Gadgetory

you've seen the commercials you heard the hype you've probably read about that whole router debacle with the faulty shielding but that's fixed now and there's no denying then that the 27-inch LG 27 MD 5k ultrafine 5k monitor is one of the slickest on the market right now but does the fact that it's being aimed primarily at Apple zombies it even launched exclusively through the Apple Store mean that it's a no-go for Windows geeks I mean it's just a monitor right it should be okay right well let's peel back the layers of this sexy little onion and see if she makes us cry synergy is the software that lets you share your mouse and keyboard between multiple computers check it out now at the link in the video description the experience of unboxing the ultra fine 5k though not quite on Apple's level was definitely more pleasing than what we're used to from LG immediately apparent upon unboxing the product and removing it from its super cool shiny spacesuit are a couple of unusual characteristics of the LG v k's industrial design it's got a sophisticated matte finish it's disappointingly plastic rather than aluminum like the apple cinema displays of your but it still looks and feels pretty good it lacks buttons entirely so that means no on-screen display for making adjustments to the inputs or image quality though at least one of those isn't important as we'll see later and the thickest side of the bezel which would normally be on the bottom we'd call it the chin bar is actually at the top so did we call this like a like a brow brow bar but this is interesting it looks like they were making room for the ambient light sensor that should be enabled through a future software update at some point and the only disruption to the 5ks otherwise totally clean facade the very nice-looking 1080p camera and front facing microphone the base stands out from the crowd as well it's solidly constructed with a pleasing high-quality vibe and offers both a generous degree of tilt and near giraffe like vertical reach and if that's not enough there's actually a vase amount included in the box which I guess brings us pretty well around to the back the 6 foot power cord attaches seamlessly Apple style to the rear panel and would you look at that i/o a single port type rules the entire our panel whether you like it or not this is probably a window into the USB type-c dominated future that we are headed for so these three are USB 3.1 five gigabit data ports each capable of pushing seven and a half watts of power so enough to charge your phone or other USB device and this one which is the only input on this monitor that's right just one looks the same as the other ones but has far more going on under the hood it's a Thunderbolt three input which allows it to not only carry the data for those USB ports and the 880 to million pixels per second from your machine to the display but also to push 85 watts of power the other way enough to charge your laptop that's right kids this one cord solution lets you leave your charger in your backpack because the included six and a half foot cable is all it takes to transform your supported laptop into a full-on 5k workstation and they absolutely nailed this whole experience with the 2016 MacBook Pro side-by-side everything about the image looks just right from the color to the eye piercing 500 nits brightness on Macs to the very similar anti glare glossy appearance to the retina like astonishing sharpness of the 218 pixel per inch panel but we promised this was a Windows users perspective didn't we so let's plug it into a razor blade okay there we go and wow that actually looks really shot wait a tick there's no five in that number why the heck is windows capping the resolution somewhere between Ultra HD and the native 5k the display supports Windows 10 can go up to 8 K so what gives relax tech tips Linus tech quickie Linus is that you it sure is so you remember that one cord solution that you were all excited about a second ago uh-huh well it turns out that driving a 5k display over one cable is an industry-first all other 5k and up monitors use to DisplayPort cables driving 5k over one is only achievable right now using special Apple shenanigans why well a Thunderbolt 3 cable can actually carry two DisplayPort 1.2 ports worth of data but the Thunderbolt 3 port on your Windows machine can't send enough to fill those 8 DisplayPort lanes because of how it's hooked up internally the reason you can do this on your 2016 MacBook Pro is because Apple implemented a special controller that funnels the resources of 2 DisplayPort ports into that single Thunderbolt 3 that's why if you were to try to plug in to ultra fine 5 KS in your 2016 MacBook Pro which you can totally do by the way you have to plug them in to opposite sides of the machine for both to work the more you know right this episode was brought to you that that I fresh book hey where are y'all going from here ok then so in a nutshell the ultra fine 5k is more like the ultra fine for in a bit k when it's used with anything but the 2016 MacBook Pro and unfortunately it actually gets worse than that because there's no on-screen display you're relying on integration with the OS to control the monitor which is fan tastic on the mac but your mileage may vary on windows we were able to control the volume of the surprisingly decent internal speakers but we couldn't manage to adjust the screen brightness up or down and it's not just resolution difference and lack of control that are iffy because windows relies on applications to do all color matching rather than doing it pixel by pixel on the OS level like the Mac PC users will never get to experience the consistently awesome color accuracy enabled by this factory calibrated display to be clear it's still a very good 8-bit IPS panel with AFRC to simulate 10-bit color and it's got 99% coverage of the DCI p3 color space so even on a Windows machine it'll be suitable for photo editing and graphics work but at $1,700 you'd be paying a premium for oomph that you aren't receiving and this is especially true when you consider that both Dell and HP have 27-inch 5k offerings with somewhat similar specs at lower price points so while 5k at this size is awesome I mean really I can clearly make out objects in the backgrounds of thumbnail sized images and the LG ultra fine 5k will be arguably the best display experience on the market for the MacBook Pro until Apple challenges it with their own upcoming cinema display refresh on Windows the experience could be better described as fine than ultra fine synergy is a software download that solves the problem of having two keyboards and two mice cluttering up your desk it allows you to share one Mouse and one keyboard between two or even more computers so you'll no longer get confused which keyboard or mouse goes for which they've got a basic and a pro option with a one-time payment for lifetime access and features include things like clipboard sharing between the computers dragging and dropping files between the computers the ability to set up hotkeys and more and what's even more amazing is it works cross-platform Windows Mac and Linux so use our link in the video description to get 50% off synergy today so thanks for watching guys if this video sucked you know what to do but if it was awesome get subscribed hit that like button or check out the link to where to buy the stuff we featured in the video description also down there is a link to our merch store which has cool shirts like this one and our community forum which you should totally join