
Ask HN: Ultrawide monitors, what's your experience been like? - JacKTrocinskI
I need a monitor for work that has lots of space so that I can open up different applications side by side.  I was initially considering buying two separate monitors but am now considering ultrawide monitors as an option as well.  For those of you with ultrawide monitors, what&#x27;s your experience been like?  Are there any brands or models that you recommend?  Is there anything I should look out for?
======
MegaDeKay
I have a Dell U3818DW and you'd have to pry it out of my cold, dead fingers. I
can be working on a document with Word in the middle, a relevant Visio drawing
to the left, and an Excel spreadsheet I need some analysis numbers from on the
right. It is joy incarnate.

I have VFIO setup so I can run Linux as my main OS and Windows in a VM with
GPU passthrough for basically bare-metal speed. The Dell can either switch to
that input (of course) or I can do Picture in Picture with a selection of two
different sizes. That lets me putter in Linux on my main display while keeping
an eye on Windows upates in the PIP (or whatever). The Dell properly scales
the screen, unlike the horrible scaling on the Acer that someone else
mentioned in this thread.

The glare mentioned by somebody else is not an issue as the Dell has an anti-
glare display. Not to mention factory color calibration. Not to mention a
three year warranty that even covers you for a single dead pixel. It has USB-
Cx1, DisplayPortx1, and HDMIx2. There's a bunch of other nice features too
that I didn't mention. If you are a gamer (I'm not), this probably isn't for
you as it doesn't have FreeSync / GSync.

Spend the money. It is worth it. Keep an eye out for sales. I'd buy it again
in a second.

~~~
runjake
Off-topic but I want to hear more about this VFIO setup.

------
TacticalCoder
I switched from two monitors to a single, curved, ultra-wide 38" doing
3840x1600 pixels (LG 38UC99-W) about two years ago. I would never go back. I
took maybe two days to get used to it. At first it was funny: going back to a
flat screen and I would see the _flat screen_ curved (!) but this weird effect
disappeared after a few days and now I can use either curved of flat screen
and everything always look normal: it's amazing how fast we adapt.

That's 3x 1280 wide columns (I don't always use three columns of the exact
same width that said). That's a lot of screen real estate already.

Common setups I use are three columns (say IDE / Emacs in the middle, browser
at the left / terminal bottom left / PDF open on the right / another terminal
at the bottom left) or two columns. I often also have one virtual desktop with
9 terminals opened.

IMO when you begin to go really ultrawide the pixels "in the corners" are kind
far away compared to the others. A slightly curved monitor helps a lot with
that.

Now I don't game and don't watch movie on my monitor so there may be better
3840x1600 monitors than the one I picked two years ago.

I try to arrange things logically and always in the same order, so I always
now on with "virtual workspace" I'll find what opened. I use a tiling window
manager and keyboard shortcuts to resize windows.

Only app I run in full screen is photo-editing software. I take it audio and
video editing software would do too.

~~~
slg
>a single, curved, ultra-wide 38" doing 3840x1600 pixels... That's 3x 1280
wide columns...

This is incredibly important for day to day use. A lot of ultrawides will have
a horizontal resolution of 3440. If you want to split that into 2 or 3 columns
you will be left with windows sized at 1720 and 1146.67 respectively. Those
are weird resolutions. No one is specifically designing programs or websites
for a horizontal resolution of 1146.67. However a resolution of 3840 splits
nice and cleanly into 1920 and 1280. Those are the standard horizontal
resolution for 1080p and 720p. Almost all programs and websites will be
designed to work well at those specific horizontal resolutions. Therefore
using an ultrawide with a horizontal resolution of 3840 is just going to feel
more natural.

~~~
TacticalCoder
Yes exactly: back when I bought that screen it just came out (I think) and was
quite a price jump compared to a similar but "only" 34" LG doing 3440x1600
(same pixel size, just a bit less pixels). So I thought the way you just
explained and decided to shell out the extra bucks to get a 3840x1600.

------
slowwwclap
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.

~~~
JacKTrocinskI
I was actually looking at that exact model LG, good to hear from someone that
owns one.

------
obarthelemy
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.

~~~
slowwwclap
There is software to resolve issue 1 with keyboard or mouse/trackpad shortcuts
for nearly all OSes.

