How can I confirm through monitor specifications that they will match an existing display?

I couple weeks back I bought a MacBook Pro with Retina display and I love it. To go along with it I bought a second monitor; a generic LG-branded monitor. My issue is that the colors on the LG monitor are very different from the Retina display. Please make note that I said the colors and not the resolution. I expected that the colors should be the same. I tried every kind of configuration but I think that this is some kind of hardware limitation. How can I tell by looking at monitor specifications if that monitor's colors will be more alike or different from the Retina's display? What is the standard "attribute" that I have to be careful about to check that?

In a perfect world I would call Dell and say something like "Send me a monitor. If I get the same image on both, I'll send you the check, if not, I'll send the monitor back".

I don't care if the colors are right or wrong, but I need to look at both monitors (retina MBP, and secondary) and see the same thing. The image below is quite illustrative of my current status: enter image description here
I even tried the advanced config and I still believe it's a hardware issue.

Leonardo

Posted 2014-08-28T15:20:55.983

Reputation: 127

4I don't know if it's exactly the answer that you are looking for but it is absolutely normal that the colours are different unless the monitors are calibrated. To do that there are numerous techniques (that you can easily find online) but the best/most accurate imply the use of colorimeter (such as Spyder's probes). – None – 2014-08-28T15:35:37.913

Not every TV or monitor is perfectly calibrated to your video adapter. The built in reference is also user selectable. The options are brightness, contrast and colour temperature and in some cases Gamma. The video options are also programmable with Windows video adapter software (nVidia etc.) including the above and the gamma for each colour with separate controls for desktop and video. This option to control brightness contrast and gamma for each RGB color permits you to see judge a 16 step brightness test pattern to get equal gray steps at each level. Optical calibrators exist to make easy. – None – 2014-08-28T15:44:49.227

Is the LG monitor even an IPS display? How are you calibrating the monitor? – Jason – 2014-08-28T19:56:40.823

Answers

You'll be amazed if you see several monitors next to eachother showing "the same color". As a photo enthousiast, I dealt with the same question a few years ago. The following three things helped me enormously:

Learn about subtractive and additive colors and understand color spaces and color temperature.
Several monitor brands sell special monitors for color reproduction purposes. In general the demands an average consumer has are different from that of exact color reproduction.
Different monitor technologies (such as CRT, LED, LCD, IPS and their variants) render colors in a very different way. Also the specifications of the screen itself (material, layers, filters, ...) can have a dramatic impact on the color rendering.
I bought a Datacolor Spyder Express (I don't own stocks and I am not in any way affiliated to this company or its products), which improved the (software and hardware) settings of my monitor.

Finally, note that different monitor techniques (LED, LCD, AMOLED, CRT) product colors in very different ways.

agtoever

Posted 2014-08-28T15:20:55.983

Reputation: 5 490

I work for a company that does a lot of label printing and those Spyders have been very helpful to my users there. It's well worth their cost. – Daniel Chateau – 2014-08-28T18:02:17.840

quite not it... pls check my edit – Leonardo – 2014-08-28T18:03:59.400

2@Leonardo: see third (added) bullet. The technical specs of your Mac (retina IPS display) and your LG (probably LCD) are probably very different. Even if you LG uses IPS too, the composition of the used layers of material are different, the color processing in the monitor is different, etc. I've seen a lot Mac's and LCD/LED/IPS monitors next to each other and every time the colors are very different. Again: that's because almost all monitors are not made with the purpose of actual color reproduction. – agtoever – 2014-08-28T18:18:01.790

so basically what youre saying is that i cannot get this "info" on the product specs – Leonardo – 2014-08-28T18:35:49.607