The monitor has 100% brightness and 70% contrast by default. I achieved a 100nit level of white by lowering both to 49%. I wouldn’t recommend you to increase the contrast setting. If it is set at 75% or higher, lights merge into white. Color gradients are reproduced well at any settings. The monitor regulates its brightness by means of pulse-width modulation of the power of the backlight lamps at a frequency of 261Hz.
The average non-uniformity of the brightness of white is 5.1% with a maximum deflection of 16.2%. For black, the average and maximum are 6.5% and 18.4%, respectively. These are rather average results.
The gamma curves are good enough at the default settings except that the blue curve has a slightly higher level of contrast than necessary.
The red and green curves retain their shapes at the reduced settings and the blue curve gets closer to them. As a result, the curves are all very similar to the theoretical curve for gamma 2.2.
The color temperature setup is rather sloppy. Every mode is too cold. The temperature of white is 1000K colder than necessary in both 6500 and sRGB modes and the temperature of gray is colder still. Moreover, there is high temperature dispersion among the different grays: over 1000K in every mode and up to 10,000K in the coldest modes. Darks are displayed with a definite bluish hue as the consequence.
The color gamut is perfectly standard. I have seen such a gamut in lots of monitors I have tested.
The matrix is as fast as you can expect from an RTC-less monitor: an average response time of 14.1 milliseconds (GtG) with a maximum of 27.1 milliseconds.
The max brightness and contrast ratio are ordinary (for a TN-based monitor) and should satisfy most users.
Let’s now check out the factory-set f-Engine modes.
The Text mode is quite a surprise: the high contrast ratio is okay but why such a high brightness? You need only half that brightness to work with text unless you’ve got bright sunlight falling on your monitor. You shouldn’t use the Text mode for text applications if you care about your eyes.
Color reproduction is no good in the f-Engine modes. The red and blue curves have too much contrast in the Movie mode, and the green curve has even more of it. As a result, about 15% of the lightest greens are displayed as the same color. There is the same problem with green in the Text mode.
The LG L194WS is a member of an already big family of inexpensive widescreen 19-inch monitors with a slow matrix. If price is your guiding factor, you may want to consider this model as an option. Otherwise, I’d recommend you to look among other models.
Highs:
Lows:
- No digital input
- Improper position of the control buttons
- Slow matrix
Recommended usage:
- Text-based applications (documents, spreadsheets, Internet)
