11 votes

I could use recommendations for an ultrawide monitor

Posted by Wulfsta (edited )
Tags: ask.recommendations, hardware, monitors

I recently had a bad monitor failure after six or so years of normal use. Specifically, my LG 34GK950F-B had an electrical failure that, in a limited sense, caught a ribbon cable inside on fire. It is exactly the same failure as shown here, and I add a few images of documentation of my case here.

Anyhow, I am now in the market for a new ultrawide, and I need one as soon as yesterday since my desktop currently has no display - I have been tunneling into it to do anything. General recommendations would be nice - but a few things specifically:

  • what is the burn in situation like on modern OLED monitors?
  • I would prefer not to spend a massive amount, is that doable while still supporting the following use cases?
    • lots of coding, needs to render text nicely as the top job
    • photo editing, needs to have good color accuracy or be trivial to calibrate such that it does
    • occasional gaming, I don’t game on my desktop much these days, but I don’t want the monitor to feel clunky when I do

This post is a bit stream-of-conscience, so if any other questions or requirements come to mind I will edit it.

Edit: I guess as much as I don’t want to spend a ton, I will also end up using this display for at least another five years - I don’t mind spending a little more to account for that.

5 comments

  1. creesch
    Link
    Still there, though much less than in the past. It most certainly will be an issue if you use it for a lot of coding (static text) and even more so if you also work from home and use it for long...

    what is the burn in situation like on modern OLED monitors?

    Still there, though much less than in the past. It most certainly will be an issue if you use it for a lot of coding (static text) and even more so if you also work from home and use it for long hours. Modern OLED monitors have a lot of tech build in to limit this burn in, but that can only go so far.

    Fringing on text is also still a bit of an issue, though some people don't mind.

    I would prefer not to spend a massive amount, is that doable while still supporting the following use cases?

    I'd honestly look at an IPS screen if you don't want to spend to much. OLED monitors, certainly ultrawide ones are still fairly expensive.

    4 votes
  2. [3]
    Macha
    (edited )
    Link
    I have two IPS displays and an OLED display, same resolution and size (27" 1440p) and have them next to each other. Burn in is not a problem really. I work from home and game often, which means it...

    I have two IPS displays and an OLED display, same resolution and size (27" 1440p) and have them next to each other.

    1. Burn in is not a problem really. I work from home and game often, which means it gets 8-12 hours of usage without a break. I leave the monitor do two things to manage burn in:
      • I left the pixel shift feature on. This works by your monitor having like 10 extra pixels in each direction and it periodically shifts the visible area slowly around the actual resolution so that hard lines (like window splits, taskbars etc) aren't leaving clear burn in. You'll probably notice this a lot for like the first day or two using a monitor and then never again.
      • I leave the monitor do its refresh cycle thing once a day. Now it suggests doing it every 4 hours, and if the monitor goes to sleep and then wakes up it'll ask you to send it back to sleep for the refresh, but I only let it do it when I'm done for the day, so 2-3 times less often than it suggests.
      • I've had no noticeable burn in which aligns with what Tim from Monitors Unboxed has observed on his (you can only really see the burn in with their exaggerated filter view)
    2. Text is a problem. So there's a technology called subpixel rendering which is used to make text look better on non-retina displays (So 1440p 27", 4k 32" all count as "low" dpi for this, 4k 27" is kind of mid-dpi). This makes assumptions about how the subpixels in your monitor are laid out. Most LCDs are laid out in consistent patterns (usually RGB, sometimes BGR), while OLEDs have all sorts of "unusual" layouts that the subpixel rendering wasn't designed for like triangle RGB or RWGB etc. If you use subpixel rendering for the wrong pixel layout, you'll get color fringing. If you turn it off, you'll get blurrier text. A lot of the operating systems aren't that interested in upgrading their subpixel rendering tech in light of retina/high DPI displays (like 1200p13" etc.) becoming more common in laptops. So that means on an OLED you get to choose between blur and colour fringing, while on an IPS panel you can have neither.

    Honestly, as much as I like my OLED, I think you'd be better served with an IPS if your priorities are code and photo editing first. 60hz to 120hz is a huge improvement, and most IPS panels now are 144hz or 165hz. Most OLEDs are 240hz (or above), but there's serious diminishing returns. 120hz to 240hz is like.... 20% of the improvement vs going 60hz to 120hz.

    3 votes
    1. [2]
      Wulfsta
      Link Parent
      Yeah, the LG model that I was using is an IPS 3440 by 1440 34” with a refresh rate of 144Hz. It was quite decent when I bought it six years ago, and I made the choice to go IPS back then because...

      Yeah, the LG model that I was using is an IPS 3440 by 1440 34” with a refresh rate of 144Hz. It was quite decent when I bought it six years ago, and I made the choice to go IPS back then because burn-in was still an issue to my recollection? My desktop for this is NixOS with X11 and bspwm, which I suspect can be pretty heavily configured (or outright swapped at this point given how old all that is) for the pixel layout. Ideally I need something that is at least equivalent, but OLED has been tempting…

      1 vote
      1. Macha
        Link Parent
        I think six years ago the only OLED option were the LG TVs which absolutely do have burn in issues if you use them as computer monitors, yeah. Dedicated computer monitors usually compromise on...

        I think six years ago the only OLED option were the LG TVs which absolutely do have burn in issues if you use them as computer monitors, yeah. Dedicated computer monitors usually compromise on other areas (like peak brightness or pixel shift) to avoid that

        The pixel layout thing is controlled by fontconfig on Linux which I’m pretty sure only supports rgb or bgr layouts.

        1 vote
  3. cdb
    (edited )
    Link
    My previous setup was two 35" LG ultrawide VA displays stacked on top of each other. I got rid of one of them to use an LG C4 42" monitor as my main display. It looks absolutely amazing for videos...

    My previous setup was two 35" LG ultrawide VA displays stacked on top of each other. I got rid of one of them to use an LG C4 42" monitor as my main display. It looks absolutely amazing for videos and games, but it's a noticeable downgrade in text clarity. The size is not the issue, as the PPI is nearly the same between displays. I'm kind of regretting the choice of the OLED, because like you one of my main uses is coding. I tried mounting the display on the wall for a farther viewing distance with increased scaling, but it didn't help much.

    In the future I'd probably go with an ultrawide IPS for my main display. The Dell UltraSharp U4025QW or LG 40WP95C look like something I would want to buy, but they're quite expensive at $1500+. Although not curved, I was thinking the INNOCN 40C1U might be a good alternative at ~$800. Since you said that you didn't want to spend a ton and also work on photo editing, I guess a decent flat 32" 4k IPS monitor might be the best choice because flat is better for photo editing and they look great for text.

    3 votes