
Dell 38 inch UltraSharp monitor - dgelks
http://www.anandtech.com/show/11653/dells-ultrasharp-u3818dw-available-curved-3840x1600
======
RX14
Off-topic but I wish 16:10 hadn't died with the move to 4k. I have an old
1200p dell ultrasharp in 16:10 and it's sublime compared to my other 16:9.
You'd think it doesn't make much of a difference, but it really does.
Especially when you have it vertically oriented, but otherwise too.

~~~
zanny
Golden ratio strikes again!

Historians in a millennia will probably look back at us as heathens for
deviating from using the perfect rectangle to construct our screens.

~~~
colbyh
hopefully in a millennia mathemeticians will have finally convinced the world
that the golden ratio really isn't special.

~~~
tedunangst
Nor does it make sense for a monitor. I can't remember ever wanting to arrange
a bunch of windows as a square, a smaller square, a smaller square, etc.

~~~
dijit
You must not use a tiling window manager.

~~~
tedunangst
I must not want my wm to give me a geometric series of ever shrinking squares.

~~~
OJFord
What else does it default to, if you open a new window?

------
TheAceOfHearts
I apologize if this is an incredibly stupid question, but why do these
monitors cost so much? As I understand it, you can buy a good 4k TV for
considerably less, so what features of this monitor make it a better deal?

~~~
dhd415
I've been using a Samsung 40" 4k TV as my main monitor for development work
for about 8 months and it's been great for me.

A couple caveats -- Because I don't game or do graphics work, I don't know or
care about color reproduction. I made sure to get a TV, graphics card, and
cable that supported 4k@60hz with 4:4:4 chroma so the text is perfectly sharp
and the refresh is not obtrusive. It's not hard to find a Samsung TV around
$350 that supports that, but as far as I could tell, I had to go up to a
GTX1050 graphics card to get that. I sit between 24 and 28" away from the
monitor so the text is readable to me at full resolution. At that distance, I
do have to turn my head to comfortably read text in the corners of the TV,
especially the upper corners. In practice, that means I keep monitoring-type
applications such as CPU charts, Datadog graphs, etc., in one of those corners
for quick reference. While I still have two 1920x1080 monitors on either side
of the TV, it's quite nice to be able to open up on my main monitor a huge IDE
window and, when necessary, put 3-4 normal-sized windows next to each other
for comparison work.

~~~
majewsky
Same here. I bought a Philips BDM4065UC monitor in 2015 (40 inch, 3840x2160
resolution) for 740 € (in Germany) and I'm loving it. The only cave-at with
that model is that reaction time is a bit slow (I would guess 5 ms between
full black and full white).

When I replace it, the replacement will be the same size and resolution, but
I'll probably go for OLED and HDR-10 or better.

~~~
LiquidFlux
I happened to buy the same, and import it from Germany to the UK.

Was very excited for it as it featured a very similar DPI to a 27" 1440p
Korean import, coming from 3+ 1080p monitors originally the lack of bezels was
incredible.

It's not built for gaming at all though, extreme screen tearing and poor
response times has me now looking to replace the 27" 1440p Korean import with
something >144Hz and G-Sync, before replacing the Philips BDM40.

~~~
majewsky
The tearing is the monitor's fault? I'd noticed some tearing, but attributed
it to driver issues.

------
ianai
"Dell has managed to increase maximum brightness of its U3818DW to 350 nits
(from 300 nits on competing monitors)"

Bah, why does everyone seem to love blinding themselves? Am I the only one who
doesn't like a bright screen? (Ergonomically, we're supposed to have the
monitor's backlight match the brightness of a white sheet of paper in the same
lighting conditions.)

~~~
corobo
I imagine it's easier for you to dim the brightness to your preference than
for others to somehow manage to tweak every bit of brightness out of their
graphics card settings after the monitor's settings tap out

Use case: I'm in front of a window, if the sun's out and I've got the curtains
open I might as well just turn the screen off

