The LG 35WN73A or 35WN75C in the US is a curved 35” ultra-wide quad HD monitor with HDR, a 100Hz refresh rate, Freesync and USB Type-C connectivity that supports both display and power.
Its large screen and 3440 x 1440 pixel resolution should make it perfect for productivity and its decent refresh rate, Freesync support and HDR capabilities could make it a good option for gaming too – with a PC or even an Xbox Series X or Playstation 5.
All this comes at an attractive price for a display with these specs and from a well known manufacturer. The price seems to vary so please check the links just above or at the bottom of the page.
But is it any good? Let’s find out.
Overview
Inside the large box you get the monitor itself, a height adjustable stand with a cable management clip, a 140W external power supply, a 1.5m USB-C to USB-C cable, a 1.5m HDMI cable and a brief assembly leaflet. There’s also a DVD labelled owners manual but it only contains a safety precautions leaflet. In fact I found it extremely difficult to obtain a manual for this monitor – hopefully this will be added to LG’s website soon. In the meantime, you can download the manual here.
Finally there’s a colour calibration report which I’ll come back to when I discuss the colour accuracy of the monitor.
Attaching the supplied stand is straightforward – the only difficulty being handling a monitor of this size. Lay the panel flat on the polystyrene packaging and clip the adjustable stand onto the back of the monitor. If you need to remove it in the future, there’s a release tab underneath the bracket. The base then attaches to the bottom with a thumbscrew. There’s also the cable management clip that attaches anywhere on the stand.
Alternatively the monitor has standard 100mm x 100mm VESA mounting holes if you want to attach it to a wall bracket or monitor arm.
After connecting the power supply to the back of the monitor, you can turn on the display by holding down the joystick just behind the LG logo.
Unlike the 35WN75C version of this monitor, this monitor doesn’t have speakers built in but there’s a 3.5mm audio output to attach headphones or powered speakers.
The monitor has four inputs: 2 HDMI ports, one full size DisplayPort version 1.4 and a USB-C port that supports DisplayPort alternate mode and USB Power Delivery up to 60W.
So you could use this port with say a MacBook or any laptop that supports DisplayPort over USB-C, as a display and to power the laptop which makes for a clutter free desk. Here I’m using it with the Lenovo C340 Chromebook I reviewed a while back. Just check your existing power supply is 60W or less. Most Chromebooks, and recent MacBook Airs and 13” MacBook Pros should be fine.
If you need more power, the 35WN75C monitor I just mentioned supports up to 94W over this connection. That should power a 15 or 16” MacBook Pro.
If you connect the monitor over this input, you can also use the monitor as a USB hub with it’s two standard USB-A ports, although it is awkward accessing these ports behind the large monitor.
Rather frustratingly these ports will drop to slow USB 2.0 speeds with a USB-C to USB-C cable like the one supplied – which is ok for a keyboard and mouse but not much else. If you connect to this upstream USB-C port with a USB-A to USB-C cable from a USB 3 port on your computer, you’ll get full USB 3.1 Gen 1 speeds up to 5Gbps from the USB-A ports which is much more useful.
Another point to note with the USB-C input is it doesn’t support AMD Freesync like the other inputs, which I’ll come back to when I discuss gaming.
The monitor supports a maximum resolution of 3440 x 1440 on all inputs, but only its maximum 100Hz on the DisplayPort and USB-C ports. If you connect over HDMI this drops to 85Hz. The monitor will accept and downscale a 4K input from for example an Xbox Series X or Playstation 5, but the refresh rate will drop again down to 60Hz.
When connected to my desktop editing and gaming PC with a Nvidia RTX 2070 graphics card, I’m using a full size DisplayPort cable which supports 100Hz and Freesync and I have a USB-A to USB-C cable connected to a USB 3 port on my PC so I can attach a fast card reader to the monitor’s USB ports to get full speed file transfers.
The monitor typically uses around 25W of power. At full brightness this increased to around 32W and if you’re happy to run it with lower brightness settings you can get this down below 20W. Standby mode draws around 12W.
