LG ultrawide curved monitor 49WL95C

 This is a realistic review of the LG ultrawide curved monitor 49WL95C

Let me first say I am thrilled with my monitor, it has made my workspace so much better and improved my workflow, but I paid way too much for it.

I had triple 27 inch monitors but the stand that I had was bulky, and I felt l had to turn my neck too much to see the end of the left and right monitor, plus the center monitor was immovable.  3 27 inch monitors is too much.

The 49 inch monitor is the equivalent of 2 twenty seven inch monitors and it feels like the same visual real estate as having 3 27 inch monitors because to be honest the very ends of both sides seem just too far out of visible range because of how close I stand to it.

Here are the pros and cons.  Let me start with the cons.

I thought the curve would have more of a noticeable effect but it doesn’t.  It doesn’t matter though.  I was concerned the curve would distort. It doesn’t. I don’t even realize the monitor is curved which  I think was the intention.

The stand is the number one problem.  It takes up way too much desk real estate, but I understand in order to support this monitor, it has to be large.  The monitor is heavy.  It does rotate and have all the motion I need so that is nice, but I think I’m going to purchase the Ergotron monitor arm as soon as I get some disposable income.

Which brings me to the price.

This monitor is way overpriced.  I paid about $1250 for the monitor (which included free shipping).

But my triple monitor setup with the stand was half the price and more viewing area.

If all things were priced the same, I’d go with the 49 inch ultrawide monitor in a heartbeat.

But if you already have triple monitors, the benefits you will gain I don’t think are worth the price.

The screen seems to be made of the same materials my previous monitors were made of. 

My laptop is only able to display 3840 x 1080.  My 2014 Macbook a little bit more. 

I believe the max resolution is 5120 x 1440.  But you have to use the displayport cable and have a graphics card that supports it.

Had I thought this through, I could have purchased a monitor the same size with the max resolution 3840 and saved about $500 but at least my investment should last me longer.

There is a speaker built into the monitor, but its not that good.  I still use my Bose speakers.  The speaker sounds like laptop speakers but if they were a little bigger.  Not high end but not bad if you don’t have good speakers already.  If I didn’t have good speakers, I would still buy good speakers.  The speakers are passable but don’t match the luxury of the monitor.

The monitor has a 60 hz refresh rate.  The gaming monitors have 120-160 refresh rates.  I don’t even know how that impacts me.  I do IT work on it and edit video.  Im not a pc gamer.  I have consoles like ps4 and xbox one that my wife uses more than I do.

Clicking the Maximize button which is such a habit from having triple monitors now expands the application to the entire screen.

This is fine when I’m using Camtasia, Final Cut Pro or other editing software, but not when I’m multitasking at work.

I installed PowerToys for when I need to work with multiple screens but I guess its just something to get used to.

You’re basically paying 1250 to not have bars in between your screens.  To me, it’s worth it, but the one thing I miss from the triple screens is being able to maximize.

And because you’re not hitting maximize, it feels like the applications never are tall enough.  Even though these monitors are the same height as my 27 inch mointors it feels like theyre not.  I’ve held my old monitors up to this new one and they are the same height dimension. 

When I’m screensharing with people at work, if I share my entire desktop, it’s hard for them to see so much real estate in the screen share that it appears as a small rectangle and its hard for them to see if they don’t use the zoom feature, so I usually share out an application, but if the application works with other applications I then have to keep changing my share.

Here are the pros.

The 4 usb ports on my monitor along with the ports on my laptop docking station allowed me to get rid of my USB hub which allowed some cable management improvement.

The screen is beautiful

Editing videos is so much easier and enjoyable.

Something I hadn’t anticipated and didn’t realize I needed was file management.  I take tons of screenshots and photos and like to organize everything into folders, and spend a day a week doing this, and its allowed me to see so much more on the screen to sort out and select which allows me to get through the tasks of sorting so much quicker.

Once I get the Ergotron arm, I will have gained a lot of spac.e

Having one large monitor is nicer in appearance than having 3 monitors.

Every day when I walk into my office and see the screen I feel like such a superstar.

The menu is nice and easy to navigate.  It even keeps track of how long your monitor has been turned on.  Mine has been turned on for 315 hours already.

It has multiple monitor ports and you can have multiple inputs.  So my laptop goes in one of the HDMI ports and my macbook goes into the other.  I’m going to purchase the displayport cable to see if that squeezes any additional pixels.  The instruction manual has a chart of all of the different combinations.

It sounds like there aren’t many pros, but I’m very happy with the screen and don’t want to go back.  The only buyers remorse I have is had I realized that even my macbook couldn’t experience the full glory of the 5120 x 1440 resolution, I would have just opted for the lower resolution ultrawide monitor and saved $500 and put that towards the ergotron arm.

I spent too much money on this monitor, but I wanted it.  I wanted it ever since I was at the Dell World conference and saw Dell’s version of the Ultrawide.  I suspect their monitor would perform similar to this LG monitor.  Theirs was more expensive so I bought this already overpriced LG model.  This is a luxury item, so you’re paying a luxury price.

Triple Monitors accomplishes the same thing but I still prefer having the Ultrawide.

I did lose some habitual features but I’m adapting myself.

There are probably more specs I could give you about this, but there are other videos that show off all of that stuff, I’m trying to give you a realistic review from someone that actually purchased the item.  LG didn’t sponsor this video.  I forked over the hard earned cash so I’m giving you a hard earned review.

I’m happy with the monitor.  If you’d like to purchase one of these I’ve placed an affiliate link in the info description of which I receive a minor commission for.

Hopefully this review was helpful. If you have any questions I’ll try and answer them in the comments.

Thank you for watching Technuba.  TECHNUBA.