Quick access is provided to selecting the input, to the f-Engine feature, to the auto-adjustment, and to the Ez Zooming feature which switches between resolutions of 1440x900 and 1280x1024 pixels. Ez Zooming works only when the forteManager software is installed, although the purpose of the software, funnily enough, is to control the monitor from Windows without touching any buttons. Frankly speaking, I don’t find it a useful innovation because each LCD monitor has only one native resolution while all the rest are achieved by means of interpolation with the ensuing loss in image quality.

I won’t describe the menu in detail because it’s identical to the previous model’s.

The monitor has 100% brightness and 70% contrast by default. To achieve a 100nit brightness of white I reduced them both to 39%. The monitor controls its brightness by means of pulse-width modulation of the backlight lamps at a frequency of 261Hz.

The average backlight irregularly is 37% on black and 10% on white. The maximum irregularities are 61% and 27%, respectively. The diagrams show that the irregularity of backlight is not symmetrical relative to the center of the screen. These are rather poor numbers. Most of other monitors have a more uniform backlight.

Color gradients are reproduced with barely visible banding. All halftones are distinguishable from each other at reduced values of contrast but if the contrast setting is higher than the default value, lightest halftones merge into white.

The gamma curves are almost ideal except for the red curve that lies somewhat lower than necessary. They retain their shape, which is very close to the theoretical curve, at the reduced contrast.

To continue the topic I brought up at the beginning of the review, let’s see what happens to this monitor’s color reproduction as you switch through the f-Engine modes.

There are obvious problems with the gamma curves and, consequently, with the reproduction of colors. The curves are almost ideal at the default settings, but run away from each other in the User mode, differing in their gamma value. By the way, this f-Engine mode can be set up basing on your own preferences and you can learn what is affected by this feature in the process. Three parameters are offered for setting up: brightness, ACE and RCM. It is all clear about the first one, but the other two need comments: ACE or Adaptive Clarity Enhancer increases the contrast of the image. RCM or Real Color Management intensifies green, body color, or all colors at once.

A saturated green, a sagging red, and a bend in the middle of the blue curve ?I saw this all when I enabled the Splendid feature on the ASUS monitors. Of course, working with text doesn’t call for a very accurate reproduction of colors, yet the usefulness of this mode is rather dubious.

Judging by these curves, the developers from LG think that movies look best when 20% of greens and 10% of reds are displayed as the same green and red color, respectively. That’s a very questionable point of view.