Does Anyone Actually Want A Curved Monitor?

Megalith

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Those of you who actually own one can sound off. Do they truly provide a more immersive experience? Distortion is reportedly subtle, but that kind of thing still worries me as someone who dabbles in design.

… These are nice, often IPS, screens. Some are able to hit a 99 percent Adobe color gamut, making them accurate enough for photo editing work. Some have high refresh rates. Others offer a great 3440x1440 resolution (although you'll need a high-end graphics card to play games on those). But the curve is what makes these screens flashy and new, and is what's being used to justify the premium prices.
 
Curved monitors make more sense than curved TVs. The curve is so gradual that when you're sitting 8-10 feet away, even on a 65"+ screen you will hardly notice it. On a monitor that sits inches to a foot away, it's fairly noticeable (in a good way).
 
Ultrawide, curved monitors are absolutely great for gaming. I don't know about anything else.
 
I would love to have three of them for my Eyefinity setup.
 
I want an affordable OLED monitor, I don't care about its curvature.
 
I've had 34" curved LG for a little over a month now. It's got some nice features, but isn't very good for gaming in my experience. Nearly every game I've played has minor issues with the 21:9 aspect ratio. (Fallout 4, CS:GO, Wolfenstein: New Order)

General web browsing and video playback is an amazing experience though.
 
I like curved for gaming, but absolutely cannot work with them. Nor do I like them for TVs.
 
Love my 34" curved display, I can't go back. For games this is even better than my previous eyefinity setup.
 
My next monitor will be curved. My next TV will be flat.

I wish they'd focus on smaller than 40" 4k panels. A large curved TV makes no sense whatsoever because the likelihood of viewing off angle is huge.
 
It comes down to distance... It really is as simple as that.

If you are in some microscopic apartment and have an 80" TV, you probably have no choice but to sit "too close" to your TV. In that case, a curved screen would be a godsend. If you are in a huge living room sitting far away from your screen, a curved screen is the last thing you want...

With monitors it's the same deal, but people tend to sit closer to their monitors than they do to their TVs, so curved has more potential applications IMO. If you are using a 21:9 monitor, or trying to use a 32"+ 4K TV as a monitor, curved is perfect. I don't personally see much benefit to curved on a 30" or less 16:9 panel though.

The only other factor really is how many people are going to be viewing the display. With a TV, curved sucks for anyone not directly in front of the display. So if you are having a football party or similar with a dozen people watching, spread from one side of the room to the other, curved is absolute fail. With a monitor, one person directly in front of the display is pretty much standard, so it's not really an issue.
 
This is a decision I will likely have to make in a month or two. I am finally getting a new computer to replace my aging E8400 Core 2 system. The new system with an overclocked i7 and 980Ti Hybrid should be able to handle anything under 4K I can throw at it. So I once I get past the expense of this upgrade I will be looking to my next upgrade on the monitor front to replace my 27" 1440P monitor. The 4 options I was considering were:

1 - 32" 4K (but this would be more of a system strain until I can add a second 980Ti in SLI
2 - 32" 1440P (just the bigger version of the monitor I already have)
3 - 34" Curved Ultrawide (3440 x 1440)
4 - 30" 1600P

The curved monitor has moved up the possibility list since it will be big but not as system straining as a full 4K monitor. It might also buy me enough time to wait for the next generation of NVidia cards for a single Hybrid card there (or reduced prices to add the second 980Ti card)
 
Been gaming on a Dell 34" curved monitor for the past four months. Other than some games not supporting the native 3440x1440 resolution, I've enjoyed the viewing angle the monitor provides. I went from a 30" and 27" monitors to a single 34". The only issue is gaming at 1440P as my 980Ti struggles to run Fallout 4 with everything cranked.
 
Hold a piece of paper up flat. Now curve it. The area of paper you see becomes smaller. Why do you want to reduce the aspect ratio of a TV or monitor? I just don't get it.
 
I love my Dell 34" 3440x1440 display for gaming. It's much more immersive than any other display I've used. It's pretty great at productivity tasks as well, however I do not use it for graphical design or anything that the distortion would affect negatively. Only downside is that I paid more for it than for a 4K monitor and I do believe that 4K is the future of PC gaming, but for right now I can play almost every game at max settings with a single factory overclocked 980 at the native resolution whereas I'd have to turn everything down at 4K.
 
Curved screens are stupid, just like the old CRT curved screens were stupid. The pincushion effect screws up geometry and makes things on the edges look terrible. It's not as obvious on these new monitors because they're not very curved. But it's more a case of being able to make then, than it is any advantage they offer. They're objectively worse than flat monitors and have no advantages.

I'm not sure I buy high-refresh panels either, but at least those have a quantifiable advantage. I expect that both techs will fade away over the next few years. Although maybe high-refresh screens tech will become cheap enough to be the norm (because it doesn't really come with any disadvantages).
 
I'm not sure I buy high-refresh panels either, but at least those have a quantifiable advantage. I expect that both techs will fade away over the next few years. Although maybe high-refresh screens tech will become cheap enough to be the norm (because it doesn't really come with any disadvantages).

