What They Say
Although it’s promoted as a TV, TFT Central reviewed (subscription required) the LG 42C2 as a desktop monitor. The first challenge was that the stand does not allow any tilt and can be hard to use close up without this. Although it’s wide, the stand doesn’t take up much space on the desk. The second point of note was that, unlike monitors, it does not go into sleep mode if the PC is powered down. The re-start also needs some actions.
Connectivity is via four HDMI 2.1 ports each with up to 48Gbps support for 3840 x 2160 x 120 with 10 bit colour, but there is no DisplayPort. Test showed some slight colour fringing from the addressing scheme on the RGBW panel.
In testing the brightness reached 261.5 cd/m² in SDR mode. In HDR mode, the peak luminance is 717 cd/m² for a 10% window and colour accuracy was good.
The reviewer found that the “Temporal Peak Luminance Control” (TPC) used by LG to limit luminance when static content is being shown was irritating and could not be disabled. Of course, in TV mode, with variable video, it would be less often seen.
in Expert Bright mode, the gamut coverage of sRGB was very accurate. Adobe RGB coverage was 88.4% when that mode was selected. The set includes a built-in Calman pattern generator which helps calibration, which the site plans to look at later.
Brightness uniformity was very good on the sample and the site checked out the gaming performance. As it can be hard to drive UltraHD at 120Hz, the site also tested lower resolutions and thought the scaling was good and response times were excellent, although there is still some real world blur because of the sample-and-hold technology in the display. BFI (called Motion Clarity) helped this, but caused visible flickering.
What We Think
Well, it’s slightly strange to review a TV as a monitor. I would reject the idea just on the basis of the height which is too high for good ergonomics. However, I have seen lots of the discussions about the idea, so some kind of evaluation is interesting. (BR)
