LG 29EA93 Monitor Review - Rev. 1.25
by Chris Heinonen on February 12, 2013 8:49 PM ESTAnyone that read my initial review knows I was disappointed with the performance of the LG 29EA93. I’m a big fan of the aspect ratio, but I wasn’t a fan of the performance numbers that I saw from it. Well, it seems that LG wasn’t a fan either and went back to fix it, returning with a display that puts out some of the best numbers that I have ever seen. There isn’t a single issue that I found that LG didn’t address in full and add into their QA workflow to prevent the same issues from happening again. It really feels like someone gave me a totally different monitor to review than before.
While I think LG probably would prefer that every product they put out be perfect, to me this was actually a good thing to have happen. I’ve reviewed many things that I’ve given poor reviews in my life, and this is the first time I’ve had a response like this. LG wasn’t content to have a bad review out there, or to have flaws in their product, and worked hard to address those issues. Seeing that commitment from a company said a bit more to me than seeing a company put out a good monitor does.
If I were reviewing the LG 29EA93 from scratch, I’d say it’s a fantastic monitor. It has incredible uniformity, the highest contrast ratio I’ve seen in a long, long time, and after calibration it’s almost totally flawless on all our tests. The CMS for video works fantastic, and watching 2.35:1 movies on it is a really nice visual treat. The lag response is very low and for gaming it will work well and offer a very nice field-of-view in games. It really is an incredibly well made, and unique, monitor in the marketplace today.
Because of my prior review I’m even more impressed. Coaxing this performance out of what I had before is a huge improvement, and I believe that because of this experience in improving their monitor quality, it will help LG to develop better monitors down the road. As it is, I can easily recommend people look at the 29EA93 if they get a chance. It offers fantastic performance that can compete with almost any display I have used to date, and really impressed me the second time around.
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Friso - Wednesday, March 27, 2013 - link
So when are you going to update your review? This is turning into a bit of a joke here, with you raving about a version 1.25 and nobody having the means to verify what version they're actually buying. I have a box standing in front of me. How can I verify whether it's the 'good' version? Without this info, this is a legendary bit of PR by LG, allowing them to sell off all their old stock.GeoffMorris - Monday, April 1, 2013 - link
I agree with Friso.LG needs to know that many find this situation unacceptable and all this doubt is no doubt putting people off buying the monitor. I tried to contact them myself but couldn't seem to find an email address for my country (Japan).
If they were so willing to work with you to iron out the issues product surely you have some way of letting them know that the situation as it stands is probably doing more harm than the 1.09 review.
newsama - Sunday, May 26, 2013 - link
Hey, did you manage to get that image? I'm really scared of shelling out 700 bucks only to get the crappy version =/jjj - Tuesday, February 12, 2013 - link
This is nice but in cases like this the review should be done on a retail unit just to be sure about what is in stores.The pricing is also way high , i imagine the AOC will retail at 500$ and that's still high but at least it's not 700$.
I do wish you would have more screenshots (gaming included) and a video wouldn't hurt, the AR is new , would help to see it in action.
cheinonen - Wednesday, February 13, 2013 - link
I will try to get some screenshots of games if I can, though the site someone linked earlier does provide a good example of showing the differences in aspect ratios. As far as the AOC, it makes no sense to compared the LG against something that isn't released yet. Look at the large difference in how this updated version performed against the original version. We have no way of knowing which one the AOC will perform like, or if it will be better or worse. It will use the same panel I imagine, but that's only one element as we've seen here.As far as retail samples go, the initial sample was the foreign model as it wasn't out in the USA, and then the USA launch was delayed until the issues were fixed, so there was no possible way to get a review unit at a store. It also is cost prohibitive to impossible to buy samples, and with as many issues as every reviewer manages to find with the review samples, believe me, if there's an issue in the product, we're almost certainly going to find it no matter what sample we get.
KLC - Wednesday, February 13, 2013 - link
I agree with jjj, it's more than a little concerning that LG hand carried a new monitor to you for a special review. How will a retail version compare to this hand picked one? Nobody knows.cheinonen - Wednesday, February 13, 2013 - link
They hand carried the initial model to me as well, if that makes you feel better about it, so I don't think that has any effect on the performance or what I find in testing.KLC - Wednesday, February 13, 2013 - link
Of course it doesn't have any effect on performance or what you found, I'm not impugning either you or your results. But let's face it, corporations exist to generate revenue, LG wants to sell monitors. What better way to sell them than to get positive reviews? Why is it startling to suggest that they may tweak a piece of hardware in order to get one?cheinonen - Thursday, February 14, 2013 - link
My question is how this review would be different than any other review then? Every display I've reviewed for AnandTech, aside from the iPhone 5 I bought myself, has been shipped from a company or a PR firm.I'm well aware of the fact that monitors could be sent that are ideal units, and so I attempt to read feedback from people that already own them on forums often to see what issues might exist to look for. To me, this unit is no more likely to be extra special than any other unit that comes in for review.
Look at every other review that I've written, positive or negative, and see how many other companies have followed up to find out what they can do to improve their performance and then attempted to do so. Even when I've received feedback, it's been nothing close to this, and typically more defensive than actually inquisitive about how to improve performance.
I'm certain someone else out there will buy a unit and test it and see if they match up. If they have a huge variance between them, then we can start to look into it more.
Lifted - Tuesday, February 12, 2013 - link
Reading the title I had no idea if you like the product.Not realizing or remembering that this is a followup article, and then reading the first few sentences, I was sooo close to just moving along and not waste my time reading a review of what I assumed was an absolutely horrible product.
I believe Anand usually puts some clue in the title of the review if there has been a major change in the product. This is not just a good idea for your readers, but also for yourself after spending so much time on this (you want people to read it, yes?), and LG for going above and beyond in getting this monitor right, which is extremely rare these days.