
Ask HN: What do you think about the new curved ultrawide (21:9) monitors? - chjohasbrouck
A friend of mine recently said his ultrawide monitor was as big an improvement to him as SSDs were ~5 years ago, which really got my attention.<p>In theory it makes sense. Instead of sitting multiple monitors side-by-side with the screen space divided by bezels, you combine the screen space into one monitor. Then you curve it so all the screen space is a more consistent distance from your face. It seems like an obvious way to improve things.<p>Possible problems I can think of:<p>-Fullscreen now occupies your entire workspace instead of being segmented to a single screen<p>-Your monitor&#x27;s aspect ratio no longer matches the aspect ratio of most online videos (16:9), causing pillarboxing<p>-All your screen space is contiguous, so you can&#x27;t let the limits of the screens manage your programs&#x27; window size for you anymore. You need to manage it manually, shaping and sizing the various windows to fit in the way you want them to. This could get annoying if you have to repeat this step often<p>-The ultrawide 3440x1440 has 400 fewer horizontal pixels than most dual monitor setups. I&#x27;m not sure, but this might be a limiting factor with certain combinations of IDE&#x2F;terminal&#x2F;vim&#x2F;etc. Two-column ultrawide might not fit those as easily as 2x 1920x1080, and three-column ultrawide might be infeasible.<p>My current setup is a MBP on a stand connected to a 27&quot; 16:9, so that&#x27;s what I&#x27;m accustomed to. Currently considering this:<p>https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.amazon.com&#x2F;Dell-U3415W-UltraSharp-34-inch-Curved&#x2F;dp&#x2F;B00R420VAG&#x2F;<p>But there are also popular offerings in this category from Samsung, LG, Acer, etc.<p>If you&#x27;ve made the switch, or tried to, I&#x27;d love to hear what you think about these new ultrawides. Specifically what impact it had on your productivity as a developer, how you make use of the available screen space, and how much difficulty you had getting used to it (as compared to a typical 2-monitor, or laptop stand + 1 monitor setup).
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Artlav
Back in the 90s when Flatron TVs appeared, there was a joke around here -
first the TVs were convex, now the are flat, at this rate tomorrow they'd make
them concave.

It was a joke, kinda like infinite blades on a shaving razor.

Decades later, here i am in a store staring at a concave TV. A joke in the
flesh. It's kinda peculiar.

Never tried one, however, so that's all i can think about them for now.

~~~
musik_padonur
There are jokes (monster cables, 5 blade razors); then there is just lack of
knowledge.

~~~
toyg
5 blades are not a joke. I'm ok with 4, but I do suffer when I'm forced to use
3- or 2-blade razors. I keep thinking 5 is not worth the extra price, but the
idea itself is not necessarily stupid.

~~~
phaus
All multi-blade razors are a joke. Multi-blade razors were designed because
patents were running out on safety razors.

They do a far worse job of shaving facial hair than a safety razor that's just
as easy to use, they irritate one's skin far more, and they are absurdly
expensive.

~~~
toyg
That's like, your opinion, man :)

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mistersquid
I have a MacBook Pro and a Mac Pro and recently one of my monitors died (LED
Cinema Display logic board most likely).

Apple had _just_ announced the discontinuation of their Thunderbolt Display
which is considered by many to be obsolete due to its non-retina 2560 x 1440
resolution.

So, I considered the exact monitor featured in this Ask HN as well as several
other ultrawide/4K monitors and low-end monitors [0, 1], but eventually I went
with the discontinued and "overpriced" Thunderbolt display because it has a
Thunderbolt port and USB 3 ports.

That is, the ability to connect peripheral devices to my computer actually
ranks pretty high on my list of must-haves for a monitor.

I'm not thrilled at the dearth of choices for monitors with built-in cameras,
mics, and high-throughput I/O, and I wish manufacturers other than Apple had
offerings that matched high-resolution with high-throughput.

[0]
[https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01CX26VNC](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01CX26VNC)
[1] [https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-U28E590D-28-Inch-LED-Lit-
Moni...](https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-U28E590D-28-Inch-LED-Lit-
Monitor/dp/B00YD3DBOC)

EDIT: Readabilty

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kdevrou
I have worked with numerous 2 screen setups, a single 29 inch U2913WM plus
laptop screen setup and my current 40 inch 4k tv setup.

Honestly, I really like the 4k tv the most when I have a window manager that
can make good use of that much area. Without the window management the extra
space becomes a hindrance.

The larger screen that you are looking at is bigger than the 29 inch that I
used to work with. That said, I did really like working with the larger single
screen over 2. I felt more focused on what I was looking at and the it was
still manageable with simple left and right pane controls.

