While this article presents it in a humorous way, some air traffic control systems actually do use a diagonally rotated screen, with that "long line" being lined up with the primary approach to the airport. The setup I got to observe involved large displays that worked with stylus input.
These weren't ultra-widescreen displays; they were relatively standard aspect-ratio displays, rotated at an angle.
I was involved in the US air traffic control system upgrade in the early 90s as a software subcontractor. They were using Sony 2k square CRT monitors. If I recall correctly, they cost about $20k each - in 1990 dollars - partially due to the hardware subsystem for antialiasing.
Googling, I see that this is the replacement monitor:
I just scrolled through half a dozen ATC tower tour videos on YouTube and didn't see any skewed displays, but it's possible that they 1) they tidied it up for the tour, or 2) they just didn't apply this approach in those particular sites.
I'm still very interested to see this novel application.
Interesting. This is why I don't understand why people either choose to, or have set for them, GPS/mapping apps and run them on a device in landscape mode, IF you have the setting that "up" is the direction you are heading as opposed to "North"
Me, I want to maximize what is "ahead", not off to the sides where I'm not driving.
I learned to navigate primarily using cardinal directions, before handheld GPS was common. When I walk around a new city, I find it easier to look at google maps to figure out the cardinal direction I need to travel, as opposed to remembering a series of turns that are relative to each other.
That’s assuming the sun is out or a compass is available
If you've got an ultra wide monitor, maybe spin it and go for persistence of vision effect and a huge circular display? Could double as a fan to help spread all the heat generated by the GPU having to redraw it nonstop!
For a rotating persistence-of-vision display you need to redraw everything as soon as it's physical position has shifted a "pixel". i.e. non-stop, regardless of whether the content has changed or not.
I don't get the point of a lot of monitors. My current setup is a 4K 32" 16:9, which I do 98% of my work on. Everything on one big screen.
I have another monitor next to it, which I sometimes use for to put documentation on, a hot reloading web app I'm working on, maybe a video I'm watching while doing some work, or a video conference while I'm screen sharing. But turning my head to the secondary monitor is too much of a burden to really use it a lot. 80% of the time the second monitor is just empty.
I think it's down to personal preference, so obviously do what works for you!
I have the triple-27" monitors @4k setup described elsewhere..
Left-side monitor is Slack and Discord, and sometimes a File explorer or other misc apps that usually live minimized (Spotify, etc)
Center monitor is my IDE and terminal, or whatever "main" app I'm working in at the moment (sometimes Lightroom etc)
Right-side monitor is work browser (we use GSuite so lots of various tabs in GDrive, Calendar, Gmail, Docs etc)
You can certainly do this all on one screen, but I like to be able to glance at those things while still having my main screen laid out for ongoing work.
I also use multiple desktops so I have one for work and one for personal, and I can swipe all 3 monitors over to a different workspace with one key command, which makes macro context switching easier.
Apps and window managers understand full screen. With my wide monitori often want full height, but not full width this needs manual adjustment to work. Windows can sometimes be made full height (tripple click), but this somehow always seems to get the wrong width
I also have similar single monitor (a BENQ EW3270U) set to 200% scale. I use Linux, and my productivity is good by binding F1 to F5 keys to switch to different virtual desktops.
F1 -> Terminals. (Wezterm showing 4 terminals in a 2x2 grid)
F2 -> Code editor or IDE. Sublime Text in my case.
F3 -> Internet Browser. Firefox with Container extension.
F4 -> File Manager or any other misc apps.
F5 -> unused
I'm so used to these keybindings, that when I'm on foreign computers I involuntarily find myself pressing F1 or F3 when I want to enter some command or browse some web page.
I’ve got the LG 2-UP monitor and a plain-Jane 1080p monitor in portrait mode. I use the second monitor for mostly-PDF mostly-letter paper document review. I would love to find an ergonomic reason for my org to purchase an eink monitor for that, but I haven’t come up with any excuses ;)
Two monitors let me compartmentalize my workflow. Window management is otherwise too messy for my needs with a single display.
It all depends on your workflow of course. I run 3 monitors for my main workstation. Admittedly the third is mostly for rare events (e.g. debugging a performance issue across many services) or most of the time background TV/security cameras.
I get motion sick on anything over 27" so that kind of limits my screen real-estate. I also like to be able to quickly reference material across two apps without having to mess around with window sizing or the like.