~~~
ScottBurson
You would think monitor manufacturers would the brightness control go all the
way to barely visible, but they don't. I have two monitors, an Asus and a
Dell, both set to what they consider brightness level 0, and neither quite as
dim as I'd like.

~~~
sokoloff
On most display devices, "contrast" controls the white level and "brightness"
controls the black level. (These controls of course interact.)

For your use case, you might want to be adjusting contrast down.

------
nickjj
I'd rather stick with 2x 25" Dell UltraSharp U2515H 2560x1440 monitors[0].

2 of those are nearly 3x cheaper than the 1x 38" curved display and for tasks
that require a lot of horizontal space (video editing, etc.) 5120 is WAY wider
than 3840. Also a curved display is pretty questionable for professional image
editing (it distorts pixels).

I run the 25" here for development and video editing. Probably the best
development environment upgrade I've made in 5 years.

If anyone wants to read a deep dive on how to pick a solid monitor for
development, I put together a detailed blog post[1] that covers why I picked
that 25" Dell specifically.

[0]: [http://amzn.to/2jF3WHp](http://amzn.to/2jF3WHp)

[1]: [https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/how-to-pick-a-good-monitor-
fo...](https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/how-to-pick-a-good-monitor-for-software-
development)

~~~
dragonwriter
> Also a curved display is pretty questionable for professional image editing
> (it distorts pixels).

Isn't the point of a curved display that at the designed viewing distance,
each point (at the same vertical position, at least) is equidistant from the
viewer, eliminating the distortion that occurs that occurs when viewing a
large flat screen.

It would seem to me that for professional image editing where you often need
to zoom in to a higher magnification than an image would usually be viewed at
by the target audience, a curved display would be very useful.

You probably _also_ want to verify work on a display and conditions (viewing
distance, etc.) that match the target environment.

~~~
tambourine_man
I'd have to try this myself but I use straight guidelines all the time and I
can't imagine having them look skewed if I turned my head from the precise
targeted distance.

------
kbenson
And here I am with a Vizio 40" 4k[1] that I got for less than $500. It's not
perfect, and the refresh rate is only 60Hz for 4k (which is the same as this
Dell offering), but it's served me well for the last six months at a fraction
of the cost and with more pixels.

1:
[http://www.rtings.com/tv/reviews/vizio/d-series-4k-2016](http://www.rtings.com/tv/reviews/vizio/d-series-4k-2016)

~~~
santoshalper
I've done the TV as a monitor thing, and the value is good, but the picture
will be nowhere near as nice as a real monitor. Color reproduction is usually
really inaccurate and even when you turn all the sharpening and post-
processing off that they will let you, you still have an inferior picture.

That said, for gaming they are a solid choice and $500 is obviously a whole
lot cheaper.

~~~
hueving
If you're just using it for something like coding and browsing the web is it
good enough?

~~~
grogenaut
I don't have one, coworker does, but for coding it shouldn't be too bad.
Browsing usually means more scrolling and so you actually will get tearing but
if you don't care then should be fine.

Your other reply talked entirely about games so I responded to your actual
question.

~~~
kbenson
I wasn't talking about games at all. I was talking about input lag, which for
TVs as displays manifests in some negative effects, most notably mouse lag.

Many TVs have a mode to reduce this lag and turn off other processing effects
that are undesirable when playing games, and that tends to map well to the
settings that make for a good computer display experience.

~~~
grogenaut
Aah good to know. It wasn't clear from my read of your other comment

------
fsloth
Only 60 hz. Sigh - I hope mainstream moves to 100+Hz monitors soon. I love the
fluency of my far-too-expensive 'gaming' IPS 144hz monitor despite I don't
play that much. Just the fact that web pages and mouse pointers don't lag is a
noticeable improvement.

~~~
LeoNatan25
I rather we invest in PPI rather than refresh rate. Not that the two are
mutually exclusive, but as I look at my use cases, most of the time the screen
is static, so a higher refresh rate would be wasted, whereas higher PPI
screens improve readability and legibility (when they work on Windows).

~~~
fsloth
You mean 4k on a desktop is not dense enough for you?

~~~
zanny
4k / 28" is 157 PPI, which is only indistinguishable at around 2 feet view
distance on average. Better eyesight puts that distance further back.

8k at 28" is "retina" at just under a foot.

So depending on how far you sit from your screen PPI can matter more or less
to you, but when we finally get 8k panels we should also finally be getting
people in retina range most of the time.

8k / 120+hz is the holy grail for me.

