34" Ultrawide or 32" 4K? Help me decide!!

[Crawford]

Looking for advice on a monitor for office use. It will be accompanied by a 4K 27" in portrait mode for in-depth reading and coding, but i am a bit stuck on the main screen.

I was leaning towards an ultrawide 34" (Dell S3422DWG or LG Ultragear 34GN850) - they look kinda sexy to me.

However, I am now wondering if the ultrawide resolution is simply too low - should i be getting a 32" 4K instead for slightly cheaper? These look like "big slabs" to me - too much vertical height - but there isn't much point in going for the sexier ultrawide if it doesn't work as well. Function before form etc. Perhaps the "big slab" effect goes away once you sit down with it.

Trying to decide, i've done plenty of searching here, and elsewhere, but can't quite find anything addressing this point directly. Tried visiting places to see them in-person, but not many shops nearby. When i get there, it is hard to get a sense of reading text in a shop........

So, how do people feel about ultrawide for content consumption, emailing, etc.?

 

[Personality+]

Ultrawide for daily use is amazing to be honest, I'd pick it over a standard monitor every day of the week for mundane tasks or being in a video/photo editor all day. So much more real estate for productivity once you adjust to it.

However if you want a sharper image then 4K is the wa to go, what's your budget?

I may well be switching over to 4K myself in the coming weeks (mainly for gaming and sharpness reasons) for productivity ultrawide all day.

Also if you want to watch movies make sure you get a 21:9 ultrawide 32:9 ultrawide is wasted for such content.

 

[radderfire]

I've got a flat 32" 4K monitor, so 3840 x 2160. However, I have to have the scaling set to 200% to make it comfortably readable for me.

Compare this to the 3440 x 1440 resolution of the 34" ultrawides. It's a hard call to tell if this is going to be better for productivity, but you do have 2" more of physical monitor space, and 400 less pixels over the width, so it would probably be more readable if using scaling at the standard 100%.

A curved monitor is also slightly more immersive. I can see that they would be good for gaming, but I personally wouldn't like it for spreadsheets or design work.

I would go for the flat 32" 4K, but each to their own, there's not a lot in it, and I think either way you'll get used to it and will come to like it.

 

[Orangeade]

For me it's a no brainer. I had the ultra wide 34" oled with 3440x1440 and was very frustrated with vertical height for productivity. Moved back to 4k 32" and it's night and day in terms of being actually useful.

 

[Crawford]

Ultrawide for daily use is amazing to be honest, I'd pick it over a standard monitor every day of the week for mundane tasks or being in a video/photo editor all day. So much more real estate for productivity once you adjust to it.

However if you want a sharper image then 4K is the wa to go, what's your budget?

I may well be switching over to 4K myself in the coming weeks (mainly for gaming and sharpness reasons) for productivity ultrawide all day.

Also if you want to watch movies make sure you get a 21:9 ultrawide 32:9 ultrawide is wasted for such content.

I'd love a 4K Ultrawide, but as far as i can see they are pretty expensive. As in, quite a bit over my £500 budget even used.

 

[Crawford]

Overall, a perfectly split decision - no wonder i am stuck! One vote for 34 UW, one vote for 32 4K, and one - perhaps the most hopeful - that i will come to like whichever i choose!

Wish it was easier to see the things in person!

 

[MissChief]

I'd say UW over 4k.

 

[Soul.Survivor]

Very happy with my ultrawide.

 

[Crawford]

Thanks - moves this towards a majority!

 

[Jae-So]

Ultra wide for sure

 

[Quartz]

So, how do people feel about ultrawide for content consumption, emailing, etc.?

You can have both Ultrawide and 4k! Dell do a 4k ultrawide (5120x2160) if you have the money. Discussion thread here.

But for email and forums, portrait is king.

 

[Casdawer]

I have a 34” UW at the moment and I’m currently debating this myself.

I love the UW but do feel like I need more height and with work being the primary use for my monitor, I feel it’d be better suited for that as well.

 

[Spuddy]

Another vote for ultrawide, I couldn't use anything else but as my main screen!

 

[jimhaumman]

After Elden Ring not supporting ultrawide monitors I'd go 4k 32 inch.

 

[Tejstar]

Have a 21:9 ultrawide at the moment and tired of the lack of vertical resolution for productivity. Will definitely be going 4K next.

 

[Pinball-Fantasies]

I utter love my Dell 32 4K ( G3223Q ) amazing display

 

[Gray2233]

Ultrawide all day long, they were a game changer for me for gaming use. The extra immersion and viewings angles are fantastic, I'll never buy a standard resolution monitor again for gaming uses.

 

[SpellowHouse]

Looking for advice on a monitor for office use. It will be accompanied by a 4K 27" in portrait mode for in-depth reading and coding, but i am a bit stuck on the main screen.

I was leaning towards an ultrawide 34" (Dell S3422DWG or LG Ultragear 34GN850) - they look kinda sexy to me.

However, I am now wondering if the ultrawide resolution is simply too low - should i be getting a 32" 4K instead for slightly cheaper? These look like "big slabs" to me - too much vertical height - but there isn't much point in going for the sexier ultrawide if it doesn't work as well. Function before form etc. Perhaps the "big slab" effect goes away once you sit down with it.

Trying to decide, i've done plenty of searching here, and elsewhere, but can't quite find anything addressing this point directly. Tried visiting places to see them in-person, but not many shops nearby. When i get there, it is hard to get a sense of reading text in a shop........

So, how do people feel about ultrawide for content consumption, emailing, etc.?

I use ultra-wide exclusively now, for gaming and work. Ultra wide is just a better width. I think, as well, that higher resolution must be matched with bigger size for business. There is no doubt that 4K is better, but only if it's bigger.
One thing to consider, is do you want the size of documents to change as you move them from one monitor to another? I try to keep the pixel size the same so the documents stay about the same size.

 

[Crawford]

Apologies for disappearing from my own thread - was dealing with a curve ball as HDMI and Display-Alt stopped working on my laptop just as some new screens arrived. After going round in circles with drivers (Intel beat in-house Lenovo) i am finally back up.

Looks like the UW has been gaining votes, if not unanimity.

In the meantime, i got an LG Ultragear 34GN85, but it arrived broken. After nonetheless trying the LG at my work desk - science place - I now thinking that the Dell S3422DWG might be a calmer and more mature look. Don't want to look like i am gaming all day - which was a parameter i hadn't considered!

Have picked up a Dell P2723QE as my reading monitor - which i will hopefully turn on for the first time tomorrow!

That just means i have to try and work through the pixel-size calculation mentioned by @SpellowHouse......

 

[Crawford]

Belay that - driver issue has resurfaced, and once again unable to connect to external displays.

I (think) that an Intel driver was automatically upgraded this evening, breaking whatever was working well - though the times of events in device manager don't seem to line up. Lots of Event ID 411 (Kernel PnP), which seems to roughly alternate between "oem19.inf" and "display.inf" - makes no sense to me.

Have therefore spent a frustrating evening working through the Intel back-catalogue, and the even worse Lenovo website trying to find the driver that works. Including ones for HDMI/USB-C. No joy.

Is there a suitable part of OC to post more details? Doesn't feel like "graphics" or "laptops"! This is soooooo annoying!