This is a large monitor – I would definitely check your desktop space before buying it. The height is adjustable but even in its lowest position the top of the monitor is 460mm high. This increases to a maximum height of 571mm – a 111mm range. It has a smooth action which can just about be performed with one hand, and supports any height within that range without slipping.
It can tilt just under 10 degrees forward and 15 degrees back.
The monitor has an attractive minimalist look made mostly from a matte black plastic but I’m not hugely keen on the glossy plastic trim around the screen. The overall build quality is ok although there is a fair bit of wobble with the included stand. This isn’t really an issue on a sturdy desk.
The plastic bezel around the screen is thin but together with the black border around the panel itself there’s 9mm total bezel around the top and sides and 18mm along the bottom which includes the LG logo, which has the On Screen Display (OSD) joystick just behind it.
Overall the screen measures 831mm by 372mm and it‘s 94mm deep. With the stand the monitor needs 251mm front to back.
I’m a big fan of the simple joystick LG monitors have. It’s quick to move around the various settings. If you have headphones or speakers attached you can control the volume moving the joystick left and right. Pressing the joystick you can quickly change inputs or picture mode or move the joystick to the right to access the full settings menu.
If you’re not going to play games or use HDR on this monitor the only change I’d make is to drop the brightness a little. I’ll come back to this in a bit..
The various picture modes are fairly self explanatory and mostly look far worse than the default custom mode for everyday computing. I’ll discuss colour accuracy shortly, but for the most accurate colours leave the monitor in its default Custom mode.
The FPS or First Person Shooter and RTS or Real Time Strategy gaming modes configure the Game Adjust settings with a Faster response time and increased Black Stabilizer which I’ll discuss later in the gaming section.
You can see how LG describe the other modes in this table:
If you turn on HDR in Windows, the monitor will automatically switch to HDR mode, with an HDR notification from the monitor’s On Screen Display. There are fewer Picture Modes when the monitors switches to HDR, and you lose fine monitor adjustments like colour adjustments.
You can see how LG describe the various HDR modes in this table from the manual:
Picture quality and colour accuracy
The monitor uses an ultra-wide 21:9 aspect ratio curved 35” or 88.9cm non reflective VA panel, with a 3440 x 1440 pixel resolution. That’s a pixel density of 107ppi and it looks sharp at typical viewing distances. According to the Is This Retina website at distances of 32” or 81cm away or more, the screen is as sharp as the human eye can distinguish. If you’ve enough room on your desk, that’s around the minimum working distance you’d want this large monitor anyway.
The VA panel keeps the price down but doesn’t provide the viewing angles of IPS panels. I still found the spec’d 178 degrees more than adequate.
The monitor claims to cover 99% of the sRGB colour space, the spectrum of colours that most devices conform to, from phones, to TVs to monitors. Using an X-Rite i1Display Pro monitor calibrator, I calibrated the screen to achieve the most accurate colours possible.
I confirmed the 99% sRGB colour accuracy but if you need to work in the Adobe RGB or DCI-P3 colour spaces the respective 73% and 80% results aren’t so impressive.
I measured the maximum brightness of the screen in the default Custom mode at 282 nits, a little less than the spec’d 300 nits. If you switch to the garish HDR Effect picture mode I measured 328 nits. In general use I have the monitor between 160 and 180 nits so this is plenty. If you want to use the monitor in true HDR mode, it’s not really bright enough failing to meet even the basic DislayHDR 400 standard, but I still found it a nice feature for gaming that I’ll discuss shortly.
Only the Custom mode lets you manually adjust the colours of the screen which you’ll need to do if you want to accurately calibrate the screen. I only had to make a small adjustment here, reducing the red channel from 50 to 48.
With this adjustment I measured the colour accuracy or Delta E (ΔE) of the screen both before and after calibration. Delta E is a metric for understanding how the human eye perceives colour difference with a value of less than 1 being not perceptible to the human eye. And a value between 1 and 2 being barely perceptible. Before calibration the average Delta E measured 1.77 and the maximum 4.59. These should be below 1.5 and 4 respectively. The colour calibration report that came with the monitor doesn’t specify the exact value, only that it achieved a PASS with the maximum Delta E under a rather unambitious target of 5.