~~~
jamiek88
I can see Apple bringing 120hz to the iMac, so 5k at 120hz would be getting
close.

I wish they sold screens still.

~~~
LeoNatan25
Apple is still using panels by Dell, as far as I know. So that 5K Dell display
is the same panel that is used in their iMac range.

~~~
jamiek88
They are LG panels ultimately. There were some Samsung panels previously but
since 2015 they have all been LG.

------
sundvor
I bought the U3415W when it first came out. At first it was for games (coming
from 3x U2412Ms) however I quickly realised how incredibly good the 21:9
3440x1440 resolution is for programming. No DPI scaling needs be involved, so
I'm looking at Visual Studio experience where even with NCrunch unit test
runners and the Solution overview, I have plenty of room for two main code
editing windows. Brilliant.

I ended up buying an extra Acer X34 for home (surrounded by 2x U2412Ms on an
Ergotech stand) and brought the U3415W to work as a personal device.

The 38" could potentially be even better, however I'm rather happy with the
34" as is. It's a bit of a shame they didn't add Freesync to it.

~~~
bobf
I've had the Dell U3415W (3440x1440) since it was released two years ago, and
it is the best monitor I've ever used. The resolution is great, and avoiding
the DPI scaling needed for practical use of most 4K screens is key. As a
bonus, it is absolutely perfect for movies in 21:9.

If you haven't seen one, a more familiar comparison might be that the U3415W
is essentially the same as a 27" IPS panel, only wider. It has 1440 pixels of
height at roughly the same physical height as the 27" IPS panels.

Many people argue that curved screens are unnecessary or a gimmick, which I
would agree is true for TV screens with multiple off-center viewers. From my
own comparison of several 32"\+ monitors, I do think the curve is very useful
in reducing neck/eye fatigue.

The new 38" does sound appealing, but at 2-3x the cost of the U3415W on sale I
would probably still recommend the 34" to most people.

~~~
slantyyz
>> The resolution is great, and avoiding the DPI scaling needed for practical
use of most 4K screens is key.

While ymmv, I have been using a pair of 27" 4K Dell P2715Q's as my working
monitors running with no scaling (1:1). I have a standing setup (although
lately I've been using a drafting stool because of plantar fasciitis, but
that's another story) so I do have the monitors closer to my face than most
people, but I find it's more than tolerable.

~~~
lucaspiller
Out of curiosity what font sizes do you use for your editor? I have a 27" 4K
monitor around 20" from my face and find it too small without scaling,
1.5-1.75x is around perfect for me (although support for that under Windows
and Linux is hit or miss).

~~~
slantyyz
In Sublime for Windows, I am using the default font with a size of 10.5. I
have always tended to use higher dpi screens on laptops (i.e. 1680 and 1080 @
15" running at 1:1) so I have years of conditioning to small text on screens.

An added piece of information - I got presbyopia (in addition to my existing
myopia and astigmatism) about 5 or so years ago, so I now use reading glasses,
which also helps a little.

I had a special pair of single vision glasses prescribed to me from my
optometrist where its optimal range of focus is between 21" and 27". I got
those distances from measuring the closest and furthest points between my eyes
and monitors. I see everything fine. Before I got the single vision glasses, I
was using a flip up reading glass attachment that I wore over my normal
progressives to see the screen, which a - looked goofy, b - was unwieldy, and
c - not as good as the single vision glasses.

~~~
lucaspiller
I had a colleague who did the same. Size 10 on a 27" 1440p monitor. Whenever I
had to pair with him I always had to ask him to increase the font size.

I also have myopia and astigmatism, but if I use a smaller font eventually my
eyes get tired and I get headaches. My optician suggested I wear slightly
weaker than my prescription glasses for computer work which helped a bit, but
still I find it more comfortable to stick to my size 14 at 1.75x scaling :-)

------
SideburnsOfDoom
I suspect that in a few years a hololens / google glass style device will
become cheaper and work as well as a big bank of monitors, and at that point
it is going to rapidly replace physical monitors - and then economy of scale
and iteration of the product will do the usual to the price/performance ratio
of head-mounted devices, then screens go the way of CRT monitors when flat
screens came along.

I'm not saying that a head-mounted device and virtual screens will necessarily
be better than a bank of monitors - in fact it's time to asses drawbacks - but
once it's cheaper and seems "just as good" then business will want to switch
over, for better or worse.