Are you talking about actual higher refresh rate, or just frame interpolation? If it's the latter, then I would tend to agree. Having a 120hz monitor though, where 120hz is the actual refresh rate, the advantages are very obvious.
 
Hold a piece of paper up flat. Now curve it. The area of paper you see becomes smaller. Why do you want to reduce the aspect ratio of a TV or monitor? I just don't get it.

Need some bgeometry, in that you have to put your viewpoint (head) at the exact position from the screen which will have same radius between your head and the screen no matter which horizontal location you are looking at.

Otherwise it loses its effect and the distortion you described will happen when you are too far back from the screen.
 
Im a straight monitor type of guy but i would like to try curved for a week
 
I love my 48" Samsung 4K curved monitor. There is no distortion that I can see to lines or games. I wouldn't go back to a flat monitor now. Curved TVs I'm not sure about.
 
As an owner of both Curved Monitor and TV, I kinda don't notice either. Curved TV has a lot of reflections which kinda ruins the curved effect, and the monitor is too subtle to notice in games.
 
I purchased Samsung S29E790C for my daughters and they are awesome monitors. I played about 40 hours of games on them and love em. The only real complaint I have is that they are just not long enough. Since I have been running Eyefinity since the HD58550 came out, I am slightly spoiled on screens wrapping around.
 
I really like it on my Dell 3415, and I proselytize it to anyone going bigger than 27/30" on their monitor.

I do photoshop and illustrator work and the supposed "distortion" is a non issue.

BB
 
Hold a piece of paper up flat. Now curve it. The area of paper you see becomes smaller. Why do you want to reduce the aspect ratio of a TV or monitor? I just don't get it.

Gimmicks. Sometimes they sell.
 
I would want a curved monitor that goes all the way around into the peripheral vision. At least 120 degrees. The current ones are only made to try to pry out more money from customers by replacing their perfectly good displays for a slightly curved one.
 
If the curved is priced significantly more than the flat, yeah.

However, if the price is nearly identical, my perception tells me curved is better for wide displays used as monitors. But, everybody is different. So, to each their own.

100% agree that for TV, its a useless gimmick.

BB
 
Curved monitors make more sense than curved TVs. The curve is so gradual that when you're sitting 8-10 feet away, even on a 65"+ screen you will hardly notice it. On a monitor that sits inches to a foot away, it's fairly noticeable (in a good way).

well if you're inches to a foot away from your monitor I'd say you need to get your eyes checked because you're sitting way too close to a monitor :D
 
Curved is nice for gaming and immersion , but that is only goodon large surface screen like 34" and high refresh setup.

The crossover there is that for the money , a VR HMD will make better sense for gaming on soon and productivity is typically better on flat screens so that lines stay straight and layouts look right.

I think I'd rather have the expense of having the curved option go towards having the screen be HDR capable with more resolution.

Curved isn't bad but if prices don't come down, a VR setup seems so much cooler.
 
Hold a piece of paper up flat. Now curve it. The area of paper you see becomes smaller. Why do you want to reduce the aspect ratio of a TV or monitor? I just don't get it.

Depends on how you're measuring the area. In an orthographic projection it will be smaller. In a spherical or perspective projection, like how your eyes actually work, it will generally be larger (depending on the amount of curvature and whether the centre of the paper remains at the same distance from you).

If you want to be pedantic, the argument you're looking for is that 3d games are rendered with cameras with flat film backs, so the projection is technically wrong if you view it on a curved screen.

I'm still planning a curved ultrawide for my next build in a few months, because I'd rather have one ultrawide than two monitors, and because at that extreme aspect ratio and distance (i.e. not TV distance as others have said), the curvature makes sense.
 
OP:

Honestly, I dont think I cared either way.

I recently owned, in the following order:

1. LG 34" 3440 x 1440 flat screen. LOVED it for gaming and windows use
2. LG 34" 3440 x 1440 curved screen. Honestly didnt "feel" any different from the flat screen, I just bought it on an impulse buy
3. Acer X34 34" 3440 x 1440 100hz curved screen. Love it for the 100 hz and the g-sync (though it takes 2 x Titan X's to get 80+ fps in AAA titles at 3440 x 1440) but I really dont think I would care if it was flat screen.

The curve never really made a difference to me and I used flat to curved back to back.
 
Hold a piece of paper up flat. Now curve it. The area of paper you see becomes smaller. Why do you want to reduce the aspect ratio of a TV or monitor? I just don't get it.

That's only true if you sit further away from the monitor than the radius of the curvature. For the curved monitor to have any kind of benefit you need to sit at the radius or closer.
 
I bought the Acer X34 a couple weeks ago. I don't really notice the curve, but given the width of the panel I'm sure it's helping without me realizing it.

The X34 is one hell of a monitor, though! I like this thing much more than my ROG Swift.
 
Perhaps one day I might look into one, but right now I'm perfectly happy with my 42" 4k TV "Monitor". The only adjustment I've made is sitting further back, which on the whole is good in multiple ways and I'm getting little to no screen lag. When prices and size get to a point where I can justify getting something curved I can move the 4k to my bedroom or living room, but till then I can live without the curve.
 
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