LG Ultrafine Evo 6K Review

Introduction

The LG Ultrafine Evo 6K takes the crown as the world’s first 6K resolution monitor with cutting-edge Thunderbolt 5 connectivity.

It pairs a minimalistic design with an uber-sharp 6K resolution Nano IPS screen that’s ideal for creatives, plus has two Thunderbolt 5-capable USB-Cs for high-speed connectivity and power delivery. This makes it one of the most modern screens around, and a potential rival to the Apple Studio Display on the face of it.

The problem this screen faces is twofold, though – the onslaught of OLED screens such as the Dell 32 Plus 4K QD-OLED Monitor, and the fact that it costs some £1799.98/$1999.99, making it one of the dearest panels around.

Whether this LG choice can live up to its high spec and equally hefty price tag remains to be seen, though. I’ve been testing it for the last week to see if it’s one of the best monitors we’ve tested.

Design

• Minimalistic, Apple-like design
• Solid build quality
• Modern port selection 

By way of looks, the Ultrafine Evo 6K is perhaps the closest you’ll get to one of Apple’s Studio Display screens without purchasing one. It’s one of the most modern and minimalistic designed screens I’ve tested, and would work a treat in a forward-thinking office. 

There are minimal bezels around its large 31.5-inch screen, plus the stand has strong scope for adjustment, such as tilt and height adjustment, and it can swing around into a portrait mode if you want to. The only trouble here is that there isn’t much in the way of height adjustment, and this panel sits quite high off the ground by default.

To my surprise, there is some assembly required with this panel, with two screws needed to affix the base to the stand. The monitor itself simply clips into the stand for a sturdy fit, and with the stand being fully metal, the build quality is excellent.

The Ultrafine Evo 6K has one of the most modern port offerings you’ll likely find on a screen today, with two Thunderbolt 5-capable USB-C ports that can provide up to 80Gbps of data transfer and drive two 6K screens in a daisy chain. Plus, they can provide up to 96W of power and display out, so can easily be hooked up to a modern laptop for power and display in one cable. You also get a DisplayPort 2.1 and HDMI 2.1 for your troubles, and a USB-C hub – two downstream ports and one upstream. 

On the whole, that’s pretty good, although folks should want to connect legacy devices via USB-A may want to invest in an inexpensive hub, or look to other choices. The ports are also placed quite high on the back of the panel, meaning they can be quite difficult to access in a pinch. It also makes neat cable management a little tricky, as the cables are always trailing down the back of the screen.

Image Quality

• Sharp 6K resolution
• Contrast and black level not as strong as OLED
• 60Hz refresh rate is disappointing, but understandable

The key headline with the Ultrafine Evo 6K is the presence of its uber-detailed 6K resolution, or 6144×3456, which provides substantially more detail than 4K, and is ideal for professional-grade work, especially in the field of video.

For instance, a lot of professional cameras can record ‘open gate’ at a maximum 6K resolution, using the entire area of the sensor for recording. This can then be fed into editing software and cropped in or put into whichever format is needed for a project without sacrificing any initial detail, and provides more flexibility than ‘just’ recording at 4K, for instance.

For more general purposes, it’s a little lacking, especially as we haven’t seen any real content release in 6K to take full advantage of the boost in resolution – it’s much the same as with 8K TVs in the mainstream.

Nonetheless, the displayed images from the Ultrafine Evo 6K’s Nano IPS screen are strong, and very detailed. A rated pixel density of 224ppi makes this a very clear screen for fine detail, and text looks sharp and clean.

For creatives, the colour accuracy of this screen is virtually perfect, with 99% sRGB, 98% DCI-P3 and 97% Adobe RGB measured with my colorimeter. This makes this a perfect screen to pair for the creative tasks it’s designed for, alongside more mainstream productivity loads.

It can also get rather bright, with a peak SDR brightness of 526.1 nits, plus there’s VESA DisplayHDR600 support for increased vibrancy in supported content. 

The limits of even a Nano IPS screen against OLED become a little clearer, with measured black level and contrast ratio results of 0.15 and 1720:1, respectively. Granted, they’re decently strong for the panel type, and lend this IPS screen to offer solid dynamic range. However, an OLED screen can go deeper, and have much stronger contrast for even better dynamic range.

Moreover, the Ultrafine Evo 6K’s refresh rate tops out at 60Hz, which is a bit of a shame at a time when we’re seeing lots of gaming and productivity OLED screens provide a 4K/120Hz or 4K/240Hz resolution and refresh rate combo. I think this is more of a shortcoming of such a high resolution at the moment, rather than an issue with this LG screen specifically though; it’s possible we’ll see 6K/120Hz screens soon, although who knows when it’ll be.

Software and Features

• Basic, but controllable OSD
• Surprisingly decent speakers

The Ultrafine Evo 6K’s OSD is easy to access with the joystick in the middle on the rear of the panel, and provides convenient access to features such as brightness and contrast control and changing inputs, plus an array of different picture modes. These include Vivid, HDR-specific modes and ones that are specific to colour gamuts, including sRGB and P3.

Unlike a lot of this panel’s contemporaries, LG has opted to put some built-in speakers with this screen. They’re some of the better speakers I’ve heard from any monitor, with good clarity and a surprising amount of depth and low-end to them. I don’t think the units are as good as those in Dell’s 32 Plus model, although they’re pretty good.

Should you buy it?

FAQs