~~~
melling
Will I still need to be sitting at a desk with a keyboard and mouse?

~~~
keldaris
"Need" is a strong word, but you'll probably want to if you're trying to be
productive. VR/AR won't replace the tactile feedback of a good keyboard, etc.

Then again, as someone who can't even use current VR/AR offerings (high
myopia, don't use contact lenses) and is only following all of this as a
fairly disinterested spectactor, it looks to me like the initial craze is
already blowing over and people are taking a better look at the disadvantages
and limitations of the current products. I don't see VR/AR taking over
monitors or much of anything else, though I'm sure AR will find productivity
applications in specific fields soon enough.

~~~
manquer
perhaps with gestures and voice input integrated into good software
applications , the keyboard will altogether be eliminated..

~~~
jsjohnst
There isn't a voice input in existence that I'd be interested in using while
writing code or doing photo/video editing.

Even dictating code to another human who is as fluent as you are in the
language of choice is a non-starter, so I don't see any machine based way of
doing it catching up soon.

~~~
15155
I can't speak as fast as I type, which makes any kind of dictation solution a
non-starter.

~~~
jsjohnst
The only solutions I've seen that even "come close" in the speed / accuracy
comparison are unfair comparisons.

An example was posted by someone in another comment of a guy doing Python
coding with Emacs using Dragon Dictation. In that example, the guy used over
2,000 custom "macros" to get to something close to his pre-RSI speeds. This
sounds fantastic, but the speeds of a typer who has learned to leverage 2,000
custom macros would be an order of magnitude faster (imho) than someone
dictating using similar macros.

~~~
15155
This is the principle behind
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stenotype](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stenotype)
machines.

~~~
jsjohnst
Exactly!

There are also specialized keyboards for computers that have existed over the
years that have had typists reach 300-400wpm, but they never caught on.

------
eps
PSA - don't get tempted by UltraSharp reviews and recommendations, like I did.
Just pick an Eizo instead.

UltraSharps are widely recommended for coding with glorious reviews and
endorsements. Got one and no matter how I adjusted it, it was still too...
eye-piercing, if you will, for longer coding sessions. Got mild headaches,
tired eyes and general feeling of discomfort when working on hem even for
shorter periods. Then switched to FlexScan and it's a completely different
ballgame - softer, more gentle feel, incomparably more comfortable. The best
monitor I've had a pleasure of staring at in my 20 years of programming.

However the interesting part here is that both monitors use the same panel
(!), so the panel itself is only part of the recipe, which is something that
many reciews tend to either downplay or not mention at all.

~~~
noinsight
Definitely. I made the mistake of buying an UltraSharp U2713HM which actually
_buzzed_ with lots of text on the screen (apparently it's a feature, just
google the model). I tried swapping my new display and they sent me a
refurbished one with dead pixels that buzzed also. I'm never buying Dell
again.

This time around I did the right thing and went the more expensive route and
got an Eizo and it's just absolutely perfect.

~~~
eppsilon
I had the same experience with the same model. Never again, Dell.

------
hultner
I'd much rather see one with higher resolution. The DPI is quite low with
today's standard.

