New Computer Monitors for my home office

Hackerspace PC Computers
#1

I’m considering treating myself to new computer monitors. I’ve always only had hand-me-downs, or basic monitors from work. I don’t do any serious gaming, but I do like playing Diablo on occasion. What’s the current “frugal” recommendation? I currently have three 21" monitors (A HP, Dell and a Samsung). I want all three to be the same model, and somewhat better than the current basic office grade monitors I am using.

Thoughts?

Also - I really just want three matching monitors that have the same color temperature :wink: The current monitors will get relocated to my garage work bench.

#2

Have you considered getting a 1080p ultrawide monitor? I went from multimonitor to a single 29” ultrawide and haven’t gone back.

#3

I will consider it, although I would likely still go with a three monitor set up…one for prime focus, one in portrait mode for reading documents, and a 2nd one over the prime monitor for secondary info…or when the cats insist on sitting in front of the prime monitor.

#4

I’d look for something similar to the U2412m’s I used to have. IPS monitor around 24” would probably be your sweet spot. If you check Facebook or craigslist you might be able to get something similar for cheap.

#5

Seconded on the Dell U2412s. It’s amazing how much difference having 1200 lines instead of 1080 lines makes. And these are nice monitors. I think I got a pair for $75/each on CL a few months ago.

Disclaimer: Note sure how these are for gaming, I only use them for non-gaming stuff.

Reminds me of a quip for an older mentor of mine in the early 80’s, when I was an intern at TI. He told me, “The best video game is an editor+assembler”. Truth.

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#6

I’m not much of a gamer…if I ever have enough time in my life to start gaming again, I doubt I’ll need very much to play pac-man and donkey kong.

#7

At this point in the game since most monitors while have a standard refresh rate and dpi that’s great for text they also tend to miss out on audio and other features that brings up the cost.

So, I would either go with AOC USB Monitors for multi mounting and portablitly plus a lot of android tablets with arm mounts. Or go with a 55 Inch uhd for the same price as a 22in monitor.

#8

Disregard multimonitor, acquire ultrawide

#9

About 2 years ago i switched from a quad 24 monitor setup to a 42" samsung 7 series tv. Ive gamed on it and found that even with productivity ill never go back. Just a thought

#10

Yeah I cannot justify $800 on just a 34in monitor. if size was the thing then again, a 55 inch uhdtv works great at a 4th of the price.

There’s even a curved one for half:

#11

I thought ultrawide was a good idea, but my main beef is that 99% of media won’t fullscreen properly.

#12

I usually get around this by snapping the video to 1/2 of my monitor or using a “dark mode” a lot of video players have to darken the background. Some monitors like my LG will allow for PiP style division of the monitor screen.

#13

I had that concern until I tried it and found 2 observations:

1: High-quality ultrawide monitors typically have excellent resistance to light bleed, making letterboxes a lot less intrusive than you would imagine, especially in a darkened room

2: Many movies are filmed and released in wider formats than 16:9, resulting in even less noticeable letterboxing on ultrawide than on standard monitors

Any media quibbles were offset even further by the unique advantages an ultrawide monitor offers me, like being able to run 2 windows side by side on a single monitor without needing to scroll left and right or zoom out, as well as better accommodating wider fields of view in video games, particularly racing games.

#14

wanna buy a LG 27" ultrawide? Cuz I don’t get much use out of mine.

It ruins the HUD in Fallout 4 (yes I tried modding it, still wasn’t right) and so far the only movie I’ve watched that actually used that aspect ratio was Disaster Artist.

It was the only monitor I would do color correcting on until I got my my current main monitor.

#15

I just picked up two of the Dells for $80 each

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