It's sort of like having two computers from back in the 90's I guess, which is likely where I picked up the habit.
I still find it difficult to work on a laptop due to the lack of a second display. It's fine, but not quite as mentally satisfying to me.
I would also argue any ops-oriented position where you need to have a lot of graphs and logging displayed at once can benefit from multiple screens - or at least screen real estate. Using multiple monitors for these setups is usually more practical just due to desk layouts.
I use three monitors for my multimedia development work, and I can't imagine using fewer. I would get a fourth one if I could.
#1: My main 4k monitor, where I do the bulk of my work. I need the whole screen for this.
#2: My second 4k monitor, which I use for looking through documentation, taking notes, and working with the file system. (I have it split into quarters using PowerToys, but it's still very busy with many overlapping windows that I have to flip between frequently, which is why I wish I had a fourth monitor.)
#3: My old Cintiq, which I use when I need to hand draw something. In the meantime, it is dedicated to monitoring communication with colleagues (it's too low res for much else).
Right, horizontal screen: Chats and email, devtools from Firefox, separate VSCode workspaces, etc.
Main problem I've ran into was the newer M1-based non-Ultra/Max Macbook Pros don't support more than 2 external displays unless you use DisplayLink which is CPU-based and lags enough to notice. I wasn't able to convince our client to buy a laptop that would support my layout :/
I use two displays with the same specs as yours, but have them both vertical. Code goes on one, browser/documentation on the other, and I don't have to turn my head too much to go between them.
But then I _really_ like a vertical display for coding.
100% disagree. I went with 2 4K monitors years ago. When I switched to an ultra wide lat year it was a night a day difference. I wish I never bought 2 4k monitors (or dual monitors at all). Ultra wide is perfect and has a more functionality than a massive piece of each monitor's border in the dead center of your vision.
Yeah, bezels midfield is no good. That's why three monitors is where it's at. Or perhaps one of those 32:9 ones. But many window managers make it easier to deal with multiple monitors than one enormous one.
I, too, am in the ultrawide camp now. I initially bought a 4k monitor. The default rendering was too small for my eyes. My Linux didn't support fractional scaling; 200% scaling kind of defeated the purpose of having a 4k monitor in the first place--net real estate I got felt the same.
I then returned it and went for a flat 34" monitor (HP X34), and I'm happy for it.
On the contrary, I have a 49" 32:9 monitor, and for a laptop it's wonderful. The support for a single monitor is just way better than any dual (or more) setup.
I can just connect it directly to my laptop, and it just works. When I had two displays I needed a docking station, and truth is most of those out there suck. Unless you go for the top models, and then you've lost all the money you saved on cheaper monitors. In addition you generally need a thunderbolt compatible dock, and that seems to come with it's own category of issues, assuming your laptop even supports it.
Also found ultrawide easier to configure hotkeys for windows management.
The advantage I've found with multiple monitors is the ability to independently switch the "desktop" that's showing on each.
I can have a desktop for coding, a desktop for reference docs and previews, another for working on non-coding tasks, one with general browsing, one for chat/email/calendar, etc.
I've not found a satisfying way (on Mac OS on my Macbook or with various WMs — Sway is my go-to) to quickly replicate this ability to have multiple task oriented sets of windows visible at the same time and make them quickly switchable without multiple physical screens.
My preferred setup in terms of screen real estate is 24" 2k (2560x1440) without scaling. In terms of PPI it's a bit low (122), but 244 PPI 24" screens are hard to get. 1.5x scaling is an option
I'm working on a new build to replace my 11 yr old system. Monitors are a vexxing issue as I have competing needs - general/coding use and photo editing. As I'm working with 40+MP images, I'd like to have a screen with as high a resolution as possible to minimize the need to zoom in and out.
However, then you run into the need to do display scaling for UI elements for everything else. Windows mostly works in that regard and when it does not it is often the program in use that is not quite up to snuff.
After a lot of research, it seems to me the best approach is trying to get the resolution you want at a physical size that doesn't require excessive scaling (like 300%) as after all, we all want more desktop real estate and scaling reduces the effective resolution for most non-photo/video apps.
I've been looking closely at the Dell Ultrasharp 32" 6K monitor. The dpi is a little high at 223 but it will fit about 75% of an uncropped photo. I'd likely also get one of the LG dual UPs as well.
