 You've seen the commercials, you've heard the hype, you've... uh... probably read about that whole router debacle with the faulty shielding, but that's fixed now. And there's no denying then that the 27-inch LG 27MD 5K Ultra-Fine 5K monitor is one of the slickest on the market right now. But does the fact that it's being aimed primarily at Apple zombies, it even launched exclusively through the Apple Store, mean that it's a no-go for Windows geeks? I mean, it's just a monitor, right? It should be okay, right? Well, let's peel back the layers of this sexy little onion and see if she makes us cry. Synergy is the software that lets you share your mouse and keyboard between multiple computers. Check it out now at the link in the video description. The experience of unboxing the Ultra-Fine 5K, though not quite on Apple's level, was definitely more pleasing than what we're used to from LG. Immediately apparent upon unboxing the product and removing it from its super cool, shiny spacesuit are a couple of unusual characteristics of the LG 5K's industrial design. It's got a sophisticated matte finish, it's disappointingly plastic, rather than aluminum like the Apple Cinema Displays of yore, but it still looks and feels pretty good. It lacks buttons entirely, so that means no on-screen display for making adjustments to the inputs or image quality, though at least one of those isn't important as we'll see later. And the thickest side of the bezel, which would normally be on the bottom, we'd call it the chin bar, is actually at the top. So do we call this like a brow bar? But this is interesting. It looks like they were making room for the ambient light sensor that should be enabled through a future software update at some point, and the only disruption to the 5K's otherwise totally clean facade, the very nice looking 1080p camera and front-facing microphone. The base stands out from the crowd as well. It's solidly constructed with a pleasing, high-quality vibe and offers both a generous degree of tilt and near-giraffe-like vertical reach, and if that's not enough, there's actually a vase amount included in the box, which I guess brings us pretty well around to the back. The 6-foot power cord attaches seamlessly, apple-style to the rear panel, and would you look at that IO? A single port type rules the entire panel. Whether you like it or not, this is probably a window into the USB Type-C dominated future that we are headed for. So these three are USB 3.1 5Gb data ports, each capable of pushing 7.5W of power, so enough to charge your phone or other USB device. And this one, which is the only input on this monitor, that's right, just one, looks the same as the other ones, but has far more going on under the hood. It's a Thunderbolt 3 input, which allows it to not only carry the data for those USB ports and the 882 million pixels per second from your machine to the display, but also to push 85W of power the other way, enough to charge your laptop. That's right, kids, this one-cord solution lets you leave your charger in your backpack, because the included 6.5-foot cable is all it takes to transform your supported laptop into a full-on 5K workstation. And they absolutely nailed this whole experience with the 2016 MacBook Pro. Side-by-side, everything about the image looks just right, from the color, to the eye-piercing 500-knit brightness on Macs, to the very similar anti-glare glossy appearance, to the retina-like astonishing sharpness of the 218-pixel-per-inch panel. But we promised this was a Windows user's perspective, didn't we? So let's plug it into a Razer Blade. Okay, there we go, and uh, wow! That actually looks really sharp- Wait a tick! There's no five in that number. Why the heck is Windows capping the resolution somewhere between Ultra HD and the native 5K that the display supports? Windows 10 can go up to 8K! So what gives? Relax, Tech Tips Linus. Tech Quickie Linus? Is that you? It sure is. So you remember that one-cord solution that you were all excited about, right? Excited about a second ago. Uh-huh. Well, it turns out that driving a 5K display over one cable is an industry first. All other 5K and up monitors use two DisplayPort cables. Driving 5K over one is only achievable right now using special Apple shenanigans. Why? Well, a Thunderbolt 3 cable can actually carry two DisplayPort 1.2 ports worth of data. But the Thunderbolt 3 port on your Windows machine can't send enough to fill those eight DisplayPort lanes because of how it's hooked up internally. The reason you can do this on your 2016 MacBook Pro is because Apple implemented a special controller that funnels the resources of two DisplayPort ports into that single Thunderbolt 3. That's why if you were to try to plug in two ultra-fine 5Ks in your 2016 MacBook Pro, which you can totally do, by the way, you have to plug them in to opposite sides of the machine for both to work. The more you know, right? This episode was brought to you by Freshbook. Hey, where are you going? Alright, I'll take it from here. Okay, then. So, in a nutshell, the ultra-fine 5K is more like the ultra-fine 4-in-a-bit-K when it's used with anything but the 2016 MacBook Pro. And unfortunately, it actually gets worse than that. Because there's no on-screen display, you're relying on integration with the OS to control the monitor, which is fantastic on the Mac, but your mileage may vary on Windows. We were able to control the volume of the surprisingly decent internal speakers, but we couldn't manage to adjust the screen brightness up or down. And it's not just resolution difference and lack of control that are iffy. Because Windows relies on applications to do all color matching rather than doing it pixel by pixel on the OS level like the Mac, PC users will never get to experience the consistently awesome color accuracy enabled by this factory-calibrated display. To be clear, it's still a very good 8-bit IPS panel with AFRC to simulate 10-bit color, and it's got 99% coverage of the DCI-P3 color space. So even on a Windows machine, it'll be suitable for photo editing and graphics work. But at $1,700, you'd be paying a premium for oomph that you aren't receiving. And this is especially true when you consider that both Dell and HP have 27-inch 5K offerings with somewhat similar specs at lower price points. So while 5K at this size is awesome, I mean, really, I can clearly make out objects in the backgrounds of thumbnail-sized images, and the LG UltraFine 5K will be arguably the best display experience on the market for the MacBook Pro until Apple challenges it with their own upcoming Cinema Display refresh. On Windows, the experience could be better described as fine than ultra-fine. Synergy is a software download that solves the problem of having two keyboards and two mice cluttering up your desk. It allows you to share one mouse and one keyboard between two or even more computers, so you'll no longer get confused which keyboard or mouse goes for which one. They've got a basic and a pro option with a one-time payment for lifetime access, and features include things like clipboard sharing between the computers, dragging and dropping files between the computers, the ability to set up hotkeys, and more. And what's even more amazing is it works cross-platform. Windows, Mac, and Linux. Pfft! So use our link in the video description to get 50% off Synergy today. So thanks for watching guys, if this video sucked you know what to do, but if it was awesome, get subscribed, hit that like button, or check out the link to where to buy the stuff we featured in the video description. Also down there is a link to our merch store which has cool shirts like this one, and our community forum which you should totally join.