After calibration the average the average Delta E dropped to a very impressive 0.45, and the maximum Delta E to an equally impressive 2.26. This is my profile if you want to try it – but it’s really specific to this exact monitor:
One advantage of VA panels is their contrast and I measured a decent 2350:1 contrast ratio, a little lower than the listed 2500:1 but still ok.
Finally I measured the screen uniformity which is probably the least impressive aspect of this monitor. There is variation in brightness across the screen and you can notice it if you’re looking for it.
But it passed the basic uniformity test in DisplayCal which checks the variation in brightness and more importantly tint across the monitor, by dividing the screen into a 5 by 5 grid.
My panel doesn’t have any defective pixels, but there is a 2-3mm black mark behind the panel visible in one corner.
Gaming with a PC and Xbox Series X
The 100Hz refresh rate, Freesync and HDR support, and usable 5ms GTG response time make the monitor a decent option for gaming. I tried it both with my gaming desktop PC and an XBox Series X console. Most PC games support the ultra wide aspect ratio and driving games in particular really suit the widescreen format. The monitor supports HDR10 and even though it’s nowhere near as bright as an HDR TV, games like Forza Horizon 4 look very good in HDR mode.
You need to turn on HDR in Windows HD Color Settings and choose one of the HDR gaming display modes for the best response times – FPS in this case.
This increases the Black Stablizer setting in the Game Adjust monitor settings and sets the Response Time to Faster. I’d also turn on the Variable Refresh Rate Freesync mode if your graphics card supports it. The Freesync range of the monitor is 48Hz to 100Hz over DisplayPort and 48Hz to 85Hz over HDMI – so you’ll need a decent graphics card to achieve frame rates in modern games to take advantage of this fairly high range.
Most AMD graphics cards will support Freesync and most recent 10-Series and above Nvidia graphics cards will also support Freesync in G-Sync compatible mode. If you can see Setup G-Sync in the Nvidia Control Panel, after turning Freesync on in the monitor then your card is supported. You can also enable 10-bit output here if you wish.
I also connected the monitor to an Xbox Series X with an HDMI cable. Since there’s no built in speakers, I connected some wired headphones to the Xbox controller, or you could connect speakers or headphones to the 3.5mm output on the back of the monitor.
Although this isn’t a 4K monitor, it does accept a 4K output from the Xbox which it downscales . Unfortunately the Xbox Series X – and the Playstation 5 as far as I know, don’t support the 21.9 widescreen aspect ratio so you have two options. By default the screen will stretch to fill the screen which is more noticeable in the text heavy menu screens but usually ok in game. Or you can change the Aspect Ratio in the monitor itself from Full Wide to Original. I preferred this option even though you get black bars either side.
The monitor still supports Variable Refresh Rate via Freesync and HDR and supported games automatically switch to HDR mode and look really good.
As I mentioned earlier you’re limited to 60Hz over HDMI with a 4K input, but that’s plenty for most games.
It’s hard to confirm the spec’d 5ms response time, but I didn’t notice any issues with ghosting in the games I played and input lag wasn’t detectable either.
I also tried watching HDR content on YouTube and Netflix. Netflix has very strict hardware requirements which I’ll link to below, and you need their Ultra HD plans, but I did get it working with my setup. It doesn’t work with Chrome, only Edge or the Windows Netflix app. You also need to turn on HDR and just below it Stream HDR Video for it to work. Programs that support HDR will now show an HDR logo on their title screens and if you press Ctrl-Alt -Shift-D you can check for HDR under video codec for confirmation it’s working.
There’s not much HDR content on YouTube but what there is looks pretty good.
LG OnScreen Control and Dual Controller software
The monitor doesn’t support Picture By Picture (PBP) mode to display outputs from two computers at the same time using two of its inputs. But if you download LG’s Dual Controller Software you can seamlessly switch between two computers with the same keyboard and mouse which can be a useful feature.