The one issue with both monitors, disappointing for the price of the Dell, is they are 8bit+FRC panels. Don't want to find out that I'm one of those who are sensitive to flicker or that the panel does not age well. At least the Dell is a 3yr warranty and the LG can be had in a commercial version that has 3 yr too.
I find it difficult to actually figure the proper position where the 27” Dell 4K (still very top notch) is just as far so that I can see it and not have to move my head left and right.
Anything beyond this size may be OK for games, but too much space and too much windows is actually too much of cognitive load.
It is not a surprise that many ppl (not me though) start to prefer full screen terminal rather than dozen windows arranged in some disarray on a large screen.
> I find it difficult to actually figure the proper position where the 27” Dell 4K (still very top notch) is just as far so that I can see it and not have to move my head left and right.
> Anything beyond this size may be OK for games, but too much space and too much windows is actually too much of cognitive load.
I find the oppposite. The goal is not to be looking at everything all of the time but to make anything I might want, from key chat channels or monitoring dashboards, to my calendar, reference docs, secondary source files, etc. to all be "glanceable" within a given context.
I find a glance, even if it requires a turn of the head, is far preferable and breaks my flow/immersion much less than having to switch windows/desktops in place. It feels much more natural to me to place things like my calendar in a consistent physical place than to have everything intrude on one place, and I find it much easier to build the muscle memory for these glances.
The biggest downside is that travelling, even with a small second monitor, completely breaks the setup.
I always thought that moving my head to look at another monitor isn’t really faster than pressing a key to make my fullscreen terminal appear, especially if we start taking cursor hunting into account
My dream monitor is a 22” 4K monitor. I searched it for a decade and this creature just doesn’t exists. There have never been a single 4K monitor under 27”.
The only thing that somehow could do the job would be iMac’s panels but I’m just not interested in an All in one and I already have good enough computers.
It is surprising how much more affordable 4k displays are. I was stuck finding a suitable display for my macbook being used to the 5k iMac, and ended up with the 32 inch samsung m8, which is one third what apple charges for the 5k studio display. I find myself liking it more in practice than the 5k imac, because while it is a bit less crisp, the colors once properly set up are equally nice and the size is luxurious.
I use a single 43” as my main display, and then also two 27” displays in portrait mode on either side.
The 43” is where I actually work. The other two are like static displays, the left one is slack on top and iMessage on bottom. The right one is task list app on top and calendar on bottom.
You get used to it pretty quick. It’s just great for like having a few conversations in progress without being interrupted and so on. They’re right there I’m just not looking at them.
Not sure if it’s decades of driving or something in the brain but having static readout displays like that really doesn’t bother me the way trying to juggle everything on one screen does. Reminds me of how a dashboard full of indicators in a car can be constantly changing without feeling like it’s “interrupting” my ability to look at the road.
I think 27" 4k with some scaling is a good spot indeed.
32" 4k is nice as well, if you scale down to 2560x1440, or 3008x1692.
On 32" 2x scaling (1920x1080 is just too big, and native (3840x2160) is just too small.
But if money is no problem, 3x 24" 4k, 2x 27" 5k, or 1x 32" 6k is really the endgame.
That 2x scaling is just soooo crisp. :)
There are 32" monitors with native 2560x1440. I still prefer that dpi to run Windows, where some apps still have problems with hidpi scaling. It's mostly about older and niche apps, but every now and then you encounter something that doesn't scale well.
The PPI ratio for 32" 4k with no scaling is actually pretty good (at least to my eye, since it's similar to my previous 24" 1080p, 27" 1440p monitors). If we can agree on that, then the solution is to just move the monitor closer to your eyes, 3rd party monitor arms help with that.
I have a 1440 ultra wide and it's been great, for gaming and dev, 2 windows side by side is basically like having two separate monitors, but with the ability to have like 0.25,0.5,0.25 window layout if I really want.
I do need to upgrade it at some point, I think it's easy to justify the higher price of a high res uw given that it's a replacement for two monitors, not one.
I was within inches of buying this this holiday season but was offput by people’s brightness complaints. Figured I could wait another iteration until either the brightness or the refresh rate gets better… the 5K2K seems like the move though.