All that said I wouldn't consider either of these as big of a jump as SSDs. I
find the additional screen space is a nice to have feature but a SSD
eliminates the pauses in my workflow. To me being able to hammer out a bit of
code quickly without interruption is worth way more than the extra screen
space.

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butz
This might give you some answers about workspace management issues:
[http://lifehacker.com/how-using-an-ultrawide-monitor-
boosted...](http://lifehacker.com/how-using-an-ultrawide-monitor-boosted-my-
productivity-1782833923)

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dyeje
My coworker has one of these. He likes it because he can have many columns in
Sublime. The only downside I've noticed is that he has notification blindness
because if he's looking at the left side of the screen, he doesn't see the
notification in the top right.

~~~
toyg
That's likely a feature, not a bug :)

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fleb
I looked at the Samsung 34" model quite carefully about a month ago, but
bought three U28E590D 28" 4K screens instead. I'm not done with this but will
be driving them with an MBP when Apple finally gets the Skylake upgrade done,
and a Surface Pro. I spend 99% of the time writing code in Idea. It has to be
directly in front of me, and I very frequently glance at other windows to
either side.

I decided against the 34" because I could not really figure out how to make
the wide screen work out for me:

\- One of those is not enough screen to put the browsers and terminal windows
on either side of the IDE

\- Two screens always gives me a neckache because of turning from the screen
in front to either left or right but not the other...

\- Putting a 34" in the center of three screens moves the edges of the side
screens really far out, which I think would be odd for my field of vision,
force me to turn my neck too far, and cost unnecessary desk space - I have
this problem already to some degree with the three smaller screens

\- I don't really feel like I have time to hassle with unexpected problems
that pop up because of using a non-standard resolution, I want mainstream and
simple so I can focus on my stuff; I think this is relevant both to driving
the display, eg. at the OS, graphics card, drivers level, and also at the
application level because it is unlikely that any UI will be designed with the
wide screen in mind

\- I like to run full screen, so I don't have to futz with border dragging
etc.

In the end, I decided that 34" is actually not enough - I'd want a screen like
this in the 50-60" range, but pixels above eye level also cause neckache, so
this would be a resolution of something like 10000x2160. I'd also want better
window manager support for getting the right window placements without having
to that myself every time. I saw a backlit projector-driven screen like that
in a research lab 15 years ago - perhaps we can actually buy one in another
10-15 years?

I also did think that the 34" might be really great if I either spent all of
time in a single full screen application without the side windows, or if I
went back to coding in vim and arranged everything into a smaller area - which
I don't want to do, but lots of folks prefer that.

~~~
brianwawok
I am with you, 10k x 2160 (or really 6k x 2k would be fine).

2 screens is hard because of not centering well... but 3 giant screens is
overkill.. so for now at least, stuck with 2 giants, and I just mostly ignore
1 of them (emails and chats, not my main stuff)

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chrisbennet
I use a dual monitor setup: a Samsung 34" curved monitor along and an Apple
Thunderbolt Display. I fill the curved display with my IDE (Visual Studio) and
display my graphics/computer vision outputs on the Thunderbolt Display. The
wide monitor allows me to display 2 code files pages side by side with a large
font. I really like the combination.

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codeonfire
Samsung JU6700, 40" 4k, curved is what I use. It's something like $900 so same
price range with more pixels. Use hyperdock or similar for docking. Ultrawide
seems like it would result in lots of head twisting and neck pain. I went from
a quad stand to one monitor and it has worked out. Instead of four cables and
two GPU's it's just one cable and one GPU. I really don't know who ultrawide
is supposed to appeal to. Perhaps video or audio editing? Curved is a must if
you want to sit close enough to the screen to use it as a monitor. It also
distorts reflections so they are not as distracting.

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kogir
I use a 32" 4k monitor about 3-4 feet back on my desk. I run it at native
resolution and it fills my field of view without requiring I move my head
nearly at all.

Compared to what you're considering, I'd be really worried about how squatty
it is - for about the same price, you'll only get 2/3 the height of a 4k
screen, which is way less useful for coding.

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kevinherron
I like the idea, but my next monitor setup will be either dual 4K ~24" or a
single 5K 27". It's time to make the move to high DPI on the desktop.

(on Mac this is simply "Retina", on Windows it's a high DPI screen of the
right size and resolution to run 200% DPI scaling)

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gbrayut
I'm curious if anyone uses a curved ultrawide in portrait mode instead of
landscape. I've got a 27in 16:9 in portrait mode right now, and it seems like
a curved display might work better so long as the viewing angles still work.

~~~
brianwawok
That sounds like a neckbreaker

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genieyclo
I have a 34" curved LG ultrawide monitor at work and quite like it. Only
annoyance is the LG ultrawide splitting software acts up after logging back in
sometimes.

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eip
40" 4K is superior. 50" 4K if you have a big enough desk.

