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4K is the only widely-available, affordable option if you want a monitor with better resolution than 1080p/1440p. That's why they are "selling millions of them." Not to mention, most people don't even know that consumer monitors with 5K resolution exist.

As I already stated, 150% and 175% does not scale pixels at a 1:1 mapping. In layman's terms, everything scaled by those percentages will not look as sharp/crisp as 100% or 200% scaling. This isn't my opinion, it is fact. Since this is the LG UltraFine 5K thread, I assume people in this thread care about the picture quality of their monitor or else they would be fine with a lower resolution monitor.

Regarding "Retina":

"Retina is Apple's trademark for a display so sharp that the human eye is unable to distinguish between pixels at a typical viewing distance. As Steve Jobs said: 'It turns out there’s a magic number right around 300 pixels per inch, that when you hold something around to 10 to 12 inches away from your eyes, is the limit of the human retina to differentiate the pixels.' Given a large enough viewing distance, all displays eventually become 'retina.'"
Re. 'Retina'.
Your eyes are typically further than 10-12"s from a computer display. Hence for these, it's more like the 218ppi of 27" 5K3K's.
But yeah, sure, I'd take a ~27" 10K, if you have any? 🙂
 
Re. 'Retina'.
Your eyes are typically further than 10-12"s from a computer display. Hence for these, it's more like the 218ppi of 27" 5K3K's.
But yeah, sure, I'd take a ~27" 10K, if you have any? 🙂
27” 4K monitor becomes Retina at 21 inches distance.

27” 5K monitor becomes Retina at 16 inches distance.

Fingers crossed for 10K!
 
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@kerplunknet: You really don't seem to understand scaling. 200% scaling means 4:1, not 1:1 with characters drawn at the native resolution.
 
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@kerplunknet: You really don't seem to understand scaling. 200% scaling means 4:1, not 1:1 with characters drawn at the native resolution.
If you scale to 1080p on a 4K monitor, for example, the actual pixel mapping is 4:1. If it were 1:1, it would only make up 1/4th of the screen. I hope there is no disagreement there.

You stated that 4K resolution (3840 x 2160) at 150% (2560 x 1440) or 175% (2194.29 x 1234.29) scaling on a 27-inch display is "more than decent for 99.9% of use."

I stated that it does not (and cannot) look as good, sharp, or crisp as 200% because each pixel does not scale at 1:1 with 150% or 175% on a 4K resolution.

Moving on...
 
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I stated that it does not (and cannot) look as good, sharp, or crisp as 200% because each pixel does not scale at 1:1 with 150% or 175% on a 4K resolution.
And as you stated "4K sucks" and "10K would be perfect as it would be true Retina" so you really should stop using inferior 5K displays. Apple's 6K display is 218 ppi and they call it Retina as well. Strangely that is the same ppi as the LG 5K that you don't think is true Retina. Have you told Apple to stop calling their displays Retina?

What I first disagreed with was you stating 150% scaling "doesn't look decent." Not everyone needs their display to look as "good, sharp, or crisp" as what you are looking for. Many don't even notice the difference so it must be decent enough.
 
Hi everyone! Is my first time here (First post in general).
I have a REAlly big problem
the last week I buy a brand new 5k lg ultrafine display, I’m used this display with my 16” MacBook Pro in clamshell mode for a week and suddenly yesterday my MacBook stop working ... and is literally dead ( black screen ,don’t Charge) im from Peru and there is no a official apple store here. But fortunately my mac is in guarantee I gonna send my mac to a “Apple official reseller” today , I’m pretty shure they gonna repair my Macbook for free. But my main question is ... the 5k lg ultrafine display kill my mac?? Is that possible !!?
Thank you I’m sorry for my bad English !

(Btw: when I disconnect my MacBook of the black thunderbolt cable of the lG Ultrafine the left side of my Mac are really hot :/)
 
Hi everyone! Is my first time here (First post in general).
I have a REAlly big problem
the last week I buy a brand new 5k lg ultrafine display, I’m used this display with my 16” MacBook Pro in clamshell mode for a week and suddenly yesterday my MacBook stop working ... and is literally dead ( black screen ,don’t Charge) im from Peru and there is no a official apple store here. But fortunately my mac is in guarantee I gonna send my mac to a “Apple official reseller” today , I’m pretty shure they gonna repair my Macbook for free. But my main question is ... the 5k lg ultrafine display kill my mac?? Is that possible !!?
Thank you I’m sorry for my bad English !

