LG 34UC98 34-inch Curved FreeSync Monitor Review

OSD Setup And Calibration

One press and a left-click of the joystick brings up the OSD. It occupies the entire right third of the screen but is conveniently not in the way of our test patterns. If you'd rather enter settings from the Windows desktop, LG has included an On-Screen Control app for that purpose.

OSD Tour

Quick Settings contains basic controls for Brightness, Contrast, Volume (speakers and headphones), an input selector and image aspect ratio options.

There are multiple ways to manage desktop real estate on the 34UC98. One is this PBP menu, which lets you view two sources at once. You can choose which one passes audio, swap the image panes and control their aspect ratios. LG has also included software that can automatically size windows for you in various configurations on the bundled CD. It's called ScreenSplit 2.0.

The Picture menu has everything you'll need for calibration. To unlock all the sliders, select the Custom picture mode. Speaking of presets, there are eleven options that match various tasks. Three of them are game-specific. Custom is the default and the one that matches the included calibration data sheet.

Picture Adjust offers up Sharpness (leave it on 50); Black Level (leave it on High) and DFC, which is LG's dynamic contrast option. Setting the Black Level to low will improve black levels but it crushes a fair amount of shadow detail. The same thing happens when DFC is turned on.

Game Adjust contains the Response Time (overdrive) setting. High worked well for us and only showed ghosting in test patterns, not in actual content. FreeSync is turned off by default so you'll need to rectify that before loading up any fps titles. Black Stabilizer is a low-end gamma adjustment. Raise it if you're having trouble seeing detail in dark parts of the image.

The Color Adjust screen has four Gamma presets (Gamma 1 corresponds to 2.2), three Color Temp options, plus an adjustable Custom mode and a color management system that contains hue and saturation sliders for all six colors. If you get lost while tweaking, the Reset option will take you back to factory defaults. (Hint: you won't need to change anything.)

Here you can tweak the voicing of the seven-watt built-in speakers. They have decent sound and are a good deal better than most. MaxxAudio Settings has sliders for bass and treble as well as a dialog enhancer. We found the best quality by leaving everything at the default settings. Just make sure MaxxAudio is turned on.

The OSD comes in eleven languages. Smart Energy Saving, Power LED and Automatic Standby are all ways to reduce power consumption. DisplayPort 1.2 support can be disabled if you have an older video card. Quick Charge refers to the top-most USB port that can charge devices even if the 34UC98 is turned off. Buzzer is a soft chime that rings when an active signal is detected at power-up. And the OSD can be locked out to prevent unwanted changes.

Calibration

Though LG has thoughtfully included extensive calibration controls, they are pretty much unnecessary. Our sample measures almost perfectly out of the box and only required a single change to Magenta Hue in the CMS. Raise it to 53 to correct a tiny error. Otherwise, simply set Brightness to the preferred level and enjoy. The monitor comes set to its Custom mode and that is the best way to use it in our opinion. Below we've provided the brightness settings for common light output targets.