It's unclear to me why we'd be optimizing solely for pixels or pixels/$.
I personally like my wide monitor, and I don't even particularly care to go for more pixels when available, ie my preferred resolution is ~1440p. They're nice and cheap, they look good to me, and they're easy to drive for the gpu.
I go more for deep blacks and good colors, pixels just look good until your eyes adjust and then it's all the same.
For me, it's about screen real estate, not looks. More pixels is more usable space, until you have to start scaling things up for comfort. I find a 27 inch 4k monitor to be comfortable without scaling, but I think it's just about the limit for me, and I expect that the PPI limit varies from person to person.
The problem with multiple monitors for me is that you have to turn your head very wide to look onto the adjacent screens' center, which is definitely not ergonomic and healthy.
That being said, it is still my current setup as this wide turn holds me off from looking at the second screen, where slack and other distracting stuff is placed.
The actual "ideal" rotation for maximum line length would be closer to 23° rather than 22°, right? Because Atan(9/21) = 23.20°.
Also... could we go further? If we're treating the screen's content as an arbitrary plane, what about tilting the content of screen away from you like SNES Mode 7 or the Star Wars text crawl? Infinite screen height!
Does character height affect that calculation? The longest line possible wont be able to render at the ends, so is it possible there is a shorter line on a different angle that can render more text?
On a similar note, I once again wish more displays were 3:2, and more people knew about it. The human central (not peripheral) vision’s ratio is very close to 3:2, yet due to economics of scale 16:9 is marginally cheaper and much more common.
And if someone is wondering, no, rotating 16:9 vertically for more vertical space doesn’t help because it makes it very narrow - for me IMO a square display would be the best. (There are also minor subpixel rendering issues, along with viewing angle issues if using a TN panel but those are still more minor.)
Unfortunately, unusual screen sizes and OLED aren't as available in combination. And since I spend all day in a terminal, having the black background be off is wonderful. I would love 3:2, but I get more value from OLED.
I have 3 of these that I bought new back in 2018, that I'm considering selling in the [redacted] area.
I haven't used them in 2 years, but coincidentally, earlier today I thought about setting up a new workstation that will use all three. So this comment is to gauge if there is any interest.
I'm an Air Traffic Controller, and I discovered these monitors because we used them in a simulator. At the time, the screens we used for controlling traffic were 2048x2048 (that our tech-ops said cost 20k), but recently we switched to larger rectangular monitors (also Eizo).
If anyone in [redacted] is interested, email me at [redacted]
Oh nice, thanks for this! I was disappointed when I went to buy EIZO one, only to find it was discontinued. 1:1 and OLED would be awesome, if such a thing existed of course. Not only for writing, but also for emulation purposes - close enough to 4:3 and 3:4 (yoko/tate modes) not to have to rotate the screen, just a bit of black on the sides.
> The human central (not peripheral) vision’s ratio is very close to 3:2
That's irrelevant, though, when monitor size is much larger than our central vision.
What does matter is neck strain. The reality is that you want to keep your head level while moving it right/left. Right/left doesn't have to work against gravity, while up/down does.
This is why wider is better than taller for something monitor-sized.
I’m aware about this monitor but unfortunately it seems that production has either stopped or slowed down, while it was available to buy some months/a year ago, now it’s not.
yesss... I discovered how wrong the widescreen displays are after I had found an old IBM Thinkpad in my basement and tried it. To add to what you said, I will also point out that it's the vertical space that often gets pinched by toolbars and such, effectively squishing your working area to an even wider ratio. And when working with text (reading, writing), the left and right edges of my screen are just slabs of emptiness. Given all that, a taller display feels more roomy for the same surface area.
The only disadvantage though is that putting two windows/panes/buffers of anything side by side would no longer be as convenient?
At least on OS X, using a free utility, I can set two apps to exactly split the screen with two key presses and one mouse click. ON a 16:9 it comes back to being an actually decent aspect ratio for reading text.
> the vertical space that often gets pinched by toolbars and such, effectively squishing your working area to an even wider ratio. And when working with text (reading, writing), the left and right edges of my screen are just slabs of emptiness.
Absolutely agree, and it’s amazing/infuriating when people/companies don’t realise it. My mom’s old Asus could barely fit a few lines of text on its small screen after all its toolbars in chrome. You shouldn’t need to scroll multiple times to read a 3-paragraph email on a display where it fits if it were the only text! (And of course about 60% of the space on the sides was wasted.)