(Btw: when I disconnect my MacBook of the black thunderbolt cable of the lG Ultrafine the left side of my Mac are really hot :/)
Anything's possible. Though an external display killing the whole MBP seems unlikely.
Ask the company fixing it what they think, and let us know.
 
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Hi everyone! Is my first time here (First post in general).
I have a REAlly big problem
the last week I buy a brand new 5k lg ultrafine display, I’m used this display with my 16” MacBook Pro in clamshell mode for a week and suddenly yesterday my MacBook stop working ... and is literally dead ( black screen ,don’t Charge) im from Peru and there is no a official apple store here. But fortunately my mac is in guarantee I gonna send my mac to a “Apple official reseller” today , I’m pretty shure they gonna repair my Macbook for free. But my main question is ... the 5k lg ultrafine display kill my mac?? Is that possible !!?
Thank you I’m sorry for my bad English !

(Btw: when I disconnect my MacBook of the black thunderbolt cable of the lG Ultrafine the left side of my Mac are really hot :/)
Disconnect the monitor.

On your MacBook Pro:
  1. Have you tried holding the power button for 10 seconds?
  2. Try resetting the NVRAM.
  3. Try resetting the SMC.
 
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Thanks! Yes, tried all the “tricks”
my Mac is in revision right now.
they gonna say me what’s was the problem in a few days :)
 
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Had a 5k for nearly a year and love it. But still don't know how to use it!

Stand (standing desk) about 27 inches away from screen and use it it "default" scaling mode.

When would I want to set it to a more detailed mode? (Have tried doing that when looking at photos but not convinced can see the difference. Part of the problem is that it takes so long for the system to adapt to settings that may have forgotten what looked like before!)

What's the advantage of an LG 5k 27 inch compared to an LG 4k 27 inch (so not the special mac version but they do have plenty of other screens), given that am not using my 5k on high resolution (have never been able to compare side by side)? Or for that matter a friend has an LG 4k 32 inch. Looks really nice but haven't seen side-by-side.
 
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Had a 5k for nearly a year and love it. But still don't know how to use it!

Stand (standing desk) about 27 inches away from screen and use it it "default" scaling mode.

When would I want to set it to a more detailed mode?

I would keep it at the default scaling mode. Then you would have the best image quality at 2x scaling. Every other mode between this and 1x uses fractional scaling, which leads to inferior image/text quality. This article might explain it a little bit better: https://bjango.com/articles/macexternaldisplays/

So it’s more about the PPI for which the 5k makes more sense on 27” compared to a 4k display if you use 2x scaling. Because a 4k display PPI value is too low, elements on screen are too large when using 2x scaling. This effect will be even worse on a 32”.

If you don’t care about image/text quality on this level, a 4k display is fine as well. But you should see the difference if you compare them side by side.
 
I would keep it at the default scaling mode. Then you would have the best image quality at 2x scaling. Every other mode between this and 1x uses fractional scaling, which leads to inferior image/text quality. This article might explain it a little bit better: https://bjango.com/articles/macexternaldisplays/

So it’s more about the PPI for which the 5k makes more sense on 27” compared to a 4k display if you use 2x scaling. Because a 4k display PPI value is too low, elements on screen are too large when using 2x scaling. This effect will be even worse on a 32”.

If you don’t care about image/text quality on this level, a 4k display is fine as well. But you should see the difference if you compare them side by side.
Thanks @chrizel , that makes perfect sense.

If 2x scaling is going to be right for most people, wonder why they just don't make the display with the appropriate number of pixels? It would be cheaper? Or maybe there's a silent bunch of people who really need all the pixels and so it's less expensive to manufacture just one very large batch of monitors at the higher resolution, then have regular users downrate in software. An argument from the economies of scale.
 
Thanks @chrizel , that makes perfect sense.

If 2x scaling is going to be right for most people, wonder why they just don't make the display with the appropriate number of pixels? It would be cheaper? Or maybe there's a silent bunch of people who really need all the pixels and so it's less expensive to manufacture just one very large batch of monitors at the higher resolution, then have regular users downrate in software. An argument from the economies of scale.

I don't understand what you are trying to say. 2x scaling just means that each axis doubled or halved (depending on which way you look at it. 4K is simply 1080p doubled on both axis and 5K is just 1440p doubled. When you double on x and y, you quadruple the pixel count.

