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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SithSolo1 - Tuesday, February 12, 2013 - link
Does the Dell UltraSharp U2913WM use this panel? I noticed Dell has pulled the product page and I'm wondering if maybe they are updating it with the new panel.cheinonen - Wednesday, February 13, 2013 - link
Both revisions of LG use the exact same panel, it's the QC and firmware that have been updated. I don't believe any electronics changed, but there is a possibility, but the panel is the exact same thing. It's a good reason why you can't look at two displays, see they use the same panel, and assume they'll be anything alike.Sabresiberian - Thursday, February 14, 2013 - link
This is a very good point, something I wish more people would realize; end-result quality isn't just based just on the panel technology (though of course that is a major influence).moep - Sunday, February 17, 2013 - link
So they essentially cherry-picked a panel, customized the firmware for it and flew in an engineer to hand it to you?Where does that leave the customers who buy their units in retail?
cheinonen - Monday, February 18, 2013 - link
They didn't re-engineer a panel for me, they went back and redid the firmware for everyone and then provided a new model once that was complete. Anyone can buy the same version that I received, and anyone with an older revision of firmware can contact LG to get an upgrade to version 1.25 from them.darwinosx - Wednesday, February 13, 2013 - link
They have?http://www.dell.com/ed/business/p/dell-u2913wm/pd
Grok42 - Tuesday, February 12, 2013 - link
I love to see someone, anyone pushing the state of the computer display industry. I'll pay a premium for anything that gives me more than 1080p which was a step back when it came out. If I recall this monitor doesn't rotate into portrait mode which is my only remaining wish. Of course, given it's dimensions, I might not want it to rotate, any thoughts on this?cheinonen - Wednesday, February 13, 2013 - link
The included stand doesn't rotate, but it does have VESA mounting screws to do that. If it was rotated, it would be very, very tall on a desk. It really depends on what you'd want to do with the space for how well that works, but our field of view is typically much wider than tall, so to me, that layout might not work quite as well.Miqunator - Wednesday, February 13, 2013 - link
I'm not that interested in Ultra Widescreen monitors (16:10 person) but the response from LG after the initial review certainly improved my opinion of them. A cheap TV I randomly picked up before turned out to be the best I've ever used so they already had a rather high standing and it seems that one wasn't just a fluke.Gambit2K - Wednesday, February 13, 2013 - link
First comment ever on anand woopwoop! ;)Im extremly interested in this monitor and I have the finger on the trigger but my question is will there be 2 version floating around? Will LG release the monitor with a visible "version 1.25" in the description or is it a total lottery if you get the new version or the old?