~~~
LeoNatan25
Sadly, outside of macOS, the support for high PPI display is dodgy at best. On
Linux, it is becoming better, but still a lot more to improve. On Windows,
it's a real shitshow. Windows 10, for the most part, is OK (still a lot of
inconsistencies and lack of polish when scale > 100%), but application support
is just terrible, be it blur, tiny scale, inconsistent elements (some small,
some large) or plain crashing. Really, any vendor that makes such display is
taking a risk that people will complain and a sizeable portion of the
customers that purchase such a display will not understand the technical
difficulties.

~~~
danieldk
_On Linux, it is becoming better, but still a lot more to improve._

Even on Fedora 26, I have to manually patch and recompile Mutter to get HiDPI
support on Wayland. Mutter is hardcoded [1] to use 2x scaling on displays that
are 192 PPI or more. My Dell p2415q is 188.2 PPI, so you get 1x 'scaling' by
default and everything is tiny. This problem has been known for a while [2].

And even though GNOME applications then generally work well, you have to start
Chromium with a special flag to let it run with scaling. There are a lot of
glitches throughout the system, e.g. the mouse cursor has the right size, but
when you go to a window corner to resize a window, it becomes tiny. A lot of
icons are blurry, because they have a low resolution and are scaled up.

macOS is basically plug & play. All applications are in full HiDPI glory. The
only exception are websites that use low-resolution images. There is one
catch: the (terribly expensive) Apple USB-C Digital AV Multiport Adapter only
supports 4k at 30Hz. This refresh rate is very tiring and annoying. However, a
USB-C -> DisplayPort ALT mode connector works great @ 60Hz.

[1] IIRC there is work in the master branch to solve this.

[2]
[https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1258155](https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1258155)

~~~
LeoNatan25
Chrome/Chromium is notoriously bad at adopting any technology. On Windows, it
took them years to support scaling other than 1x, color Emoji was added very
recently, etc. I think on Linux it is even worse. Have they finally fixed
ligature support in Chromium?

With Firefox rapidly improving in performance and memory usage, less and less
reasons to use Chrome.

------
Stratoscope
It's interesting to see the variety of monitors people are using - and
especially the variety of pixel densities, all the way down to 69 pixels per
inch on a 32" 1080p panel.

For anyone who is curious to compare the pixel density of a variety of
monitors and televisions, I have a spreadsheet with about 120 different
display sizes and resolutions and their pixel densities:

[https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1K4bCgr-
VjMmeCjHf6Udy...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1K4bCgr-
VjMmeCjHf6UdyR6Hg4rRz7aKz-BOz8U2tF0o/edit?usp=sharing)

Email me at the address in my profile or use the chat box in the spreadsheet
(to avoid cluttering this thread) if you have any other displays you'd like to
add.

~~~
slantyyz
For the past few years, I've been using this tool to give me information on
pixel densities: [https://www.sven.de/dpi/](https://www.sven.de/dpi/)

------
pault
Ugh, I bought the 34" a few months ago and replaced it with a 42" 16:9
yesterday. The ultra wide format is really awkward for everything except
gaming and media, and those have tons of software issues with the aspect
ratio.

------
roselan
Last time I tried such giant screen, I ended up extremely frustrated with the
screen splitter feature, I prefer triple monitors for this reason.

Had there been significant progress in this field the last few years?

~~~
slantyyz
Have you ever tried DisplayFusion?

\-- edit, DisplayFusion is for windows. When I used to use Mac, I used Moom.

------
IdontRememberIt
Low DPI, certainly Dell's traditional low quality anti-glare filter (3h). When
will they wake up and build monitors for people who work with letters and
numbers (vs video or image) and favor quality over price? For a few years I
think I will still have to switch every programms to dark theme as a work
around to hide the poor quality and defaults of the monitors... sad. :(

------
tannhaeuser
Beware if you're somewhat of a messy, like me, you're going to have hundreds
of (terminal) windows and another hundreds of browser tabs open simultaneously
on these, until you can't find your current stuff on your desktop anymore at
which point you have to spend half an hour to sort out what you want to close.
I actually sold my fat 27" and went back to 24" (and to 13" notebooks).

A special window manager is a requisite on the big screen, but which one? I
like the original Expose feature on Mac OS <= 10.6 while the remade 10.7
version just doesn't blend from/into full desktop view as spatially
recognizable as the original for me. Ubuntu's Unity does an ok job, too, but
it's going away ([1]).

[1]:
<[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14043631>](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14043631>)

~~~
Eridrus
Tabli solves the problem of losing tabs by letting me search for them:
[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/tabli/igeehkedfibb...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/tabli/igeehkedfibbnhbfponhjjplpkeomghi)

------
bitL
I wish it were available in HiDPI version, i.e. twice the resolution - it
would make it way better to look at, as seeing pixels while editing video or
producing audio in Live is no longer acceptable.