The only way you get more "space" on a high resolution screen is by running it closer to native than to natural 2x scaling. So instead of 1440p, you run it at something between 1440 and 2880. The downside of that is that because each "virtual" pixel doesn't map cleanly to the actual pixels on screen. Think about having a 4x4 pixel display and running it at 2x2. You just double each pixel. Try running that at 3x3 and there is no logical mapping. It only works reasonably well because you have so many pixels on a 4K/5K display to play with.

The problem I have is that 1080p is a crappy resolution for any display over about 20". Running a 4K display on a non native resolution isn't ideal so 5K is a nice compromise. Its just a real shame that it never took off.
 
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10K resolution on a 27-inch monitor would be perfect. 435.14 PPI. Retina is generally ~300 PPI.

I would scale to 1440p and everything would look incredible.

Unfortunately, it looks like 8K is next. For TVs, that's great, but for computer monitors, it restricts you to 1080p resolution (scaled), which isn't ideal.
 
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I run my 27" 4k dell at the middle scaling option (3008 x 1692) . Text looks sharp enough for me and it gives me the right amount of desktop space. The UI may be too small for some people, but it's fine for my eyes. 2560x1440 looks too big in my opinion.
 
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I run my 27" 4k dell at the middle scaling option (3008 x 1692) . Text looks sharp enough for me and it gives me the right amount of desktop space. The UI may be too small for some people, but it's fine for my eyes. 2560x1440 looks too big in my opinion.
Scaling to that resolution with a native 4K monitor: your system's hardware will need to work harder (less cycles available to other tasks and more physical heat generation) and objects on your screen will not look as sharp/crisp/clean as they would if you scaled to 1080p. You may not care about either of these cons, and you may think that it looks "good enough" (or maybe your eyes can't tell a difference), but I am calling this out so other people can be aware of these negative consequences. Many people wouldn't know unless they were told, but those people typically aren't on this forum. Thanks for sharing your experience, regardless.
 
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My Mac Pro handles it just fine. I am not going to use a 27" with an effective resolution of 1080p for the tiny bit of extra sharpness that 99.5% of people would not be able to tell apart in a like for like test. My eyes are great, thanks.

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There is a difference between theoretical and real world. Whilst there are people who claim that 1920x1080p on a 24" 1080p screen or 2560x1440 on a 27" 1440p screen is good enough for them and I completely disagree with them since I have a 24" 1920x1200 old ACD next to my 4K screen and can tell the difference quite clearly, there is also the other extreme that is being demonstrated in this thread.
 
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I’d like to remind people posting in this thread that the topic is LG UltraFine 5K monitors and is intended for people who own the monitor. Discussions should stay relevant.

Owners of these monitors care about displaying content at the highest quality. This is why we talk about things like integer-ratio scaling and calibration.

FYI, this is a great explanation about what I've been mentioning regarding scaling:
Can it make 1440p look better on 4K monitor?
No. Integer-ratio scaling is not a magic wand that improves quality of any image. It’s based on a simple mathematical principle that makes it possible when enlarging an image by an integer number of times, just to duplicate the original pixel with no need for mixing-in colors of adjacent pixels, thus preventing blur. To use integer scaling at QHD (2560×1440), you need a 5K (5120×2880) or 8K (7680×4320) display:

5120 / 2560 = 2880 / 1440 = 2.0
7680 / 2560 = 4320 / 1440 = 3.0

With a 4K (3840Ă—2160) display, the maximum logical resolution for integer scaling to work is Full HD (1920Ă—1080):

3840 / 1920 = 2160 / 1080 = 2.0

At QHD, the native/logical ratio is 1.5:

3840 / 2560 = 2160 / 1440 = 1.5

1.5Ă—1.5 pixel groups are physically impossible. The maximum integer ratio is 1.0 which is equivalent to the regular centered mode at 100% scale with thick black bars around the image.

The same applies to scaling HD (1280Ă—720) to Full HD (1920Ă—1080). For integer scaling of 1280Ă—720, the display resolution must be at least 2560Ă—1440 (200% scale, 2Ă—2 pixels).
 
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A bit of a warning:

After updating my M1 Mac mini to the developer beta of macOS 11.3 Beta (20E5196f), my UltraFine 5k developed a strange issue (pic related).
Some of the pixels near the right edge of the display are going in and out of alignment in a vertical band, maybe 50 pixels wide. I doubt this is the same pixel alignment issue that has been discussed here, as that was about static alignment issue and on my display the misalignment is constantly moving like this.

