LG on Wednesday announced its new flagship display with a UHD 4K resolution, DCI-P3 color gamut, as well as HDR10 support. The LG 32UD99 will be aimed at creative professionals, prosumers and gamers, which suggests more or less reasonable pricing as well as some allowances to handle Microsoft Windows' quirky color management (through support of sRGB). The monitor will be demonstrated at CES next month and will hit the market some time in 2017.

The LG 32UD99 will a 32” display featuring a 10-bit IPS panel that can reproduce 1.07 billion colors and cover over 95% of the DCI-P3 color space, while LG has said nothing about the sRGB and the Adobe RGB color spaces. The monitor will support 10-bit HDR capabilities, but LG is not disclosing details about its LUTs (look-up-tables) and so on. Finally, LG says that the 32UD99 will be able to connect to computers using a single USB Type-C cable (using DisplayPort Alternate Mode) that will also support charging capabilities. Other notable features that LG mentioned in its press release are thin bezels as well as “slim” stand.

Preliminary Specifications of the LG 32UD99
Panel 32" IPS
Resolution 3840 × 2160
Refresh Rate 60 Hz (?)
Viewing Angles 178°/178° horizontal/vertical
Color Saturation Over 95% DCI-P3
Display Colors 1.07 billion
3D-LUT supported
Inputs 1 × USB-C
1 × HDMI 2.0a (?)
Audio Stereo speakers featuring LG RichBass technology

The manufacturer is positioning its 32UD99 for different types of applications. Specifically, the company says that the monitor is “well-equipped” to support HDR-capable game consoles, which suggests that it can at least connect them using an HDMI 2.0a port because Sony’s PlayStation 4 Pro and NVIDIA’s SHIELD ATV (the only HDR-capable game consoles available today) do not have a USB-C header. Moreover, neither game console currently support DCI-P3 color space, which means that the display would need to support sRGB alongside HDR10.

Meanwhile, the support for DCI-P3 and HDR10 means that the display will appeal to professionals from the gaming, digital cinema, home theater and software industries. The consumer standard for DCI is used by a number of consumer electronics devices as well as a variety of Apple devices (and has good prospects to be adopted for televisions as well), and while LG isn't confirming that they're going with the consumer version (as opposed to the digital projection version with its different white point and gamma), it's reasonable to assume that like their other DCI-capable monitors, the 32UD99 will follow the consumer standard as well. Though it may very well be that HDR becomes the most distinctive feature, as HDR support in monitors is currently few and far between. Now, since the LG 32UD99 covers “over 95%” of the DCI-P3 color space (and not 98 – 99% like many professional-grade monitors like LG’s own 31MU97 do), the manufacturer does not straightforward say that the 32UD99 is going to be its new flagship model for creative professionals, but rather points to prosumers and demanding gamers.

Since LG made a preliminary announcement of the monitor this week, it naturally did not disclose all of its specifications leaving many questions unanswered. Nonetheless, it looks like the 32UD99 will be a considerably more universal display than LG’s UltraFine lineup of monitors designed solely with Apple’s macOS and Mac hardware in mind.  

Today, LG only announced plans to demonstrate its 32UD99 display at CES, which is why it did not touch upon its pricing and estimated availability timeframe. While it is logical to expect the LG 32UD99 to hit the market sometimes next year at a price that will be above that of average 32” UHD models, that is all we can share at this point.

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Source: LG

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  • cheinonen - Wednesday, December 14, 2016 - link

    LG didn't put a price in the details they sent out to everyone. Possibly at CES but not for sure.
  • A5 - Thursday, December 15, 2016 - link

    Can you just email all your PR contacts and say "1440p HDR HDR HDR HDR" over and over? :P
  • Xajel - Thursday, December 15, 2016 - link

    We're closer, now bring an Ultrawide version if this (3440x1440 or better 5120x2160) with 120~144Hz refresh rate and keep the HDR/DCI colors

    An 2160p ultrawide @120HZ with 30bit colors will require a little more than DP 1.3/1.4 bandwidth (32.4Gbit/s), so it will need DSC compression which will require DP 1.4

    A 1440p ultrawide with similar 30bit @120 can be supported with DP1.3/1.4 without DSC compression even at 144Hz, HDMI 2.0 will be able to handle this @100Hz and in theory also at 120Hz

    A 1600p ultrawide with HDR/30bit can be handled also by either DP 1.3 or 1.4 without DSC compression, no HDMI can support this at 100Hz, 96Hz will at the edge of what HDMI 2.0 can handle in theory.
  • DesktopMan - Thursday, December 15, 2016 - link

    "because Sony’s PlayStation 4 Pro and NVIDIA’s SHIELD ATV (the only HDR-capable game consoles available today"

    Regular PlayStation 4 and Xbox One S also support HDR, so this statement is quite incorrect.
  • Valantar - Thursday, December 15, 2016 - link

    Now, have them make a 34" 21:9 100Hz FreeSync version with a USB hub built in. For ... $6-700? Pretty please? Also: seriously, that thing needs a DisplayPort or two. Come on.
  • edzieba - Thursday, December 15, 2016 - link

    "Moreover, neither game console currently support DCI-P3 color space, which means that the display would need to support sRGB alongside HDR10."

    Or just do the exact same thing every 'SDR' monitor with a non-sRGB gamut does: take an sRGB input and smear it over the wider gamut resulting in oversaturation, because there was no provision for transmitting your colourspace when these connections were implementation.
  • edzieba - Thursday, December 15, 2016 - link

    *Implemented. Damn autocorrect.
  • milkod2001 - Thursday, December 15, 2016 - link

    What is up with HDR? Is it real deal or just another marketing trick to make monitors more expensive? Slightly boosted colours and contrast from default? What about HDR content? How does non HDR content look on HDR monitor? IS it better or no difference? Can somebody explain?
  • DanNeely - Thursday, December 15, 2016 - link

    SAM MACHKOVECH from Arstechnica considers it a killer app if you've got content available.

    http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/12/high-dynami...
  • nathanddrews - Thursday, December 15, 2016 - link

    It's pretty damn amazing, to be honest. It's all about color volume - volume that is a combination of not only more colors, but much darker colors and brighter colors. This is a good little image to sum up the capabilities of SDR vs HDR:
    http://www.ctoic.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/So...

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