I don’t have a 3:2 display yet, though I do have an old 16:10 21” monitor which is alright. My ipad (10.9”) is okayish as well, but I’m planning to buy a 16” 3:2 portable monitor soon. Do you have an 3:2 screens?
For laptops definitely. Screen above ~24"? I don't really think this is that relevant and if have multiple windows open side by side it's the opposite (16:9 is more ergonomic than 3:2,).
Yawn. Get on with the times. I've been using ultrawide (21:9) for years, and would definitely not want to go back to peeking through a square'ish hole.
UW is fine if you’ve got a 28” or more desktop (or maybe larger even), but I’d take a 28” 3:2 like the Huawei Mateview over a 28” UW any day of the week. The UW probably has 20 or 30% lesser screen area.
Readit News
These weren't ultra-widescreen displays; they were relatively standard aspect-ratio displays, rotated at an angle.
Googling, I see that this is the replacement monitor:
https://www.aydindisplays.com/2k-x-2k-air-traffic-control-di...
I'm still very interested to see this novel application.
Me, I want to maximize what is "ahead", not off to the sides where I'm not driving.
That’s assuming the sun is out or a compass is available
For a rotating persistence-of-vision display you need to redraw everything as soon as it's physical position has shifted a "pixel". i.e. non-stop, regardless of whether the content has changed or not.
The only ultrawide that makes any sense is the 5k x 2k resolution one. These have more pixels than a single 4K. But they are expensive.
Even then, a 16:9 5K monitor has more pixels.
I personally use 3 x 27 inch 4K - which is cheaper than a single 5k Ultra-wide and gives you a TON more pixels.
I have another monitor next to it, which I sometimes use for to put documentation on, a hot reloading web app I'm working on, maybe a video I'm watching while doing some work, or a video conference while I'm screen sharing. But turning my head to the secondary monitor is too much of a burden to really use it a lot. 80% of the time the second monitor is just empty.
I have the triple-27" monitors @4k setup described elsewhere..
Left-side monitor is Slack and Discord, and sometimes a File explorer or other misc apps that usually live minimized (Spotify, etc)
Center monitor is my IDE and terminal, or whatever "main" app I'm working in at the moment (sometimes Lightroom etc)
Right-side monitor is work browser (we use GSuite so lots of various tabs in GDrive, Calendar, Gmail, Docs etc)
You can certainly do this all on one screen, but I like to be able to glance at those things while still having my main screen laid out for ongoing work.
I also use multiple desktops so I have one for work and one for personal, and I can swipe all 3 monitors over to a different workspace with one key command, which makes macro context switching easier.
F1 -> Terminals. (Wezterm showing 4 terminals in a 2x2 grid)
F2 -> Code editor or IDE. Sublime Text in my case.
F3 -> Internet Browser. Firefox with Container extension.
F4 -> File Manager or any other misc apps.
F5 -> unused
I'm so used to these keybindings, that when I'm on foreign computers I involuntarily find myself pressing F1 or F3 when I want to enter some command or browse some web page.
Two monitors let me compartmentalize my workflow. Window management is otherwise too messy for my needs with a single display.
I get motion sick on anything over 27" so that kind of limits my screen real-estate. I also like to be able to quickly reference material across two apps without having to mess around with window sizing or the like.
It's sort of like having two computers from back in the 90's I guess, which is likely where I picked up the habit.
I still find it difficult to work on a laptop due to the lack of a second display. It's fine, but not quite as mentally satisfying to me.
I would also argue any ops-oriented position where you need to have a lot of graphs and logging displayed at once can benefit from multiple screens - or at least screen real estate. Using multiple monitors for these setups is usually more practical just due to desk layouts.
#1: My main 4k monitor, where I do the bulk of my work. I need the whole screen for this.
#2: My second 4k monitor, which I use for looking through documentation, taking notes, and working with the file system. (I have it split into quarters using PowerToys, but it's still very busy with many overlapping windows that I have to flip between frequently, which is why I wish I had a fourth monitor.)
#3: My old Cintiq, which I use when I need to hand draw something. In the meantime, it is dedicated to monitoring communication with colleagues (it's too low res for much else).
