Why ultrawide? Curved?

Smoked Brisket

Smoked Brisket

Gawd
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Feb 6, 2013
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I am currently in a rare situation where I have parts enough to build a second pc. I personally use a 55' wasabi mango ips(yea, I have had it for years), and have not used anything less than 42 inches for 12 years or more. My office, I use that term loosely, is small and I want to set up a second small desk with the second pc and a 32 inch monitor. I would like this monitor to be sub $300, sub $200 dollars would be even better. Desired specs would be at least 120hz rr, freesync, ips, 1440p and decent response time.

Looking at amazon the choices seem endless. Is there a benefit to a 32 inch ultrawide? I cant see any reason to have a curved screen unless its huge. Looking for some advice on something that will last a while.
 
Some people like the seamlessness of one display over multiple monitors. However, there can be technical difficulties.... and my friends that have them are disappointed by the overall resolution (dpi) and brightness, etc...

I'm not saying somebody can't make a great double wide/ultra wide monitor.... but the ones I've seen at work stink.
 
I think to get a decent ultra wide with your desired specs, you are going to have to spend at least triple your stated budget.
 
braamer said:
I think to get a decent ultra wide with your desired specs, you are going to have to spend at least triple your stated budget.
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Your looking at at least $600 to $700 for a 34" Ultra-wide with good specs. Monitors like the Alienware AW3418DW and the Predator X34 come to mind. I'm not sure I've seen a 32" with what I'd consider good specs. At this point they are typically TN or VA, which isn't my preference. I bought one of these for my girlfriend awhile back. The specs are solid for gaming, but the image quality is nothing ground breaking.
 
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I know this seems like a stupid question, and I really have no problems picking things like PC parts, but this is going to be a purchase that sticks around for a while. Somehow my wife understands that I need to upgrade pc parts but does not see a difference in any flat screen device, so I am looking for a diamond in the rough.
 
I had a 27 4K monitor and switched to a 34 ultra wide. I like it because I can basically split the screen if I want to with a video on one side and a website on the other. Do I really need to do that on most days, well no. But before if I really wanted to do it I would have to switch over to my 60 inch 4K TV as my second monitor just to see a video and my other crap. It just looks better with the wide monitor. Sure I could have shrunk the two windows down on the 4K but I did not like losing information because they were not wide enough to show what I wanted.
 
Ok, Jamie, thanks for that response. I think I am missing something. I am thinking that a 32 inch ultrawide would be smaller than a 32 inch normal monitor because monitors are measured diagonally. So screen size would be alot less on an ultra wide as compared to a normal monitor of the same size. Where is the advantage? Remember that I have honestly only played on 42 inch screens since 2008 when I read an article about the best hdtv's as monitors, I ditched my crt and got my first credit card so I could spend $1300 on the one with a 4ms response time at 1080p. I know after that people started to have multiple displays but I never did that because I had a big ass display that I could play Eve on. 32 inches is a size I can stomach, and I actualy have a need to shrink. I could have a pc for my 4 year old daughter that could also have a refresh rate where I could play shooters and see what all the talk is about. Help me pick the right bargain for that.
 
Smoked Brisket said:
Ok, Jamie, thanks for that response. I think I am missing something. I am thinking that a 32 inch ultrawide would be smaller than a 32 inch normal monitor because monitors are measured diagonally. So screen size would be alot less on an ultra wide as compared to a normal monitor of the same size. Where is the advantage? Remember that I have honestly only played on 42 inch screens since 2008 when I read an article about the best hdtv's as monitors, I ditched my crt and got my first credit card so I could spend $1300 on the one with a 4ms response time at 1080p. I know after that people started to have multiple displays but I never did that because I had a big ass display that I could play Eve on. 32 inches is a size I can stomach, and I actualy have a need to shrink. I could have a pc for my 4 year old daughter that could also have a refresh rate where I could play shooters and see what all the talk is about. Help me pick the right bargain for that.
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I don't think I am aware of any 32" ultrawide on the market. The ultrawide would be tiny bit wider but less tall. http://www.displaywars.com/32-inch-16x9-vs-32-inch-21x9
 
Smoked Brisket said:
Ok, Jamie, thanks for that response. I think I am missing something. I am thinking that a 32 inch ultrawide would be smaller than a 32 inch normal monitor because monitors are measured diagonally. So screen size would be alot less on an ultra wide as compared to a normal monitor of the same size. Where is the advantage? Remember that I have honestly only played on 42 inch screens since 2008 when I read an article about the best hdtv's as monitors, I ditched my crt and got my first credit card so I could spend $1300 on the one with a 4ms response time at 1080p. I know after that people started to have multiple displays but I never did that because I had a big ass display that I could play Eve on. 32 inches is a size I can stomach, and I actualy have a need to shrink. I could have a pc for my 4 year old daughter that could also have a refresh rate where I could play shooters and see what all the talk is about. Help me pick the right bargain for that.
Click to expand...

Well the ultrawide would be wider of course but not as tall as the comparable 16:9 display. I went from a 27 inch to a 34 so height wise is about the same. I did lose on the resolution of course since I was running the 4K at 125% Scale so I could still read the fonts but also see as much as possible. The real problem with 4K, if you do not have perfect vision and a huge ass monitor, is that you really can not scale to 100% text. Of course it will look great with games but there are not a lot of video cards that can run 4K with all the levels at max, if any. I can game at 1440 with my levels at max and get more that 60fps so I am happier with this monitor for both gaming and doing actual work. Sure I could get a few more lines of text on the screen with the 4K monitor at 125% than I get with the UW at 100% but that was worth it for being able to fit more info on screen width wise, I can have two browser windows open side by side or my resume up in Word on the left and a browser window on the right to fill out online job applications. I could not do that with the 4K monitor while looking at the full window of the two applications side by side without scroll bars at the bottom.

Oh and on my desk I do not have room for both monitors or I would have had them both on there when done. I ended up giving the 4K to mom and set the scaling to 150% which is recommended so it honestly, at least for web browsing and working in documents, looks like a 1024*768 display to me.
 
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