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Monitors

LG 5K

10owners with an opinion
88%of verdicts positive
0/1positive/negative since 2024
0happy after 3+ years

Praised for display and performance; criticized for reliability.

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What people wrote

Likes it
The 2016 LG 5K is still my preferred monitor. In retrospect it was a surprisingly good investment at its $974 introductory price (~$1100 in 2022.) The Apple Studio Display certainly improves on it, but at ~$1600 it costs more than a midrange 24" iMac. It's too bad that the iMac 5K didn't support Target Display Mode. Maybe Apple will bring it back someday along with a new 27" iMac.
Neutral
On my desk I have 6 of these same LG 5K monitors sibling comments are talking about, 2 to a 2019 MBP16, and 4 to a Mac Studio. On the MBP, I need one TB3 cable to each side of the MBP, not both to the same side. MBP screen is active as well, so it’s driving all three. On the Mac Studio, I run 4 x TB3 cables into the back. Occasionally (once a week?) the four monitors sometimes seem to wake out of order. I tap touch ID twice to off-and-on-again them, second time’s a charm.
Neutral
Since you have a Macbook Pro and you want a premium experience your only real options right now are new Studio Displays, Apple XDR or LG5k. For whatever reasons MacOS or the hardware does not perform well unless you using screens that are near or the same PPI as laptop display. Using a 4k monitor will result in some scaling artifacts. With that said, I know a lot of people who use 4k monitors with their MBPs with no complaint however I also know the reverse who can't stand it. I'm with the latter camp and use a LG5k which is just an OK monitor but everything is crystal clear.
Likes it
He purchased a TB monitor to plug into a device that doesn't support TB and says "it shouldn't be this hard". Commenters complain that it's 60 Hz but I don't know of an external interconnect that could drive that many pixels any faster. HN is weird sometimes. (I don't plan to buy this monitor either, but not for the reasons above. The LG 5K monitors are perfectly adequate for my needs. And like the post's author I was sorry to see target display go).
Likes it
Everyone is different! I have a Lenovo 2560x1440 monitor I bought circa 2018 for personal use for around $200 USD that is my daily driver on my home desktop. Around that same period I was using one of the LG 5k monitors at my place of work. The 5k is nicer, of course, and I can fit a lot more into the screen, but for the way I work the cheap 1440 is just fine nowadays. I use a tiling window manager and usually have my screen separated into a 2x2 grid where a program either uses a half or a quadrant of that grid. Even gridded up like that the 1440p is almost always enough space for me (code that violates the character length in vscode is sometimes an annoyance).
Likes it
The M1 notebooks only support one single external monitor officially. The M1 Pro/Max machines support more than one external monitor. But if you buy a dock that supports "DisplayLink" (which works via USB) it is possible to use more than one external monitor even on M1 devices. I'm using an M1 MacBook Air at home and an M1 MacBook Pro for work, and have an ICY BOX/Plugable 4k/60 DisplayLink dock to use them with an LG 5K and another 1440p monitor. Works fine.
Recommends itDoesn’t say they own it
Why not just pick up the LG 5k or any number of 4k displays that are cheaper (and better) then the apple 27" in the case though? This new Studio 27" isn't really a good display on its own. It's an 8 year old panel and is missing a host of modern display upgrades like higher refresh rates, variable refresh rates, HDR, or local dimming
Doesn’t like itDoesn’t say they own it
Except if you compare it to the LG 5K, it's worth the extra cost in build quality alone. The LG monitors are notorious pieces of junk with flaky connectors that come loose like clockwork. The new Studio display is expensive, but I think the features somewhat justify the price compared to the "competition".