~~~
0x008
can you recommend any good for windows? powertoys doesn't work for me.

------
theevilsharpie
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.

------
jcadam
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.

~~~
mattrp
I use a 65” 4K screen as my home office monitor. I had a 21:9 monitor before
this but i always felt I was missing the top half of my screen. Now admittedly
every time I sit down at this I hear my mother saying, don’t sit so close to
the tv... but I do like having the ability to push things off to the side...
it’s like a big vertical work top.

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

------
xeno42
I had a Dell 38" ultrawide that I loved, but it did not survive a cross-
country move so I just replaced it with a Philips 499P9H 49" ultrawide -
5120x1440 - Really the same dimensions as two 27" monitors side by side, but
without a center seam

So far, I really like it - But getting it to work at full resolution with my
2013 Mac Pro has been frustrating - It essentially cannot be done at full
resolution with a single cable, unless you boot into Windows (also true for
Mac Minis, but apparently newer Macbook Pros can drive it) - Despite what you
may read, hacks such as SwitchResX will not help here; it's a limitation of
the Mac's video card drivers that Apple seem uninterested in addressing.

The "solution", for me, has to drive it using two identical Mini
Displayport->HDMI cables as if it were two screens and then have MacOS treat
it as a single space. Using identical ports/cables has meant the color
temperature on both halves is identical and i cannot tell it is not being
driven as a single display, other than the fact the menu bar is only on one
half of the screen.

Aside from that, it would be nice it were higher resolution, but the older I
get, the less my eyes notice and the extra width is more useful than the DPI.

------
Clubber
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...](https://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop/dell-43-ultra-hd-4k-multi-
client-monitor-p4317q/apd/210-ahsq/monitors-monitor-accessories)

~~~
theevilsharpie
I have an LG 43" display at work, which probably uses the same panel as the
Dell monitor.

It generally works as advertised, but sitting at distance one would normally
site from a monitor (as demonstrated on Dell's marketing in the parent post),
the extreme edges of the display aren't visible, because they're in the
shadows of the bezel.

This is generally just a mild annoyance, but it can be workflow-impacting. For
example, I use Ubuntu with the application launcher bar docked to the left
side, which means that the dots indicating which application (and how many
instances) are open is on the extreme left side of the display. I have to lean
to my left in order to see these dots, because they aren't visible when I'm
sitting upright and looking directly at the screen.

Also, while I've gotten used to it, sitting at a normal monitor distance
involves a lot of vertical head movement.

Overall, I'm satisfied with what I got for the price, but I would have gotten
the same 38" ultrawide that I use at home if I had the budget for it.

------
pheug
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.

------
lefstathiou
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.

------
hamaluik
I have a 32" curved ultrawide (3440x1440) at home and a 32" 4k at work. I work
and game from home, and I mostly prefer the ultrawide even though it has less
pixels.

For the ~ decade before I got this monitor I used to use 2x24" 1080p displays
at home, but always ended up craning my neck using them as you either have the
bezel down the centre to fit and then you're constantly looking to the side,
or have one monitor way off to the side so it's even less useful. I find
myself turning my head much less with an ultrawide for whatever reason.

Compared to the similarly sized 4k monitor I use at work, the one at home is
essentially just shorter. It makes using 4 tiled windows not as good, but I
don't really miss it (though this could be due to the tiling WM I use).

I don't do a ton of gaming anymore—but when I do, it's awesome. Surprisingly
immersive.

I dual boot my computer at home with Linux / Windows, and use Linux as my
daily driver with i3 [1]. I do find the monitor much more usable in Linux with
i3 managing windows and workspaces than the occasions I need to develop on
Windows (on Windows, I hate how windows just pop up pretty much where-ever).
When working I tend to keep two windows side-by-side, one for my editor and
the other for whatever I'm working on (terminal instance, android emulator,
website, etc). I then use hotkeys to switch instantly between workspaces so
it's quite fluid, but the monitor plays less into that. When I first bought
mine I had visions of using 3 windows side-by-side, but I just never do that
in practice for some reason. I also run everything at 1x scale, so the added
vertical screen real estate (1440 vs 1080) is quite useful.

