Review of the LG™ 22M38D-B Monitor

by Mike Wright

May 23, 2016

General
The LG™ 22M38 is a 22" (21½ actual) 1920x1080 low cost LED monitor manufactured by Goldstar Company Ltd.
Price
$109 US. I purchased mine on sale for $89. Great price!
Physical
Very thin and light weight with a low-profile 1/2 inch bezel.
Rear connectors for DVI-D and VGA face rearward so it can't be flush mounted against a wall without the purchase of right angle video adapters.
Controls are easily accessable on the lower right of the monitor.
Base is rather flimsy so using the controls rocks the monitor. Hope it doesn't break.
Tilt is limited but standard.
Neck positions monitor 3½" above desktop. Because of the monitor's extreme color gradient (see Color below) or if you're tall you will have to prop it up so that midscreen is at a comfortable level and gradient effect is minimized.
Electrical
Power is provided by a wall wart which explains the unit's light weight and thinness.
Prong orientation on the wall wart hogs space on power strips and wall outlets.
Display
High resolution 1920x1080 is very sharp with no discernable distortion.
Visible portion extends under the bezel and there are no size adjustments which limits usefulness of fullscreen modes. Windows must be manually resized to fit perfectly.
Update: after using a different video card and cable for digital as opposed to analog data the monitor does size correctly.
Color
At desktop distance there is an extreme gradient from dark at the top to light at the bottom. For a wall display that will be looked at from a distance it's not as noticeable.
Very disappointed in the default color settings. Reminded me of very early color televisions where people had purple skin and green hair (don't get me wrong... I like green hair).
The following settings work for me to correct for the strange default cast:
BrightnessContrastRedGreenBlue
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There are five predifined color profiles: Custom, Text, Photo, Cinema, and Game. Ignore the names and explore them to find which work best for your various tasks. In order to create the adjustments recommended above you will have to select the Custom profile. I found that watching Netflix™ seemed to look best for me using the Photo profile.
Overall
The price was attractive enough that I bought two of them for a dual display setup. That said, I'm hoping it wasn't a mistake. The vertical color intensity gradient is extremely annoying and trying to find just the right adjustments to make the colors realistic is a pain in the butt. If you're a video junky or are doing any kind of work where color accuracy is important, this is probably not the monitor for you.