Ask HN: Ultrawide monitors, what's your experience been like?

I have 2 wide now. 2 ultrawide would be hard to command the whole field. I could deal with a single ultrawide - as long as it was nearly as wide as my duet? 2 ultrawides would lead to craning of neck. I just bought a card that will drive 4 monitors for a new system, so I will try 2 up and 2 down - and see how I like it. I could try one up and one down with both ultrawide? In both cases I would tilt the top down a little and the left and right in a little. I do geological drawings, so it is good for spanning to all corners as well and cut and paste from panel to panel as I change stuff around.

At work I have one of the dell curved ultra wide monitors. (https://amzn.to/36tH96T). Love it.

I used to have multiple monitors, but many years ago I made the decision that it works better for me to completely control windowing concerns in software. (I use the i3 tiling manager for this.)

I have seen no reason to change.

I had the option at work to do either two monitors or one ultrawide. I took the ultrawide, and have never regretted it. You have to use window organization software to use it effectively. I use Spectacle for Mac, it does the job.

I am considering upgrading to a 4k moniter or a less-than-4k resolution ultra wide screen. Can anyone with experience in both tell me which you found to be better?

I needed to constantly move and tilt my head so much it hurt.

My specimen also had some problems with blurriness, I couldn't quite put a finger on what it was exactly, just it was definitely harder reading things on it compared to my previous setup, but this could be just an isolated manufacturing defect.

Got rid of it and went back to two 27" monitors: one primary straight in front of me where all the work happens, I don't have to move head while working on it. One secondary for less important side things. Both are 4K and so in total I have way more resolution this way than with a single ultrawide. Very happy with this setup.

I use the Dell 43". It's not perfect but it's pretty great for the price:

https://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop/dell-43-ultra-hd-4k-mul...

I switched to an ultrawide and i3 window manager at the same time, and it's been a game changer. I can't imagine going back to two side-by-side monitors. Being able to resize windows and not be restricted by the screen boundary is the real game changer for me.

I have two monitors, one of them ultrawide.

The UW is great. I am getting a second one. It is just more screen real estate and makes it easier to work off of, especially if you type and have research open at the same time.

I have a Dell 34" UltraWide curved and I love it. I upgraded from two monitors to a single UltraWide and not having a bezel is amazing, and the slight curve helps because my eyes don't need to refocus as I move from one corner to the other when looking at it. It has reduced my eye strain tremendously.

I use an a 38" Acer 3840x1600 ultrawide.

For 2D windowed applications, it works exactly as you'd expect. Be sure to have tiling support in your window manager for the best experience -- I typically have two windows opened side-by-side, and the Windows 10 window manager makes this tiling easy to do.

Support for ultrawide resolutions in full-screen applications like games can be hit or miss, but it generally works, and you can always fall back into standard widescreen or fullscreen resolutions with letterboxing if it doesn't.

One downside I've noticed is that due to the curved screen, glare from bright light sources (e.g., the sun) that reflects off the screen is somewhat out of focus with whatever is being displayed, which is fatiguing to look at. I don't know if this is a problem with this display in particular, or curved displays in general, but something to look out for.

Overall, I'm satisfied with my ultrawide, and will continue to use a single large display over multiple smaller displays in the future.

I cannot go back to 27” - ultrawide is game-changing for me.

Basically, it comes down to working on 3 interfaces seamlessly, versus two with a single screen. Think REFERENCE, ACTION, SOURCE/DESTINATION.

Couple that with using Spectacles (for Mac) to move windows in position with the keyboard, and Mouseless App to master keyboard shortcuts, and you’re flying.

I considered ditching my ultrawide to buy the new iMac 5K 27”, but it was more geared to 2 interfaces, not 3, so I couldn’t. Even though I prefer the hardware over my MacBook Air 11” 2015 - maxed out.

I love my LG 34UC80-B 34-Inch 21:9 Curved UltraWide. The Sceptre C305W-2560UN 30-inch 21:9 Super Curved Ultrawide is a great budget option.

I have a 49" with a native Res of 5120x1440 and can't use it with my MacBook Pro on MacOS.

Works fine in Windows but can't go past 4096x1440@70hz in MacOS...

I've tried them but far prefer running triple-head setups (since the days of Xfree and CRTs). Triple-head is pretty easy these days and gives you one central monitor plus one either side to chuck windows onto. Current set-up is 3xDell U2715H for a total of (2560*3)x1440 (and 10 workspaces).

If you are going wide, consider vertical resolution/vertical size as well (to minimise swivelling side to side).

I doesn't work for me, but that's probably very application-specific. I'm not a dev nor a graphic/video artist, my work is motly editing office docs. Why it didn't work for me: 1- OSes are rather bad at handling large monitors. You can't just dumbly Maximize anymore, which is what I always do. Windows positions don't get memorized so your screen is a permanent mess. 2- I need the doc I'm working on, sources, and social/comms/entertainment. That's an ideal setup for 3 monitors and a good stand 3- it's hella expensive. 4- it maps better to how my brain works ?

I want back to 3 medium, cheap monitors, and I'm happier.

