How to compensate for poor viewing angle?

I'm a bit disappointed. I found a cheap monitor to use as a side monitor to my 27" 1440p main display. The cheapo is an HP 21kd; a $100 Best Buy job. I got it because it checked all my boxes: very similar pixel density to my main, and VESA mountable.

Unfortunately, mounted in portrait, it's... weird. I'm not even sure what kind of panel it is, but the view angle is awful like this. If I look at it "straight on," I get a dark stripe down the middle (remember we're in portrait mode) from "top" to "bottom," with backlight blaring on the left and right sides. I move my head a bit to the right (what would be "up" if it were landscape) and it all gets consistent, but it looks super white and washed out. I move left (or "down") and it all goes nasty color negative like a cheap TN panel.

I'm positive there has to be something I can adjust in the OSD to mitigate this effect, but I'm less than dumb when it comes to that stuff. Can anyone walk me through it or link me to a guide to setting up monitors like this?

TN monitors are usually built to be viewed from one angle, from slightly above in landscape mode. They typically don't look very good in portrait mode. You could try rotating it 180 degrees from how you have it and it might be better.
It's how they align the liquid crystals, you're not going to be able to change it with the OSD.

This is normal, TN panels are terrible for portrait mode due to these viewing angle limitations. If rotating it 180 doesn’t fix it, you can’t “fix” it.

That sucks. I wonder if it's possible to find an IPS monitor with the same dimensions and resolution.

The closest you're going to get appears to be 21.5" Newegg lists a number of options with IPS/VA type panels that should look good in portrait mode. Cheapest option with a pivoting stand is $135, if you're using a monitor arm (or otherwise have an alternate stand you can mount it on) you could potentially go $30 less (not sure since I didn't check to make sure the cheaper ones have vesa mounting options).

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod...97&IsNodeId=1&bop=And&Order=PRICE&PageSize=36

Might be too big for you but I'm using a Samsung S24C650DW as a portrait side monitor to my Asus PB328Q and it works great. The Samsung is native 1920x1200 (16:10), PLS, tilt/swivel/height/pivot adjustable, VESA mount. I think the dot pitch on it is .270mm IIRC. View angles are excellent in portrait or landscape. Picked it up as a refurb unit from Woot about a year ago for $139 and have no complaints at all for what it's used for (monitoring apps, browser when something else is open on the main display, etc). OOTB calibration could be better for content creation but for GP office work it's okay.

RedWagnum said:

Might be too big for you but I'm using a Samsung S24C650DW as a portrait side monitor to my Asus PB328Q and it works great. The Samsung is native 1920x1200 (16:10), PLS, tilt/swivel/height/pivot adjustable, VESA mount. I think the dot pitch on it is .270mm IIRC. View angles are excellent in portrait or landscape. Picked it up as a refurb unit from Woot about a year ago for $139 and have no complaints at all for what it's used for (monitoring apps, browser when something else is open on the main display, etc). OOTB calibration could be better for content creation but for GP office work it's okay.

Click to expand...

The only limitation I see is that you're getting even farther from a height match. The OPs 27" screen is 13.24" tall. The dud 1080p is 18.04", the one I found is 18.74" tall, while your 24" suggestion's alll the way up to 20.35".

OTOH since the march to wider screens has killed 30" 2560x1600 and 20" 1200x1600 as a viable combo there haven't been any good matches. The increasingly elderly 20" panels combined with a 32" 16:9 is the closest match we've got in that it's only about a 1/3rd inch mismatch; but the 20's are a 2005 panel with - by current standards - poor contrast, high power consumption, and are sRGB only. If you're willing to throw money at the problem NEC has a reasonably modern 21" IPS (LED, 1500:1, but still sRGB) option; but as an pro-grade display they want $900 for it.

The more popular 27" 16:9 displays don't have any good portrait companion options. For a reasonable height match they'd need a 16:9 15.6" portrait display. Unfortunately while there are a handful of monitors in that size class available, they're all marketed as 2nd on the go screens for laptops and are stuck with TN panels and landscape only non-vesa stands.

Yeah, I've kinda given up on the idea of a height match. I don't think I'll ever find one. 1440 is not a very popular number for horizontal resolution. There is only one display that I've seen that would give me both a height match and similar PPI - it's out of an older MacBook. I'm guessing it's TN (without looking) and I'd need to fabricate a custom enclosure for it. Additionally, at only 900 pixels wide, I think I'd be forced into "mobile" view on most websites.

This is frustrating enough to make me want to start my own company making portrait-designed monitors as companions to popular landscape sizes.

Yeah, a pixel height match is also out of the question. the 15" laptop displays that would've been ideal if IPS instead of TN would only have matched the vertical scale, DPIs would be totally different unless you were able to fudge it via DPI scaling.

I run into occasional layout issues from pages assuming a minimum with of 1280 on my 1200x1600 monitors and would imagine going below 1024 would be ugly.