I use LG monitors almost exclusively, but that's simply because of
cost—they're almost always cheaper than other brands and I've never had any
problems with them. They may not be as high quality or stacked as full of
features as other brands but they've always been good enough for me.

I'm never going back to dual-screens—to me they seem embarrassingly bad in
pretty much every way compared to a single ultrawide these days.

[1]: [https://i3wm.org/](https://i3wm.org/)

------
rolleiflex
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/](https://ianyh.com/amethyst/)

------
ryan-allen
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!

------
PaulDavisThe1st
I use 3 monitors:

2 x ASUS @ 1920 x 1200 (total: 3840 x 1200) 1 x 42" 4K TCL "TV" @ 1920 x 1080

I (almost) never have a window I want to span monitors (or be larger than a
single monitor). I like the organization that the monitors force on me. I use
5 workspaces ("Work", "IRC", "Telegram", "Web", "Music") and in each
workspace, the left and right halves (the two ASUS monitors) provide distinct
zones within the workspace. In the "Work" workspace, for example, the left
side is invariable terminals, the right side is invariable emacs. In the
"telegram" workspace, the right side is (Surprise!) telegram, and the left is
any other application i need to use while communicating via telegram. Etc.
etc.

If I had an ultrawide, it would remove the "bezel" divider between the two
ASUS monitors and require me to keep that left/right organization all by
myself. Boo.

The TV screen is "special" and not in use normally, but when I use it, it's
invaluable because it's huge.

------
k4ch0w
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.

------
dstaley
I have a Samsung 49" 32:9 ultrawide with a resolution of 5120x1440. The
primary reason I went with this monitor is that I use two computers: one
provided by my employer and another provided by the government agency I'm
contracting with. The model I have supports picture-by-picture, which makes
jumping between the two computers really easy.

Apart from that, I do really enjoy all the screen real estate. It's nice to be
able to have a full-sized browser window and two instances of VS Code all
running within a visible portion of the screen. That being said, I'd easily
give it up for a reasonably priced 27in 5K display that works over
DisplayPort. The extra screen space is nice, but I'd much rather a display
that had crisp, high-DPI text.

------
jryan49
Amazing. I can never go back. Everytime I have to go back to using two
monitors it's feels so awkward and unnatural. I didn't think it would have
this big of an effect but being able to center windows on the screen and have
equal space on the sides really helped my workflow. I'm a programmer. I also
got one that is 144hz. It's so smooth. It's such a pleasure to work on. I can
read text as it scrolls now! Totally worth the money if you stare at a monitor
all day.

I have a 1440p. I would think 4k would not be worth it. Also way to hard to
drive

If you have a laptop just make sure it can drive it. And that you have the
proper cable. Mine was finicky until I got the proper 8k dp cable.

------
aurizon
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.

------
GaryGapinski
I've been using inexpensive ~40-inch-diagonal 4K (3840×2160) televisions as
monitors for quite a few years and will continue to do so. Current one is TCL
43S405 (wife commandeered the Sony 43X800E). A single monitor makes for far
less configuration fuss — multiple monitors coerce distinct assignments and as
well introduce discontinuities in the midst of the workspace (of which I was
once tolerant, but no longer). I have yet to try anything in the 50-inch
diagonal range, which would likely work but the periphery might go largely
unused.

------
forrestthewoods
At work I use a single Dell 38" 21:9 ultrawide curved. Ultrawide + curved is
100% the way to go for productivity imho. Make sure you get a monitor with
1440 vertical resolution and not 1080.

At home I use a single flat 27" 16:9 1440p 144Hz so I can game.

I wrote my own, super simple Windows tool to help control window placement.
[https://github.com/forrestthewoods/fts_winsnap](https://github.com/forrestthewoods/fts_winsnap)

------
teruakohatu
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?

~~~
dukoid
I tried an ultra wide monitor, but I somehow found the limited height
annoying. I am much happier with the screen space distribution since I have
switched to a 43 inch 4k monitor. Mostly using it for coding. Nice to have a
full IDE on the left and an emulator or web window on the right. When viewing
code, height is quite important to get a better overview of a function or
class.

~~~
corysama
At work, I use a 32" 4K monitor for code/web searches + a laptop screen for
Slack. At home I use a 34" 1440 rez ultrawide + a 1080p to the side for
music/YouTube/Slack.