It wasn’t easy to track down the software – it’s not listed with the monitor – but after locating it I installed it on my PC and MacBook Pro. Both computers need to be on the same network and both need to be connected to the monitor via one of its display inputs. Then with the Dual Controller Software you configure one machine in Main PC Mode and the other in Sub PC Mode. On the Main PC the Sub PC should be listed in the Search list. Tap on this machine and enter the pin that pops up on the Sub PC. You can arrange the screens as they are physically located and you should be able to now move between the two computers with your Main PC’s mouse. When you move the mouse across, the keyboard will also then work with the second computer.
You can even drag files between both computers. Drag the file to the screen edge which will highlight green and drop the file.
The file will transfer across to the Desktop of the other computer. You can transfer files up to 2GB in size and speeds weren’t too bad. A 1GB file took around 2 minutes to copy across from a wired desktop PC to a wireless MacBook – that’s around 73Mbps.
There are also keyboard shortcuts to switch between computers and transfer files if you prefer. Make sure this is enabled in Settings.
Once I got this all setup it worked quite well but it did take quite a lot of fiddling around to get it working. I’d recommend the main PC being connected over HDMI 1, at least initially. I found I could change this back to DisplayPort in my case after it was all working.
My Logitech MX Mouse and Keyboard has a similar feature using their Logitech Options software which is a little more slick so I’ll probably stick with that. But otherwise I’d probably continue to use the LG software.
There’s also the LG OnScreen Control screen split software which I covered in detail in my review of my previous LG ultra wide monitor.
It works fine and also lets you control the monitor’s settings without using the OSD joystick, but you still can’t save a custom preset which would have been useful – especially if you’re calibrating your monitor.
For windows management on a PC, I prefer to use Microsoft’s Powertoys with its FancyZones that lets you create custom windows layouts which can even be used with the built-in Windows Snap feature.
Conclusions
There’s a lot to like about this monitor from LG. It has most of the features you’d want in an ultra-wide monitor and at a competitive price – especially if you find it discounted. I managed to pick it up with a 20% discount.
The main compromise is the VA panel which did look a little washed out when I first switched it on, compared to my previous LG IPS panel. But viewing angles are still good and colours are fairly accurate out of the box and with calibration very accurate. And it covers 99% of the sRGB colour space which I imagine will be more than adequate for most of us, even though it’s not so impressive in the more professional Adobe RGB and DCI-P3 colour spaces. Screen uniformity wasn’t perfect by any stretch but I think acceptable for the price, and not something I really noticed apart from when measuring it.
It has a generous selection of inputs and the USB-C port is particularly useful if you have a laptop that can output its display and charge using this input. If you need more power over this USB-C port and built-in speakers, spend a little more on the 35WN75C.
Although its HDR support isn’t going to compete with an HDR TV, the large curved display still looks pretty good for gaming together with the up to 100Hz refresh rate and Freesync support. And that’s both connected to my PC but also an XBox Series X, although I’d love to see true ultra-wide support from the latest consoles in the future.
I would have liked Picture By Picture support and LG needs to do a better job with its software offerings. Their Dual Controller and OnScreen control software actually work ok if you can find where to download them – I’ll include a link down below.
There isn’t a huge choice at this price point but if you’re after a 144Hz monitor with faster response times consider the Gigabyte G34WQC or Xiaomi Mi 34” curved gaming monitor which are both a similar price.
But overall if you’re after a large quad HD ultrawide monitor from a well known brand with an attractive design and a pretty complete feature set that isn’t going to break the bank, this monitor should be on your shortlist.
Don’t forget to take a look at my YouTube video at the top of the page, and subscribe to my YouTube channel where I’m releasing videos every week on the latest technology and how to get the most out of it. If you tap the bell icon when you subscribe you’ll get a notification as soon as I release a video, and there’ll be a link to my site here for the written article. YouTube is also the best place to leave a comment. I read all of them and respond to as many as I can!
LG 35WN73A: https://amzn.to/3ootNDl
LG 35WN75C: https://amzn.to/3uNbjPq
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