How often do you upgrade your main display?

[-snoopi-]

I'm worried about it's vertically limited aspect ratio. How did you get used to it after the 42"? It just seems not tall enough to me and it's the only reason I haven't bought it.

Yes you may lose a little bit of height, but it is hardly noticeable because the massive horizontal space you gain completely engulfs the slightly smaller vertical space you lose. In terms of immersion in gaming, there is absolutely no contest between the 16:9 42" vs the 57" 32:9. The 57" 32:9 completely trumps the 42" for immersion. You have no idea what peripheral vision you are missing out on until you witness each of these displays side by side like I did when I had them both at the same time.

I can't wait until they make the 57" OLED version! But I would think we are years away from that unfortunately ;(

 

[DanNeely]

1988ish 13" CRT TV on parents Tandy Color Computer.

1993 14" 800x600 CRT on parents 486, later the computer I took to the dorm on a more capable computer I was able to run it at 1024x768.

2000 17" 1600x1200 CRT, cheapest option on price watch, bought after my first year of college.

sometime between 2005-2009 (can't find the receipt in my inbox, probably ' 06 or '07) 2xNEC 2090 20"1600x1200 LCDs. I got them as cheap refurbs when my CRT started to fail.

2010 added a NEC 3090 30" 2560x1600 to go between then. As much because I wanted a top of the line screen to go with the rest of my setup as for anything else; but as you might be able to guess from running my CRT at eye-chart levels I've always been a resolution junky.

2017 swapped the 3090 for an Acer Predator XB321HK - 32" 4k 60hz gsync. This upgrade was driven by DL-DVI going away as much as anything else.

Since then I've lusted after 32" 5k, 32" 8k, and 32" 4k 120/144/240 hz displays but never pulled the trigger. my current display works fine and I don't play shooters or anything else with rapid FOV changes where it would be most noticeable.

I'm not overly interested in going for a larger screen size, fitting on my desk would be problematic while keeping the old 20" screens as portrait mode side displays for non-gaming (and showing cheatsheets at a times) uses, and one game I play a lot puts a lot of information in the corners that I don't want pushed out into my peripheral vision.

Other than upgrading to a big LCD it's been every 6-7 years, so arguably I am due. But unless my current display fails am probably not going to pull the trigger in the near future.

 

[XoR_]

2017 swapped the 3090 for an Acer Predator XB321HK - 32" 4k 60hz gsync. This upgrade was driven by DL-DVI going away as much as anything else.

Since then I've lusted after 32" 5k, 32" 8k, and 32" 4k 120/144/240 hz displays but never pulled the trigger. my current display works fine and I don't play shooters or anything else with rapid FOV changes where it would be most noticeable.

I'm not overly interested in going for a larger screen size, fitting on my desk would be problematic while keeping the old 20" screens as portrait mode side displays for non-gaming (and showing cheatsheets at a times) uses, and one game I play a lot puts a lot of information in the corners that I don't want pushed out into my peripheral vision.

If your 32 inch Acer is anything like my Acer Predator XB271HK then the best reason to replace it is just image quality alone.
I directly replaced this Acer XB271HK to LG 27GP950 and even bigger difference than exactly 100Hz higher refresh rate was simply how colors look and how little IPS glow this new monitor had compared to old Acer - which was pretty bad as far as IPS panels go. Also A-HVA panel on that old Acer was pretty hard on eyes in comparison.

5K, 8K, etc. offers are not very numerous and we are still at 1440p and 2160p dominance with best options being with these resolutions.
If not getting OLED for games/videos I would recommend FALD as proper HDR-enabled upgrade. My LG has 16 vertical backlight zones and HDR while available is pretty useless.

 

[DanNeely]

If your 32 inch Acer is anything like my Acer Predator XB271HK then the best reason to replace it is just image quality alone.
I directly replaced this Acer XB271HK to LG 27GP950 and even bigger difference than exactly 100Hz higher refresh rate was simply how colors look and how little IPS glow this new monitor had compared to old Acer - which was pretty bad as far as IPS panels go. Also A-HVA panel on that old Acer was pretty hard on eyes in comparison.

5K, 8K, etc. offers are not very numerous and we are still at 1440p and 2160p dominance with best options being with these resolutions.
If not getting OLED for games/videos I would recommend FALD as proper HDR-enabled upgrade. My LG has 16 vertical backlight zones and HDR while available is pretty useless.

My use patterns are pretty close to worst case for OLED, probably >80% windows desktop with always on taskbar and title bars, so I've ruled OLED out completely.

To the extend that it can be captured in SDR video, haloing looks rather distracting. Unless the 10k (~28x28 pixel) dimming zone or 100k (~9x9 pixel) panels leave R&D and make it into production before I make my next purchase I'm planning to use lack of HDR as my main cost savings point.