3 screens, all 4K, in | - - arrangement (portrait, landscape, landscape)
Left, vertical screen: terminals, Dash app, and documentation.
Middle, horizontal screen: Emacs showing org-journal+org-roam, VSCode, Firefox.
Right, horizontal screen: Chats and email, devtools from Firefox, separate VSCode workspaces, etc.
Main problem I've ran into was the newer M1-based non-Ultra/Max Macbook Pros don't support more than 2 external displays unless you use DisplayLink which is CPU-based and lags enough to notice. I wasn't able to convince our client to buy a laptop that would support my layout :/
But then I _really_ like a vertical display for coding.
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I then returned it and went for a flat 34" monitor (HP X34), and I'm happy for it.
When I'm not working I sometimes connect the work computer display to a Chromecast or as a 2nd monitor to personal computer.
Work computer is much shittier than personal computer and doesn't support 2 monitors.
I can just connect it directly to my laptop, and it just works. When I had two displays I needed a docking station, and truth is most of those out there suck. Unless you go for the top models, and then you've lost all the money you saved on cheaper monitors. In addition you generally need a thunderbolt compatible dock, and that seems to come with it's own category of issues, assuming your laptop even supports it.
Also found ultrawide easier to configure hotkeys for windows management.
I can have a desktop for coding, a desktop for reference docs and previews, another for working on non-coding tasks, one with general browsing, one for chat/email/calendar, etc.
I've not found a satisfying way (on Mac OS on my Macbook or with various WMs — Sway is my go-to) to quickly replicate this ability to have multiple task oriented sets of windows visible at the same time and make them quickly switchable without multiple physical screens.
Ain't that the truth.
The "top of the line" CalDigit docks are incredibly expensive and buggy.
...and they're on their 3rd or 4th iteration.
Plus not much competition, so not much choice either.
If I could go back, I would have also gotten a single ultrawide monitor.
Plus Macbook Pros multiple monitor support sucks relative to windows AFAIK.
27” 5k (5120 x 2880) -> 218 PPI
32” 4k (3840 x 2160) -> 137.68 PPI
34” 5k (5120 x 2160) -> 163.44 PPI
39,7 5K (5120 x 2160) -> 139.97 PPI
Apple Pro Display XDR 32" 6k (6016 x 3384) -> 218 PPI
However, then you run into the need to do display scaling for UI elements for everything else. Windows mostly works in that regard and when it does not it is often the program in use that is not quite up to snuff.
After a lot of research, it seems to me the best approach is trying to get the resolution you want at a physical size that doesn't require excessive scaling (like 300%) as after all, we all want more desktop real estate and scaling reduces the effective resolution for most non-photo/video apps.
I've been looking closely at the Dell Ultrasharp 32" 6K monitor. The dpi is a little high at 223 but it will fit about 75% of an uncropped photo. I'd likely also get one of the LG dual UPs as well.
The one issue with both monitors, disappointing for the price of the Dell, is they are 8bit+FRC panels. Don't want to find out that I'm one of those who are sensitive to flicker or that the panel does not age well. At least the Dell is a 3yr warranty and the LG can be had in a commercial version that has 3 yr too.
Anything beyond this size may be OK for games, but too much space and too much windows is actually too much of cognitive load.
It is not a surprise that many ppl (not me though) start to prefer full screen terminal rather than dozen windows arranged in some disarray on a large screen.
> Anything beyond this size may be OK for games, but too much space and too much windows is actually too much of cognitive load.
I find the oppposite. The goal is not to be looking at everything all of the time but to make anything I might want, from key chat channels or monitoring dashboards, to my calendar, reference docs, secondary source files, etc. to all be "glanceable" within a given context.
I find a glance, even if it requires a turn of the head, is far preferable and breaks my flow/immersion much less than having to switch windows/desktops in place. It feels much more natural to me to place things like my calendar in a consistent physical place than to have everything intrude on one place, and I find it much easier to build the muscle memory for these glances.
The biggest downside is that travelling, even with a small second monitor, completely breaks the setup.
I always will be. I am about condensing information to just what I need.
The only thing that somehow could do the job would be iMac’s panels but I’m just not interested in an All in one and I already have good enough computers.
Stacking window compositors do much better than tiling, it's quite natural to just spread things around, wherever the best place may be.