I don't have a strong preference. But, if I had to choose, I guess I'd go with
the 4K setup. When I have 3 documents side-by-side, seamless on the ultrawide,
it is really nice and clean. But, I do feel the lack of height. At work I tend
to have dozens of scattered windows across multiple virtual 4K desktops piled
up over the course of multiple weeks. Having multiple columns of very tall
code panels in one 4K editor window is very nice when I need it.

------
hazeii
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).

------
cpr
I use a 32" 4K monitor (LG UltraFine 32UL950-W) directly in front (landscape),
and an identical 32" 4K monitor to the right (portrait) off a rMBP 2016, which
gives me the best of both worlds. (Both running Retina mode at logical
1900x1080.)

The landscape monitor is for the usual tasks, and the portrait monitor for
coding (100 visible code lines in 15pt Operator Mono in VScode).

A fantastic combination.

~~~
Terretta
By running 2 x 4K screens, you have a multiple of MP (megapixels) compared to
the UW fans in this thread who are essentially just running two mid-2000s
resolution screens without a seam — I don’t get it.

If monitors were sold by MP like cameras, all this ‘resolution’ stuff would
stop confusing buyers.

~~~
cpr
I should have expanded my answer a bit and said that I had tried some UW
screens, and they didn't have the vertical dimensions that the 4K screens
have, even in landscape mode.

Thus my hybrid solution.

------
mcqueenjordan
At work I have one of the dell curved ultra wide monitors.
([https://amzn.to/36tH96T](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.

~~~
thenaturalist
This is an Amazon affiliate link and the author will earn kickbacks if you
make purchases after clicking that link.

------
DavidVoid
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.

------
kogir
All the "ultrawide" monitors I've seen are just cropped 4k or 5k screens.
Having used full-size versions (3840x2160@32" and 7680x4320@32") I'd never
voluntarily give up the vertical space.

If you can find yourself a good deal on a 16:9 27-32" 4k screen, you'll
appreciate the extra usable space.

~~~
Terretta
> _7680x4320@32_

Any models that you like? That’s 33 megapixels, fantastic!

~~~
kogir
As far as I know Dell is still the only game in town with the UP3218K. You'll
want to run it scaled though for it to be usable (I use 150% or 200%), and
I've only seen it work on PC. Maybe the new Mac Pro can handle it?

------
duxup
I'm using a Dell U3419w (34 inch ultra wide).

I'm a web dev, I love it, it is effectively windows at a time. It helps that
there is a built in KVM, and it works great as a USB hub with USB-C.

The software to manage window placement is extremely helpful as well.

I go to work with a dual monitor setup and am kinda underwhelmed / annoyed.

------
my_usernam3
I've used one a handful of times and if my company ever gives me an option to
switch, I would in a heartbeat for one reason alone... merge-conflicts!

At least for intellij, merge conflicts get resolved in a three screen mode,
and ultrawide monitors handles them in a way that dual monitor, or normal
aspect ratios can't compare.

------
X-Istence
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.

------
mekane8
I use a 34" 21:9 Dell monitor at work and I love it. As other have mentioned,
you can get two super wide or three reasonable windows side-by-side, which is
great. And I like the option to have a super wide terminal for the overly-
verbose Java console output I get to debug.

------
cs02rm0
I've got the LG 5k2k 34".

It's great for what I use it for, mostly software development. Only issue I
have is that occasionally MacOS decides it can't see it or won't use the full
resolution and I have to do a bit of plugging and unplugging.

I might get a smaller 4k monitor on the side. I really value a lot of pixels.

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

------
WarDores
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.

~~~
wutbrodo
I've been incrementally tweaking my desktop setup for a decade, and it's
always nice to look back and see how much more productive I am than N years
ago.

But I'm shocked at what a quantum leap in productivity switching to i3wm was,
with an upfront cost that's actually pretty low.

The last piece of my desktop usage that isn't controllable and amenable to
incremental improvements is the browser. This is unfortunately a pretty large
chunk of my recreational use, so my next mini-projects are probably going to
be around investing in getting more familiar with extensions.

------
fgonzag
The only reason I wouldn't recommend it is that it becomes a necessity.

I can no longer code on my laptop to save my life, after running a stacked
dual 34" \+ 29" UW setup.

