LG L1980U LCD: The New 19" Panel on the Block

Conclusions

LG’s L1980U gave us a different experience from most of the monitors that we have seen in the past.   LG.Philips LCD, the panel manufacturer for this display, has produced some of the most stunning panels that we have had the pleasure of setting our eyes on over the last few years.   Although we can’t call the LM190E04 panel from LG.Philips LCD stunning, it is certainly on par with other 19”, low response time displays from AUO.   We were pleased that the viewing angle problems mentioned on the LM190E03 were corrected on this panel.

The LG L1980U screams two things: sleek and thin.   Everything from the housed cable management to the touch sensitive interface makes us feel like this monitor was intended for royalty.   Attention to detail goes a long way when we are evaluating how a display is constructed, and LG really excels this time around with some of the detail in their Flatron L1980U.   forteManager was an excellent addition to an already outstanding user interface – so hopefully, we will get the opportunity to see more of applications like this in the future.

Had LG opted for a slightly different panel (which was probably not possible due to their relationship with LG.Philips LCD), we could have easily considered this to be one of the better 19” LCD monitors that we have seen in years.   The unfortunate problems that plague all 6-bit TN displays are present in this unit too; washed out and mildly inaccurate colors were somewhat of common place.   On the other hand, gaming was fine if we ignored some of the instances where subtle details were completely washed out.   This monitor is great for just browsing text on the web, but the point of getting a low response time LCD is for it to perform well in games.

Unfortunately, the deck was stacked against LGE from the beginning.   With Dell’s awesome UltraSharp 1905FP retailing for $200 less than the sticker price on the Flatron L1980U, LG had to demonstrate that their display was worth $200 more than Dell’s in order to truly win our stamp of approval.   This was not the case in many of the benchmarks, although we have to commend LG for taking fusing the better elements of style and control into their Flatron L1980U.   The L1980U was a great attempt by LG to unseat the 800lbs. gorilla, but ultimately, price and the mediocre LM190E04 panel got the best of them.