I also use a 21" 1600x1200 with a Samsung PVA panel as a second display, the vertical height lines up nicely with a 27" widescreen. It's kinda fascinating to see how the PVA panel, which is like 20 year old tech, has no issues keeping up with a modern IPS display, and even has lower viewing angle shift, no backlight bleed, far better contrast and hence deeper blacks. The only teeny tiny problem is that it's visibly slow, even for a 60 Hz TFT.

> The only teeny tiny problem is that it's visibly slow, even for a 60 Hz TFT.

If it really bugs you, basically all scalers (brainbox for the LCD display signal) can handle 75-85Hz, since that was part of the VESA crt spec back then. Many of them will accept a higher frequency signal if you toodle around in your GPU settings a bit.

Can't fix the slow response times, but it still helps a fair bit with making general work feel smoother and snappier.

I spent a lot on CRT monitors (Nanao, Sony Trinitron) for work and then was was an early adopter of desktop LCD with DVI digital connections. I was so happy to get pixel perfect addressing and no analog softness, ghosting, or flicker. I remember going from 1600x1200 to 1920x1200 and easily accepting the idea that this was a bonus screen area to the side, not some sort of compromise.

Then, I was bitter when everything became 1920x1080 and feeling constrained by the limited vertical pixels. However, I am now quite happy with 28 inch 4k (3840x2160) on a desktop, rarely making any window full height nor full width. I even dragged home a second 4k monitor from the office at the start of the COVID WFH era, but never bothered to set it up properly. It just doesn't seem like I need that much screen area.

I still feel constrained by a laptop 14 inch 1920x1080, and my work style changes. I prefer to go back to the desktop for "real" work and mostly use the laptop for more basic communication or browsing when I don't want to stay in the home office.