critical review
3.0 out of 5 starsGood for gamers, not for work
Reviewed in the United States on August 30, 2018
I'm writing this review because it's the review I wish I could have read before buying this monitor. There are few widescreen USB-C monitors, especially at this price point, but this looked like it was the best monitor for the money out there, so I bought it.
What I had hoped for was that this monitor could provide a true single-cable heaven between the monitor and my 2017 MacBook Pro. The ideal scenario is I could plug my USB peripherals into the back of this monitor, plug the USB-C directly from the monitor to my MBP, and my MBP would get charged and also provide video to this monitor.
That didn't happen.
First off, there are no additional USB ports on the back of the monitor. I didn't believe this when I read the specifications because having USB ports on the back of a monitor is so common nowadays.
Second, the USB-C cable does carry video perfectly from the MBP to the monitor, and while it does provide power to the MBP, it does not provide enough power to keep it fully charged. My power meter slowly crept down from 100% over the course of a couple of hours. Not as bad as running it without any power, but not enough to get through a full day.
So, I have an Apple Multiport Adapter which includes a USB-C port, an HDMI, and a single USB port, which then connects to the MBP through a single USB-C. I plugged this monitor into the USB-C port on the adapter and my keyboard/mouse USB connector to the USB port on the adapter, and while video transfers, no power transfers. The only way to get video and some power is a direct connection from the USB-C on the monitor to the USB-C on the MBP. I'm not sure if this is LG's fault or just the way the Apple adapter was built.
So, on day 2, I have come up with my own one-cable-to-rule-them-all: I hook up the MBP power USB-C to the USB-C on the adapter, I plug the keyboard/mouse USB receiver into the adapter, and I plug an HDMI cable from the adapter to the monitor. Then, I plug the single USB-C connector from the adapter to the MBP, and wala, I have everything I need finally.
The goal of USB-C someday is to provide this sort of single-connector paradise, but we are not there yet, at least not on this monitor.
The biggest problem I have with this monitor is that my MacBook Pro doesn't let me get to a higher resolution than 1920x1080 at the moment. I'm using HDMI so I have ordered a more powerful USB-C cable to see if that fixes the problem. This is a decent monitor but you're going to need to spend some extra money in cables and dongles to get where you need. I also own the LG 34WN80C-B 34 at another location which is 100% better than this model. It costs an extra $200, but it's worth it and the widescreen is badass.
But yeah if you just want to watch movies and play games, I'm sure this monitor does the job.