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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Lifted - Tuesday, February 12, 2013 - link
Just to clarify, that was all on the homepage, before clicking on the review. I only clicked on the review as the last tiny little paragraph, tucked in below the image, gave a clue that it may be worth a read. That last paragraph should go up top.inighthawki - Tuesday, February 12, 2013 - link
Same here, I almost stopped reading after about two sentences. The only reason I continued was because I believed down to earth there had to be a "but" in there somewhere, nobody could actually start a review and just say "it's bad" and be done with it :).bovinda - Tuesday, February 12, 2013 - link
I actually liked the way it was done - it set the stage well. I actually think the first few sentences do a good job of piquing one's curiosity, for exactly the reasons inighthawki stated. I wouldn't have changed it. To each their own. :)niva - Tuesday, February 12, 2013 - link
Right on, this is exactly how I felt. The title and first few words in this article almost caused me to not read thinking it was a bad product... subsequently it turned out it's actually a really good display.THizzle7XU - Tuesday, February 12, 2013 - link
Ya, the entire opening of this article made it sound like the first review was a disaster of a product. I went back to read it and it was actually a mixed, leaning positive review of the 1.09 version. And this is the much improved version.Very misleading opening...
cheinonen - Wednesday, February 13, 2013 - link
Alright, I'll get an edit in there then to make it more clear. I liked the opening, but it seems that what is clear in my head certainly didn't get communicated well once it was written.wujj123456 - Tuesday, February 12, 2013 - link
Does anyone know detailed documentations of how to perform these calibration and tests? I just searched a bit, and the CalMAN software/tool doesn't seem to be expensive. I'd love to get a hold of it so that I can calibrate my own monitors.I've been long aware that many monitors look so awful without calibration, but without a good workflow, I was just messing around until I am comfortable with what I saw...
jjj - Tuesday, February 12, 2013 - link
It's not so much about the software but the hardware , you can try to rent or find a store that calibrates screens for cheap or at the very least try the ICC profiles on TFT Central.,if they have one for your screen.cheinonen - Wednesday, February 13, 2013 - link
The PC portion of CalMAN is still in an Open Beta, which is why the uniformity numbers aren't taken from CalMAN. I can export all of the data to use, but I can't have it generate the charts for me the way that I want them yet.The real cost is hardware. As mentioned in the LG Calibration Hardware review, I'm using an i1Pro ($900 or so), a SpectraCal C6 ($700), and CalMAN ($400 or so for this package). You can get decent results with a cheaper meter, but it can also be hit-and-miss depending on the display. Most PC calibration is fairly automated, it's video displays that take a lot more work to get right.
CalMAN has a free download available I believe. It only uses a simulated meter, so you can't take actual measurements, but you could get that and then the open beta of the PC Calibration Workflow on their forums and see how it works.
kevith - Tuesday, February 12, 2013 - link
Watch out, or that's gonna be your new title...Nice review.