 

[XoR_]

My use patterns are pretty close to worst case for OLED, probably >80% windows desktop with always on taskbar and title bars, so I've ruled OLED out completely.

To the extend that it can be captured in SDR video, haloing looks rather distracting. Unless the 10k (~28x28 pixel) dimming zone or 100k (~9x9 pixel) panels leave R&D and make it into production before I make my next purchase I'm planning to use lack of HDR as my main cost savings point.

One option which of course not everyone might like is using dual monitor setup with OLED used for games and maybe videos and otherwise IPS as desktop-only monitor.
Ever since mid-00's I run similar setups, usually with CRTs and if you like to watch videos while doing something else it is close to optimal. There is some hassle switching primary monitor but less today if all you want is to use single OLED monitor for gaming because then I only need to turn monitors on/off.

Otherwise I would not dismiss modern WOLEDs as desktop monitors. Subpixel structure was improved on this year's 32 inch 240Hz/480Hz models and with MLA boosting brightness (and fixing slight blue-ish hue from steep angles) and over-coverage for pixel shifting and used at lower brightness levels these panels should be resilient enough to last you quite some time until they need replacing- and if windows logo slightly burns-in then so what?. I mean CX users which isn't even all that great WOLED model burn-in-wise can manage to use desktop for years without much issues so surely more modern WOLED should not be as bad as to burn-in after just two or three years. You would need however to compromise on brightness. More like 80 nits for desktop than 200 nits... It is an option and I must say much flatter surface of WOLED panel is quite nice for eyes compared to IPS - even though I am so used to IPS it isn't an issue for me.

FALD... not ideal replacement for sure and prices are kinda ridiculous if you ask me.
LG announced they will be making gaming-grade IPS Black panels and higher contrast should help make blooming much less visible even with the same number of zones - though I guess if there are any plans to continue making FALD monitors they probably also include increasing number of backlight zones to make it more attractive for current users to switch.

And I worry about FALD because OLEDs are inherently cheaper to manufacture.
So cheap in fact that compared to how much material and additional electronics we get in big OLED TVs we are kinda getting ripped off with these gaming monitors we have today
Thankfully we already see prices fall for OLEDs and there are constant improvements to the tech so sooner or later even if they still burn-in there won't be much sentiment and it will be possible to just buy one, use for the time burn-in doesn't show or isn't distracting and then get another one cheaper. I already got MSI MG 271QPX for 768 euro which is less than ~1K I paid for LG 27GP950 IPS when it was new... and todays money is much worse quality than it was few years ago!
So yeah, sooner or later we should see much better OLEDs for <500 bucks at which point there will be no reason to use LCD anymore. Not to mention there are some big improvements in OLED emmiters in the queue for both LG and Samsung panels.

 

[D-EJ915]

I used our family's sony 17" CRT until I replaced it with dual used 18" eizo panels in late 2000s. I had picked up a widescreen sony monitor/tv combo to use with my laptop since they had the same 13x7 resolution which was interesting so I used all 3 of those concurrently but with different setups. After that I bought a U2711 at some point but decided to hop to 4k and got an Asus proart but that thing made me hate it so much since half the screen would glitch out randomly so I bought the b revision Acer X27 to replace it and I've been using that since.

 

[SoCali]

As soon as a better one is available. Life's to short to be one of these 5-7 year single product owners.

 

[El_Capitan]

I got an Acer Predator XB270HU from someone on this forum in 6/14/2016. I upgraded to a Dell S2721DGF 11/4/2021. So, I guess about every 5 years? A few days after I upgraded my GTX 1080Ti to an RTX 3070. I guess I wanted to try out 2K 10-bit 165Hz with HDR.

 

[Krispy Kritter]

I just replaced my 27" Acer XB270HU from 2015 I believe with a 32" Dell G3223Q.

I was still happy with the screen, just wanted a bit more realestate. It does take up a bit more space on the desk, but so far Im happy.

 

[kasakka]

As soon as a better one is available. Life's to short to be one of these 5-7 year single product owners.

How much of an improvement are you looking for before upgrading starts to make sense?

I currently have a 4 years old LG CX 48". I feel like newer TVs don't offer much to make it worth upgrading considering it would likely cost me 1500-2000 €. 144 Hz and higher HDR brightness is not enough for me. I'd consider upgrading for e.g 4K 240 Hz, or 8K 60 Hz / 4K 240 Hz in a smaller size like 55".

In 2022 I swapped a 2019 Samsung CRG9 49" 5120x1440 superultrawide for 2x Samsung G70A 28" 4K 144 Hz displays because I needed higher res.
In 2024 I swapped those for the Samsung G95NC 57" 8Kx2K superultrawide.

If Samsung were to release an OLED version of the G95NC next year, I don't think I'd upgrade to that but maybe wait for another generation at least until brightness goes up and more OLED quirks get worked out.