LG 27MD5KL-B UltraFine 27″ IPS LCD 5K UHD Monitor Review

We voted the LG 27MD5KL-B 5K UltraFine 27″ monitor as one of the best Apple Studio Display alternatives.

With stunning 5K resolution and support for similar pixel density to Apple’s Display, it’s no wonder many users opt for it as a cheaper alternative.

In this review, we look at what makes this LCD monitor such a great option for Mac users.

LG & Apple

LG monitors are some of the best displays you can get for Macs and Apple even helped LG develop the UltraFine monitor as it contains a very similar panel to the 27 inch 5K iMac.

In fact Apple used to sell the 5K LG 27 inch UltraFine on its website until the release of it’s own impressive Apple Studio Display.

Although LG monitors are no longer stocked by Apple, its an indication of how compatible they are with Mac products.

The LG 5K 27MD5KL-B remains incredibly popular with Mac users and although it is frequently out of stock with LG, it is still stocked by Amazon.

It’s certainly one of the best alternatives to the Apple Studio Display in terms of spec similarities and pricing.

Here we take a closer look at why.

Monitor Overview

Outside of the 5K Apple Studio Display and the incredibly expensive 6K Apple Pro XDR Display, the 5K 27 inch LG UltraFine offers one of the best external displays for Macs.

It’s also cheaper than Apple’s two main displays.

The Apple Studio Display starts at $1,599 and Apple Pro XDR Display $4,999 while the LG 5K 27 inch is around $1,299.

The display is marketed by LG as “The Perfect Companion for Macs” although the fact is pretty much any LG monitor will work with a Mac.

Source: LG

However, the 27 inch LG UltraFine does offer 5K resolution at 218 pixels per inch (ppi).

This is the same pixel density as both the Apple Studio Display and Apple Pro XDR Display.

So in terms of pixel resolution compared with Apple displays, you can’t get much closer than LG’s 5K 27 inch UltraFine 5K.

You get full 5K UHD 5120 x 2880 resolution with the 27MD5KL-B including when connected to Apple M-series Macs such as the MacBook Pro and Mac Studio.

However, due to scaling issues with macOS that can make everything look extremely small at 5K on a non Apple external display, it’s advisable to use a scaled resolution which we go into in more detail later on.

Specifications

The LG 27MD5KL-B UltraFine 27” specifications are as follows:

• 5K UHD 5120 x 2880 resolution with 16:9 aspect ratio
• 27 Inch Wide-screen flat-panel IPS monitor
• LG 27MD5KL-B Comes with Built-in camera and speaker
• 60Hz refresh rate
• 178° horizontal and vertical viewing angles
• Support for 218 ppi resolution

One of the most outstanding features of the monitor is the incredible depth of color.

This is largely thanks to the already mentioned 218 pixel per inch (ppi) resolution of the display.

This makes it an ideal choice for using graphic design software such is the razor sharp level of detail it offers.

This depth of color combined with 5K resolution means you get a 50% bigger pixel count compared to a 4K monitor.

5K vs 4K. Source: LG

However, it does not support High Dynamic Range (HDR) or Dolby Vision which helps makes bright and dark parts of an image incredibly intense and contrasted.

This means the LG 5K 27 inch is not VESA Certified to HDR 600 for peak luminance of 600 nits so if these are important factors for you, you may be better going with something like the LG 5K 34 inch IPS LED display instead.

The IPS technology in the 27 inch 5K LG UltraFine does however control colors amazingly well with 98% coverage of the DCI-P3 color space.

DCI-P3 is the industry standard for the film industry making it a great external monitor for video editing on any Mac.

It supports 1.07 billion colors and the Nanometer-sized particles on the screen’s LED is designed to absorbs excess light for richer color expression.

The 27 inch screen is generous and provides plenty of space for multi-tasking, especially at full 5K.

The monitor’s 5K2K 21:9 display supports full 5K UHD 5120 x 2880 resolution which as mentioned, is ideal for video editing and graphic design on a Mac.

However, for text editing this can make the text look rather small and you might need to scale down the resolution to prevent squinting.

In terms of positioning, you can change the tilt of the stand 15 degrees forward and -5 degrees backwards and height up to 110mm on the aluminum stand that comes with the lg 5k 27 inch Ultrafine.

There’s a little bit of wiggle room to tilt left and right but if you need swivel though, you’ll have to add a VESA stand mount connection (the monitor is 100 x 100 VESA compatible).

The build quality on the 5K 27 inch LG UltraFine is sufficient but uses plastic throughout (except the foot of the stand) which means it does feel a bit “wobbly” on the stand if nudged or bumped.

Mac Integration

One thing we really like with the 27 inch 5K LG UltraFine is that you can also control the volume and brightness from your Mac’s keyboard.

This is something that not many monitors support although BenQ has also now introduced this in the excellent 4K BenQ PD3225U Display and MA270U.

Another really useful touch is the integration of a webcam and speakers in the LG 5K 27 inch monitor.

While some monitors have basic speakers, most come without a webcam and you can’t use your Mac’s iSight camera with an external monitor.

So the inclusion of an integrated webcam makes team meetings, chatting with friends on FaceTime or even gaming sessions much easier.