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

------
kevlawrence
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.

------
karmakaze
I use a single 42.5" LG 4k monitor. Never use the full width or height except
for watching media. Works fine.

At the office I use a 27" 4k monitor with the 15" MacbookPro off to the side
for Slack. Also fine.

------
paride5745
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.

~~~
larkeith
I have the same monitor, use it with my laptop for developing, and it's really
nice - I can keep Slack, documentation, and sometimes a terminal open on the
29" while I use my laptop screen for VSCode. Definitely improves my
efficiency.

------
bparsons
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.

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chrisbennet
I have a Dell U3818DW (38' 3840x1600 curved) and a Dell U2718Q (27"
3840x2160). I love them. They are big enough that I don't need to wear glasses
(I'm older).

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phunkter
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...

~~~
mattrp
Get switchres.. you can lower the refresh until it displays the desired
resolution.

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buboard
i prefer ultrawides , and not too big ones, as i think sitting in front of
many monitors too many hours gives me headache.

I do have an issue with wobbling though. i dont understand why they dont make
an ultawide with two supports

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ilmiont
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.

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K0SM0S
I went a different way and bought a 42" 4K display¹ (that's roughly the same
PPI as 27" @1440p, so 100% zoom on Windows or Linux is just fine, no UI
scaling nonsense).

So basically I have 42 inches (107 cm) worth of diagonal in front of me:

Height: 20.84" (≈53 cm); Width: 37.05" (≈94 cm); PPI: 103.64 (≈41 pixel/cm).

This gives me 476x118 lines (476 = _5.95_ × 80 chars!) in full-screen terminal
using small-enough fonts² (no reading difficulty here, productivity/comfort >
all). Key thing being, _vertical_ space versus a much shorter ultrawide (but
about as much horizontal real estate). I think it matters a lot for coders,
sysadmins, people who look at text (code, logs), long lists and tables in
general.

I must confess that I feel slightly constrained by this monster in a way I
hadn't anticipated: whereas real estate is never much of an issue, what I'd
call "lack of separation of concerns" emerges: most Desktop Environments are
not designed to manage several spaces, at best you get quick quarter-screen
resizing for a window but that's weak when you have room for almost 4×1000
pixels horizontally (and more than 2000 horizontal). Remember, this isn't like
your typical laptop at 4K: you _really_ have all those pixels to work with at
100% scaling.

So you'd want more avanced features, and moving to e.g. i3 (Linux DE, or
rather WM) begins to make a lot of sense.

The software is necessary to managing all that real estate, and it's a little
bit of a desert because we haven't really moved to the "wall of screens",
"cover my field of view" paradigm just yet. If you like tinkering and use
Linux you probably can get 80-99% of the way there though, depending on how
demanding you are.

____

But beyond that I think I'll eventually extend this setup to a 3-screen
config, with two side 24" displays in portrait mode (which at 1080p unscaled,
or 1440p scaled by 1.25, yields almost the exact same PPI as the middle 42.5"
juggernaut). Something like that, with _either_ 2×B _or_ 2×C for obvious
symmetry:

    
    
        ┌───┬───────┬───┐ A: 2160p 100%, PPI 103.64
        │24"│  42"  │24"│ B: 1080p 100%, PPI  91.79
        │ B │   A   │ C │ C: 1440p 125%, PPI  97.91
        └───┴───────┴───┘    (C = 1152×2048 usable)
    

This would allow me to put things "aside" literally so — monitoring and
tracking, ref docs/notes, previews... Things I'd rather not move or rarely so.

I would never trade my uninterrupted 42" for the little convenience of
optional separation, but I'm definitely considering adding this to that.

I strongly recommend you look at this option because it's made me virtually
unobstructed by anything display-related since I've had it (small thing: I
wish it had more DP/mDP inputs).

A smaller version of this setup has a 37" landscape in the middle and 2x21"
portaits on the sides.

[1]: Dell P4317Q with up to 4 simultaneous 1080p inputs
[https://www.monitornerds.com/dell-p4317q-review/](https://www.monitornerds.com/dell-p4317q-review/)

[2]: Adobe Source Code Pro 9pt, which at 100% with forced 104 DPI to fit the
display yields a pretty legible font size. I do most web browsing at 100% or
even sometimes less for density.

