Another monitor advice thread - 3 mons currently and want to upgrade

unwashed potato!

unwashed potato!

unwashed potato!

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i currently have 3 x 28" monitors side by side. 2 are benQ and 1 Asus. the quality is fine, but the newest is at least 5 years old if not more, and the others much older.

i'm wanting to upgrade all 3 screens at some point, however for now i have the budget just for 1, partially because my bank just gave me £200 for a mistake on their part, so i have that i want to spend, plus about another £250 i'd put towards it, so budget around £450.

what i can't decide is should i get a 32" screen now, and then another 32" in the future, and drop down to 2 screens, or perhaps 34" ultra wide now, and another 34" in the future, and end up with lots of space, but i'm not sure i'll really ever need that much space, or perhaps 2 x 32" and a 20" or so screen to the side i can put smaller things like emails.

i am also concerned dropping the quantity of monitors, as right now having 3 screens is super easy to organise my space, chucking windows into screens creates a clear divide where a window can end.

i barely do any gaming on my pc these days, but i do some still and enjoy it when i can on pc, though it's more RTS style games i pivot towards on pc. the main use is for work and i have at least 3 windows infront of my at any point, though often working with around 5/6 windows

so with the above, what would be your suggestion, with a budget of around £450

thanks
 
I have no idea what you do for work so this probably a totally irrelevant question: but does any of your work use Citrix or similar for remote access to programs from a server available on your desktop? If so, mixed resolutions will make it entirely unusable from experience and that may influence what you may choose to do

Edit: Silly typo
 
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5abr3 said:
I have no idea what you do for work so this probably a totally irrelevant question: but does any of your work use Citrix ir similar for remote access to programs from a server available on your desktop? If so, mixed resolutions will make it entirely unusable from experience and that may influence what you may choose to do
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Nope.

These are the windows I typically have open.

Notepad++
Email
Chrome
Another chrome window for watching YouTube/Netflix etc which is often full screen

Other windows I have open but don't go to often

And ftp
Photoshop
File Explorer
 
unwashed potato! said:
so with the above, what would be your suggestion, with a budget of around £450
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These are all 4k monitors, right? My suggestion would be to move to 4 monitors. You have three good monitors; why stop using them? Your new monitor should be a 144 Hz 4k monitor and be the bottom middle monitor, with another 4k monitor stacked above it. Put the side monitors in portrait mode to free up a little desk space. Or you could use a 2x2 square layout.
 
Why not get a new 32", and then have a 28/32/28 setup?

Do you need a high refresh rate for gaming?

Brands I like are LG, Dell, Asus and Samsung. What have you looked at so far?
 
radderfire said:
Why not get a new 32", and then have a 28/32/28 setup?

Do you need a high refresh rate for gaming?

Brands I like are LG, Dell, Asus and Samsung. What have you looked at so far?
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Partly because the monitors are all old so would like to replace at some point, so trying to think ahead and get one now, and then have a plan for the future screens, but 28/32/28 setup would work fine for now.

I've looked at the monitors OCUK sell that range from £300 to £500. There's too many!
 
unwashed potato! said:
On my 28s I have 1920x1080. Assume going for 32inch or 34 I'm going to want better?

My phone has a refresh rate of 120hz, something I'd never seen before, and it is impressively smooth.
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Well I have a 4K 32" VA monitor. At 4K, it's too small for me to read comfortably, and in Display Settings I have to set "Change the size of text, apps, and other items" to 200%. I would say this means I could have bought a lower resolution monitor, as I can't make use of the 4K.

My VA monitor is very crisp, but it's also very bright, and I have to turn the brightness right down. However, it does me, but next time I might be tempted by IPS or OLED, but they are way more expensive. The only way you can tell which you prefer is by actually looking at some monitors in person. My VA monitor very much looks like a backlit monitor, and I would say it is crisp and functional, rather than rich and immersive colours, if that makes sense. Would you settle for a VA, or do you want to pay more for IPS or even OLED?
 
radderfire said:
Would you settle for a VA, or do you want to pay more for IPS or even OLED
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What's the downside to VA?

One thing is that I only really use my PC during late evenings and I'm a big fan of low light, so a super bright monitor isn't something I'd need. Good contrast is more important as some games I play are in a dark environment,and it's something I notice on one of my screens is that I can barely see in the shadows.

I'm surprised that monitors aren't like mobile screens yet in that they have auto brightness adjustments depending on room light.
 
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unwashed potato! said:
What's the downside to VA?

One thing is that Iodrly use my PC during late evenings
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A bit of a typo there can you correct to explain better?

I would say a VA you can tell you are looking at a thin film which light is being beamed through, like a screen being lit by a fluorescent light. It's functional rather than exceptional.

I think IPS or OLED would have richer colours and would be more comfortable to view, but I don't have one. OLED would be the best viewing experience.
 
radderfire said:
Well I have a 4K 32" VA monitor. At 4K, it's too small for me to read comfortably, and in Display Settings I have to set "Change the size of text, apps, and other items" to 200%. I would say this means I could have bought a lower resolution monitor, as I can't make use of the 4K.
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You are partially mistaken. If you look carefully you will see that the Truetype text is finer. It's not a simple 2:1 scaling on each axis. One pixel does not become four. It is, however, true for bitmapped fonts, though. If you were to put a 32" 1080p monitor beside it you would see that Truetype text on the 4k monitor looks much nicer.
 
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