Source: LG

On the downside, the 1920 x 1080 resolution quality on the LG 5K 27 inch 27MD5KL-B UltraFine webcam isn’t brilliant although you could also try using a digital camera as a webcam instead.

Connectivity

In terms of ports, there’s a dedicated Thunderbolt 3 port (with 2 meter Thunderbolt cable included) which provides 85W of charging power to a MacBook Pro or MacBook Air.

There are also an additional 3 USB-C ports which can be used for connecting other peripherals such as external hard drives.

LG 27MD5KL-B ports. Source: LG

Note that you cannot connect the LG 27MD5KL-B via HDMI 2.0 (which only supports up to 4K anyway) or DisplayPort (which does support 5K) although this is no big drawback as we strongly recommend connecting via Thunderbolt 3 which offers several advantages.

HDMI 2.0 does not have the bandwidth to handle anything above 4K resolution and the results look terrible when connected to a Mac.

Thunderbolt 3 supports much higher bandwidth for resolution and means that you only need a single cable for video, audio, and data as well as MacBook Pro or MacBook Air battery charging up to 85W.

Thunderbolt 3 also supports 40 Gbps data transfers for high-bandwidth video and either a 4K signal to two different screens or 5K/60 fps to a single screen.

Note that the base model M-series Macs (i.e not those with a Pro, Max or Ultra chip) can only support one external monitor even if you have more than one Thunderbolt port.

There there are workarounds for this although the quality may not be very good.

Gaming Support

The refresh rate of the LG 27MD5KL-B UltraFine is 60Hz which isn’t ideal for fast paced gaming or having to edit fast moving video editing or ProMotion footage on.

However, we don’t recommend using the LG 27 Inch 5K with an eGPU on an Intel Mac.

Users have reported many issues with the monitor when connected via eGPU although some have also managed to get it working well too.

This is not an option for Apple Silicon Mac users as eGPUs don’t work with M-series Macs anyway.

LG 5K 27 Inch UltraFine vs Apple Studio Display

Many users choose the LG 5K 27 Inch UltraFine as a cheaper alternative to the Apple Studio Display.

However, although Apple’s display is more expensive, it does have some advantages over the 5K LG UltraFine.

These include:

• Support for 600 nits of brightness vs 500 nits in the LG UltraFine
• A quality Aluminum casing vs plastic casing in the LG UltraFine
• High quality six speaker system vs two in the LG UltraFine
• Support for True Tone which the LG UltraFine does not
• The Apple Studio Display Thunderbolt ports support up to USB-C 3.1 Gen 2 speeds vs the slower USB 3.0 in the LG UltraFine
• The Apple Studio Display features a 12 megapixel ultra-wide camera with support for Center Stage compared to a 1080p webcam in the LG UltraFine 5K 27 inch model.
• The Apple Studio has a professional studio quality three microphone array vs one in the LG UltraFine

However, neither the Apple Studio Display or the 5K LG UltraFine 27 inch support ProMotion or have mini-LED backlighting (although it’s rumored these will be added to the Apple Studio Display soon).

Scaling Issues On Macs

The big problem Mac users have with 5K external displays including the Apple Studio and Apple Pro XDR Display are scaling issues.

In full 5K, the monitor is great for video editing software like Final Cut Pro X with long timelines but not so good for reading text, word processing or desktop publishing as it minimizes the size of everything.

When using non Apple 5K displays such as the LG UltraFine 27 inch 5K, Mac users find that they can hardly read the tiny text when the monitor is using 5K resolution on a Mac due to technical limitations in macOS.

To prevent this, make sure that in the Display settings in macOS, that the “Default for Display” setting is selected which is usually 2560 x 1440 for most 5K monitors.

This will automatically select the best possible setting to use the LG UltraFine 27 inch 5K with a Mac although it may only be half of the monitors full resolution.

However, you can also change the resolution manually yourself and force it to use 5K by going into System Preferences > Displays and then hold down the Option key and click on Scaled.

You can then change the setting to full 5120 x 2880 5K although you will find that everything appears extremely small on your screen.

It’s therefore better to use a scaled resolution such as 3200 x 1800 or 2880 x 1620 which still provide a very clear and sharp picture and make it much easier to read text.

You can also use an app such as Display Menu ($1.99) to make this easier or there are also free open source software like BetterDisplay which allow you to customize scaling on macOS.

You can read more on how to fix resolution scaling issues on Macs here.

Drawbacks

Some users have reported problems with the LG 5K 27 inch 27MD5KL-B UltraFine monitor not reactivating after their Mac has gone to sleep.

This seems to be because that in some cases, the monitor does not save the settings and keeps resetting itself on waking-up.

However, this seems to be a random issue that affects a small number of users and may have been fixed in updates to macOS.

As already mentioned, the fact that at full 5K, everything looks small on the LG 27MD5KL-B is also a bit frustrating but this is the case with all non Apple 5K monitors on a Mac and simply requires scaling the resolution lower.

The plastic build quality on the LG also feels a bit flimsy for a monitor in this price range although it’s very common now in many big brand external displays.

You won’t get the glossy glass finish of the Apple Studio Display or the sexy metal finish of Apple’s product in many mass produced monitors nowadays.

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