The 43” is where I actually work. The other two are like static displays, the left one is slack on top and iMessage on bottom. The right one is task list app on top and calendar on bottom.
You get used to it pretty quick. It’s just great for like having a few conversations in progress without being interrupted and so on. They’re right there I’m just not looking at them.
Not sure if it’s decades of driving or something in the brain but having static readout displays like that really doesn’t bother me the way trying to juggle everything on one screen does. Reminds me of how a dashboard full of indicators in a car can be constantly changing without feeling like it’s “interrupting” my ability to look at the road.
32" 4k is nice as well, if you scale down to 2560x1440, or 3008x1692. On 32" 2x scaling (1920x1080 is just too big, and native (3840x2160) is just too small.
But if money is no problem, 3x 24" 4k, 2x 27" 5k, or 1x 32" 6k is really the endgame. That 2x scaling is just soooo crisp. :)
I have a 1440 ultra wide and it's been great, for gaming and dev, 2 windows side by side is basically like having two separate monitors, but with the ability to have like 0.25,0.5,0.25 window layout if I really want.
I do need to upgrade it at some point, I think it's easy to justify the higher price of a high res uw given that it's a replacement for two monitors, not one.
It's one of those things that I never knew I couldn't live without, until I had it.
Running my laptop (with a much greater pixel density) is downright painful.
Disclaimer: I'm 61, so all those packed-in pixels are wasted on me.
Are you able to read text at 1:1 native scaling?
I believe once you reach 150% scaling, you end up with the same screen real estate as a 2560x1440 monitor. 200% scaling is the same as 1080p.
If I had a taller, 16:9 version of my 49" 32:9 ultrawide, I think that much screen would swallow me alive.
I personally like my wide monitor, and I don't even particularly care to go for more pixels when available, ie my preferred resolution is ~1440p. They're nice and cheap, they look good to me, and they're easy to drive for the gpu.
I go more for deep blacks and good colors, pixels just look good until your eyes adjust and then it's all the same.
That being said, it is still my current setup as this wide turn holds me off from looking at the second screen, where slack and other distracting stuff is placed.
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https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_angle
Also... could we go further? If we're treating the screen's content as an arbitrary plane, what about tilting the content of screen away from you like SNES Mode 7 or the Star Wars text crawl? Infinite screen height!
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And if someone is wondering, no, rotating 16:9 vertically for more vertical space doesn’t help because it makes it very narrow - for me IMO a square display would be the best. (There are also minor subpixel rendering issues, along with viewing angle issues if using a TN panel but those are still more minor.)
https://youtu.be/gJG9HOQITrg
The LG DualUp is an almost-square 16:18 monitor, higher resolution than the Eizo and almost half the price.
I haven't used them in 2 years, but coincidentally, earlier today I thought about setting up a new workstation that will use all three. So this comment is to gauge if there is any interest.
I'm an Air Traffic Controller, and I discovered these monitors because we used them in a simulator. At the time, the screens we used for controlling traffic were 2048x2048 (that our tech-ops said cost 20k), but recently we switched to larger rectangular monitors (also Eizo).
If anyone in [redacted] is interested, email me at [redacted]
I’ve got my eye out the LG one, but unfortunately it’s still a little out of my student budget. I hope to get it soon, fingers crossed!
That's irrelevant, though, when monitor size is much larger than our central vision.
What does matter is neck strain. The reality is that you want to keep your head level while moving it right/left. Right/left doesn't have to work against gravity, while up/down does.
This is why wider is better than taller for something monitor-sized.
It's 3840*2560
The only disadvantage though is that putting two windows/panes/buffers of anything side by side would no longer be as convenient?
Do you have a 3:2 screen yourself, which one?
Absolutely agree, and it’s amazing/infuriating when people/companies don’t realise it. My mom’s old Asus could barely fit a few lines of text on its small screen after all its toolbars in chrome. You shouldn’t need to scroll multiple times to read a 3-paragraph email on a display where it fits if it were the only text! (And of course about 60% of the space on the sides was wasted.)
I don’t have a 3:2 display yet, though I do have an old 16:10 21” monitor which is alright. My ipad (10.9”) is okayish as well, but I’m planning to buy a 16” 3:2 portable monitor soon. Do you have an 3:2 screens?
You might want to refresh your memory of HN's guidelines. Link at the bottom.