Copying my answer from "Ultrawide or 4k?" - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21451124

> I picked 34" Ultrawide. It works just fine for everything. Easy to read, almost two "regular" monitors worth of screen space. Gaming on 3440x1440 is hard to max out (but easier than 4k), but you barely notice the difference between 3440x1440 and 2560x1080 in most games.

> I actually quite like the aspect ratio - it means I can have 2 windows in normal proportions (IDE for example) and another one on the side (terminal for example)

> 1 thing to note; I thought 34" Ultrawide will be bigger screen than it turned out to be.

Absolutely love it. For Mac OS - spectacle or magnet are a must for arranging windows though.

Advantage of multiple monitors: you can turn one 90 degrees if you work a lot with vertical documents.

I have an LG 29", 2560x1080, flat monitor.

It's great for having two full windows side to side (e.g. Firefox and a Terminal), and I love it in my sim racing games, the extra field of view helps a lot with immersion.

For the longest time, I was using dual 1920x1080 screens.

Eventually, I decided to upgrade and got myself a 31.5" 4k display. That lasted about 6 months before I ditched it for a 34" 3440x1440p Ultrawide.

I found coding on the 4k screen to be just too difficult, I had to scale the text way up for things to be readable. However, since I use a laptop running Fedora which I connect to through a thunderbolt dock, I found one monitor to be much less... finicky than using two (I'd briefly considered getting two 2k screens). So far, I've been much happier with the Ultrawide.

My wife took the big 4k monitor off my hands and is using it with her mac mini. I'll admit, MacOS does appear to do a better job dealing with a 4k screen than Gnome.

Love mine, they're way, way better than having two 24 inch screens side by side. But here's the thing — you need a tiling window manager. That's the only way I've found myself actually utilising the 'sides' of the screen and not just the smack dab centre.

I use Amethyst on Mac OS, which is great. https://ianyh.com/amethyst/

I had one for two years. I recently switched back to two 27' inch monitors and I won't ever go back. You'd need to tile it and even then it's not worth it. I don't recommend it, it's too clunky and big. If you're gaming or watching movies on it a lot it's cool, but for coding I'd pass.

I don't use an ultrawide* but if you're on Windows and get sick of having to move the mouse cursor all the way across the screen then I can recommend getting DisplayFusion and enabling the "Wrap mouse cursor around left/right monitor edges" function.

*: My setup is two 27" monitors next to each other: one in portrait mode and one landscape mode.

I've had so many screens... I've run 3x 27" 1440p (that felt oppressive), 2x 23.8" 1080p (comfortable), 43" 4k (loads of vertical real estate for reading code), and currently on a 35" 1440p 21:9 ultra wide.

Ultra wide is like having two screens, when splitting windows left and right, though I think two monitors is better for work, as you can put one as the primary and one off to the side, you don't want to be looking sideways when working on code.

When I was reading a lot of code I didn't write, the 4k was the best, as it had a lot of vertical space.

The ultra wide I bought for games (it's 120hz).

I'm about to start a new gig and I'll run 2x23.8" 1080p for that.

Phillips make decent 4k screens at 40" and 43" for the money, but they are glossy so no good if you have glare problems.

The nicest screens overall for work I find are the Dell ultra sharp line. They are premium in price but side by side to a cheaper monitor and you can see why!

I have a 27" ultra sharp that is about 8 years old and is still fantastic compared to most mid range monitors, it's worth the investment. 1x 27" is nice, 2x 23.8" is nice.

Samsung make good ultra wides for work, and they make some ultra ultra wides too!

I’m on dell ultra wide and not happy with it. The angle isn’t quite right except in the very middle, strains my eyes. Going back to dual monitors soon. Also prefer having one in portrait and one in landscape orientation.

I use 3440x1440 with 2560x1440 on each side.

By day this is a productivity powerhouse, currently Ubuntu 19.10 with an extremely minimal i3 desktop.

I use the left monitor for terminals and the ultrawide normally the entire expanse for my work in sublime text - on my font settings, I can get five panes of 80-col files side by side. The right monitor is Chrome and F12 for whatever I’m building.

I love my ultrawide. I was very hesitant at first and thought I may dislike it but it actually feels like I want an even larger expanse now! It works well for me, I know some don’t like it and I can see why. Part of why it works so well for me I think is my use of i3 which makes it really easy to fully utilise all the space.

And part 2 of the above... by night it’s running Steam on Windows 10 and it’s absolutely fantastic for gaming, especially the genre I lean towards (driving/vehicle simulation). Since NVIDIA still don’t allow mixed resolution surround, and I want ultrawide for work, ultrAwide gaming was a necessity which turned out to be pretty fantastic. Games like ETS2, ATS and Assetto Corsa feel that bit more immersive with the extra windscreen space. The monitor fills a good part of my vision and as I have trackir too, it’s really quite immersive overall.

Brands or models - Mine is the AOC U3477PQU which was extremely popular but is now sadly discontinued with no replacement. No bad word to say about it. I’m actually planning to buy another ultrawide soon and mount it vertically above the current one; I may end up getting a used U3477PQU again (AOC don’t seem to currently make any non-gaming ultrawides which is odd seeing how many they sold).

So with AOC gone, LG are basically the market leaders and supply panels to many others (AOC included I think) and Dell are also high-end. I know Samsung and Iiyama have some compelling value options at the lower end of the market.