~~~
greggyb
Honest question: why does it matter if you see pixels while producing audio?

~~~
bitL
I have 3x 4k displays, one of them 30" DCI 4k, one 55" UHD, plus a rMBP and an
ultrabook with 3200x1800. I simply can't go back to see pixels again. Once you
get used to better, you dislike a downgrade.

~~~
greggyb
I get that, but it's a general point. You specifically called out producing
audio, and I was curious if there were specific _visual_ features that are
necessary in producing audio. I get it for video editing. I also understand
the general "I like high resolution" case.

I am wondering if there is something I am unaware of about the combination of
high resolution and audio that made you call that out as a specific use case.

~~~
bitL
Beside nicer fonts you have "sub-pixel" resolution in e.g. your piano
roll/channel list, so you can zoom out a bit more while still able to
distinguish stuff there. That is handy if you work with a very large number of
channels.

------
myrandomcomment
This is based off a monitor from LG that is over a year old and is not 4K.

I have a 34 inch flat LG thunderbolt screen right now on my 3 year old MacBook
Pro. Great screen

I plan to swap the computer to the MacBook and get a LG 32ud99-w when they
finally ship (4K, USB-C from MacBook). I fly 100K a year so I want the smaller
laptop. I hate giving up on the thunderbolt. I have been waiting for a decent
USB-C monitor.

------
WhitneyLand
This is a difficult time to commit $1500 to a monitor. For that kind of money
I would really want better support for new color standards.

But the standards are still settling, and you can actually end up worse off
with better color if the stars are not aligned with your operating system and
applications.

------
PhrosTT
I'm pretty sure the 38" Acer ultrawide is cooler - same resolution, better
refresh rate, $1200.

[https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01N6S1P2D](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01N6S1P2D)

------
80211
Why is the vertical resolution so poor?

~~~
flurdy
It is not. Is is a very wide screen. 24:10 aspect.

A UHD/4k pixel density that you would find in a 16:9 display would mean a lot
more horizontal pixels.

Though I would like to see one that is 5184x2160 or 5760x2160 pixels. I expect
that is just too expensive and niche atm. And pushing gfx cards and display
ports to its limits.

------
bhouston
At the office we have a dozen QNIX 4K 32 inches monitors. They are not quite
IPS, although it says it is, and they are $399 USD from eBay. Hard to beat
that price. They are bright and they have DP & HDMI 2 ports.

~~~
lobster_johnson
They're $399 on Amazon, too.

------
trustworthy
Pretty interested in this as I'm not a fan of 21:9, I'm wondering how I'll
feel about looking at 24:10. As stated I wish it was a way higher refresh (120
I feel should be the new norm now?)

~~~
Stratoscope
I'm guessing you don't like 21:9 because it's too wide relative to its height,
or put another way it's not tall enough relative to its width.

If that's the case, 24:10 would be even worse.

Don't be misled by the :9 vs. :10 part - that is meaningless. Reduce them both
to a single number for a fair comparison: 21:9 and 24:10 are 2.333:1 and 2.4:1
respectively.

------
mixmastamyk
Not for me. Resolution/DPI too low for work at desk, too small to use in the
living room.

Who's this for? Only good use cases I can think of are Excel jocks and folks
who like to watch movies at their desk.

------
nsxwolf
Super happy with the return of 1600 line displays even if they had to go
ultrawide to get there.

------
callumlocke
Is 110 ppi considered ultra sharp?

~~~
mamon
I think UltraSharp name is refering to the fact that those are IPS panels
with:

1) wide color gamut, compared to TN screens

2) Better contrast ratio, again, compared to cheap TN panels.

------
gesman
3840x1600?

My new Laptop (Lenovo Yoga 910) does 3840x2160

Hence: Acer ProDesigner BM320

------
snvzz
No FreeSync in $currentyear, not even worth considering.

~~~
wmf
If you RTFA, the competing Acer model has FreeSync with a lower price.

------
altano
I can't read the article because of this horrible ad that takes over the whole
screen: [https://imgur.com/gallery/tBeOG](https://imgur.com/gallery/tBeOG)

