Is it time to upgrade my monitor?

For me, I find dual monitors to be such a pain when switching back to a single task. You either turn your head to one side, or you have a primary monitor directly in front of you and the second off the side.

The ultrawide just gives more flexibility. Dead centre in field of vision for a single task, but more than enough space for two.

Where ultrawide gets disconcerting is when you have a single browser window with content designed for mobile. Some websites, vertical video, that sort of thing. So much wasted space. But if you can get past that, I personally find it way better.

 

21:9 is great and I struggle going back to 16:9, maybe 4:3 on a retro day.
Most 32:9 are 49" and may be too big for some desks(mine included). 32:9 will grant you the two 24" experience.
At 34" you have two 17" monitors equivalent.

 

I have the ultra wide, and another monitor next to it.
It's good for gaming, so that's one of the reasons I have it too, no bezels in the way. Also just got it on a nice deal.
I replaced 3 24" monitors with one 38", later added a 22" from goodwill

 

Actually I was wrong, it's not 21:10, just higher resolution 21:9, 3840x1600 instead of 3440x1440

 

Ah, correct you are.

 

Hmm, my current setup is three 24" 16:10 monitors, centre and left are landscape, right side is portrait mode. The monitors are getting old and the inconsistent brightness/colour across all three is annoying but not really a dealbreaker yet. I was just pondering upgrade options. I suppose I could try an ultrawide to replace the centre and left simultaneously.

Random question for you ultrawide folks. A very common windows shortcut I use is Win+left or right arrow. This automatically sizes the current window to half the screen and brings up a brief option screen to size something to the other half. Very useful when juggling multiple different everythings on the screen. Can anyone tell me how this keyboard shortcut works on an ultrawide? I'd assume it would do a half screen, but if it recognizes quarter screens (as if I had two monitors) that would be very handy to me.

 

Yes, it does half screens using Win + Left/Right. After that, you can do quarter screens by doing Win + Up/Down. You can't do Win + Up/down to get a horizontally split screen. Sometimes you get the window layout where you can click a single screen to fill in the remaining empty space, but it depends where the open windows are located.

For me, I generally drag-n-drop windows the top, sides and corners rather than the keyboard shortcuts. But the end result is exactly the same.

 

Ah, I was hoping it'd be quarter vertical screens. Horizontal split isn't terribly useful lol.

 

@Armaegis, I was worried about that too before I moved to an ultrawide. Plenty of options here.

Dell monitors allow you to install and use Dell Display Manager. Part of Display Manager’s functionality is to let you break the screen up into partitions of the size and number that you choose, and it is user configurable and customizable. They call this feature “Easy Arrange”.






For example:

• If I want to use default Windows 10 snap left/right/up/down I can. This is helpful for spreadsheets and presentations.
• In Display Manager I’ve set my screen partitions up in vertical thirds (for document processing). If I grab a program’s bar and then hold down SHIFT, an outline around each of the three partitions appears. I then drag my window into the desired partition, the outline changes color to let me know it registered the move, and then I let go and it snaps and fills that partition. Super nice to be able to have three Word docs up side-by-side.

There is other software that can do this too, like DisplayFusion. I just had to go with Dell’s due to work security/IT policies re: third-party software. Got Dell’s in as a “driver” approval.

Dell also has a KVM wizard built into Display Manager so you can switch between machines connected via assigned hot keys. I plan on using that later this year once I build a PC.

 

That's good to know! I just did a quick google and found Asus has something similar: https://www.asus.com/ca-en/support/FAQ/1016271/

edit: Mostly just posting these as a note to self to read later: https://www.reddit.com/r/ultrawidemasterrace/comments/547ezc/list_of_window_management_tools/
https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/virtual-monitor-apps-maximize-ultrawide-monitor/