When comparing Samsung U32E850R vs LG 38UC99-W, the Slant community recommends LG 38UC99-W for most people. In the question“What are the best monitors?” LG 38UC99-W is ranked 29th while Samsung U32E850R is ranked 37th. The most important reason people chose LG 38UC99-W is:
Impressive amount of on-screen real estate, excellent picture quality, exceptional connectivity, and great color accuracy puts the LG 38UC99-W above nearly all competitors in the market.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Great image quality
This Samsung display uses an IPS panel, which results in a better color reproduction, brightness, contrast and overall great image quality.
Pro Low stand-by power consumption
The U32E850R only consumes about 0,3 watts of power per hour in stand-by, which makes it one of the more energy efficient 4K displays available. For example, the AOC C3583FQ 35 inch display consumes a hefty 60 watts.
Pro Excellent viewing angles
The viewing angles of the MG24UQ are excellent and no color shifting (the distortion of colors) occurs when looking at the display from a horizontal or vertical angle.
Pro Rotatable, tiltable and adjustable in height
You can easily adjust the height of the monitor, and you can also rotate it and switch between landscape and portrait mode.
Pro 4-port USB 3.0 hub
The monitor also doubles as a 4-port USB 3.0 hub, allowing you to quickly connect your devices on the display.
Pro Extremely sharp
The Samsung U32E850R uses a 4K-display with a resolution of 2160 x 3840 pixels, which is four times the amount of pixels of a Full HD display. This results in an extremely sharp image and overall great image quality. In terms of pixel density which is measured in pixels per inch, this display achieves just a little bit under 140 ppi. A 32 inch display with a Full HD resolution would only achieve half of that - 70 ppi.
Pro Allows you to use two inputs at once
The Samsung U32E850R has a great multitasking feature, which allows you to use two devices on the screen at the same time. You can either choose to use an overlay mode (picture-in-picture), or display the images side by side (picture by picture).
Pro Excellent general purpose monitor
Impressive amount of on-screen real estate, excellent picture quality, exceptional connectivity, and great color accuracy puts the LG 38UC99-W above nearly all competitors in the market.
Pro Supports 85W charging over USB-C
You can charge your laptop and have display output through a single cable thanks to the monitor's USB-C port.
Pro Features On-Screen controls
You can access all the general features of this monitor using your mouse and a keyboard thanks to the LG’s On-Screen Control software.
Additionally, the On-Screen Control offers many screen split presets.
Pro Perfect for multi-tasking
Having enough display real-estate to fit three vertically aligned Google Docs windows comfortably, the LG 38UC99-W is an excellent tool to boost up the productivity in everyday office duties, CAD/CAM applications, and many other fields.
Pro Excellent for watching movies
Acing the near-cinematic aspect ratio of 21:9, the LG 38UC99-W is an excellent companion to watch movies because you won't see the black bars at the top and bottom of the screen when watching most movies.
Pro Has a pair of good speakers
The LG 38UC99-W features a built-in 20 Watt stereo speaker system which sounds fairly well compared to the 4-10 W speakers the competitors at this price point offer.
Pro Exceptional connectivity
This monitor beats most of its premium competitors in terms of connectivity because it features a USB-C downstream port which has multiple parallel functions. First, you can use it to access the monitor's onboard USB hub. Second, it can be used for charging a USB type C compliant laptop. Finally, you can use it to receive video and audio signal from a computer.
Additionally, the LG 38UC99-W has two HDMI ports, a DisplayPort, and an inbuilt Bluetooth module.
Pro Supports dual linkup
You can connect this monitor to two computers so that each machine use half of the on-screen area. This might come in handy for those who frequently use a stationary desktop computer and a laptop.
Pro Great picture quality
Only the best monitors can match the LG 38UC99-W's contrast ratio, peak brightness, gamma, and color accuracy, as the monitor features one of the finest IPS panels in the industry.
The LG 38UC99-W displays beautiful pictures, with deep and rich blacks, vibrant and accurate colors, and good-looking intermediate tones. Despite the fact that the monitor's native contrast ratio is only 1000:1, the dark scenes look deep and intense as the backlight of the 38UC99-W can drop below the brightness level of 0.15 nits, which only the best monitors can do. Colors pop and look vivid, as the 38UC99-W can sustain its brightness above the 300 nits mark. The mid-tones look lifelike thanks to the monitor's near perfect gamma value, which is only 1.3% off from the ideal value.
Moreover, the monitor's color inaccuracies can't be seen by the human eye because it only has an average color error dE of 2.12.
Cons
Con Expensive
With an average price tag of $1000, the Samsung U32E850R is positioned in the higher-end market. However, some other 4K monitors with comparable specifications and features offer more value.
Con 4K resolution doesn't scale well with all software
Due to the native 4K resolution and the relatively small 28 inch screen size, text can be hard to read in Windows and other non-gaming environments, such as Adobe's software. Not everything scales well in 4K (yet).
Con Size limits viewing angles in corners
Although the U32E850R uses a PLS panel which is known for its great image reproduction and viewing angles, the sheer size of this display results in slightly worse viewing angles in the corners. The small difference is noticeable in dark situations.
Con No cables included
The only cables included with the monitor are a power cable and a USB cable, no HDMI or DisplayPort connectors are included. For a monitor with this hefty price tag, it's disappointing not to receive the complete package.
Con Maximum refresh rate limited to 60Hz
The U32E850R is not as fast as some other monitors, despite the fact that is supports AMD FreeSync. The minimum refresh rate is 48 Hz, with a maximum of 60 frames per second. Some of the more fast-paced games don't look as fluent on this iiyama as on other displays with a higher refresh rate.
Con Slower response time
The response time of this display is limited a 4 ms, which is excellent for normal usage but isn't as fast as some other monitors. In fast-paced gaming situations, ghosting may occur - ghosting happens when the previous image can still be seen on the screen due to a slower refresh rate.
Con Very expensive
For the same price as this monitor, you can buy three decent 27-inch ultrawide monitors.
Con Bluetooth indicator is inconvenient
The monitor's Bluetooth indicator occupies the on-screen workspace. Unfortunately, there is no way to remove the indicator while using the Bluetooth speaker option.
Con Has an external power brick
The external power supply unit of the LG 38UC99-W might cause inconvenience especially if you want to mount this monitor on a wall since the PSU is quite bulky.
Con Wobbly
The stand isn't rigid, so you might observe some minor wobbling if your work desk is flimsy,
Con OSD is quite messy
The on-screen-display of the LG 38UC99-W does not have any programmable shortcut keys and is quite hard to navigate.
For example, to enable or disable the motion blur reduction feature, you’ll need to press more than 15 keys because the menu goes very deep.
Con Unsuitable for gaming
Gaming just doesn't feel responsive because of the monitor's massive input lag.