It's definitely a software issue though — the same display with the same cable works just fine on another Mac with a stable version of macOS 11.2.

IMG_3880.jpg
 
Yes this is also occurring on another M1 with 11.2.2. Also on restart or wake the display takes quite some time to resolve/wake up on M1/Big Sur
 
Here is some love for LG:

Both of my original LG UltraFine 5K monitors were having serious image retention (some actual burn-in as well) and permanent pink edges that was only getting worse.

The monitors were out of warranty. After speaking with a very kind customer support representative, they agreed to put my monitors back into warranty status and repair them. I shipped them to LG's repair center where they replaced the entire panel in each monitor. LG covered all costs, including shipping.

This is not my first experience like this with LG. About a year after I purchased my first LG UltraFine 5K monitor, there was an issue with the stand. I can't remember what the issue was, but they sent me two stands for free. (If you own this product, you know that these are not cheap stands.)

Please do not take advantage of their customer service, but if you have a real issue with your product due to a defect, I recommend calling in and asking them if there's anything they can do to help.

THANK YOU, LG! You have a lifelong customer!

This is the only viable option for a new 5K monitor. I hope they are making a great profit so they continue to produce and support high resolution, Retina monitors.
 
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New to this thread, but I've always wondered; I think I read that 5K iMac's from apple actually use two drivers to get to 5K. This is one of the reasons they supposedly stopped supporting target display mode? Regardless, do LG 5K ultra fine monitors have to do similar processing?
 
Here is some love for LG:

Both of my original LG UltraFine 5K monitors were having serious image retention (some actual burn-in as well) and permanent pink edges that was only getting worse.

The monitors were out of warranty. After speaking with a very kind customer support representative, they agreed to put my monitors back into warranty status and repair them. I shipped them to LG's repair center where they replaced the entire panel in each monitor. LG covered all costs, including shipping.

This is not my first experience like this with LG. About a year after I purchased my first LG UltraFine 5K monitor, there was an issue with the stand. I can't remember what the issue was, but they sent me two stands for free. (If you own this product, you know that these are not cheap stands.)

Please do not take advantage of their customer service, but if you have a real issue with your product due to a defect, I recommend calling in and asking them if there's anything they can do to help.

THANK YOU, LG! You have a lifelong customer!

This is the only viable option for a new 5K monitor. I hope they are making a great profit so they continue to produce and support high resolution, Retina monitors.
Maybe a recent change of attitude. Good for you. My experience was completely different. I too had a pair of these. In addition to the shielding problem (a defect they have known about for the 1st batch), both had marked image retention.They were out of warranty and they refused to repair them even if I would pay for the repair. They kept referring me to third party service centers that had no clue about this monitor when contacted. Same situation happened to a friend and others in the forum report the issue. I have since moved on to the Apple XDR - expensive but functions great. Just like you are a customer for life when they did the right thing (they must know the many problems these units have), with me the assured I will not buy an LG product again.
 
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New to this thread, but I've always wondered; I think I read that 5K iMac's from apple actually use two drivers to get to 5K. This is one of the reasons they supposedly stopped supporting target display mode? Regardless, do LG 5K ultra fine monitors have to do similar processing?
Yes, that is correct. I haven't seen it in a while, but I used to see both halves of the screen (left and right) come on at very slightly different times when I was plugging in the monitor to my laptop. I think this is a limitation of Thunderbolt 3, if I recall correctly. I know that DisplayPort 1.2 doesn't support 5K and behaves the same way.

Maybe a recent change of attitude. Good for you. My experience was completely different. I too had a pair of these. In addition to the shielding problem (a defect they have known about for the 1st batch), both had marked image retention.They were out of warranty and they refused to repair them even if I would pay for the repair. They kept referring me to third party service centers that had no clue about this monitor when contacted. Same situation happened to a friend and others in the forum report the issue. I have since moved on to the Apple XDR - expensive but functions great. Just like you are a customer for life when they did the right thing (they must know the many problems these units have), with me the assure I will not buy an LG product again.
Their first level customer service (offshore) gave me the exact responses as you received. The key was asking to speak to a supervisor. I was then transferred to a call center in Alabama, and after I plead my case, they agreed to help me.
 
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