I can just connect it directly to my laptop, and it just works. When I had two displays I needed a docking station, and truth is most of those out there suck. Unless you go for the top models, and then you've lost all the money you saved on cheaper monitors. In addition you generally need a thunderbolt compatible dock, and that seems to come with it's own category of issues, assuming your laptop even supports it.
Also found ultrawide easier to configure hotkeys for windows management.
I can have a desktop for coding, a desktop for reference docs and previews, another for working on non-coding tasks, one with general browsing, one for chat/email/calendar, etc.
I've not found a satisfying way (on Mac OS on my Macbook or with various WMs — Sway is my go-to) to quickly replicate this ability to have multiple task oriented sets of windows visible at the same time and make them quickly switchable without multiple physical screens.
My comment was that, for this reason, 2 or 3 smaller (ish- ~27") 16:9 4k screens [1] (previously, 4–6 even smaller 4:3 screens) works much better for me because I can switch the spaces on my Macbook and i3/Sway virtual desktops on my Linux machine individually for each screen.
If we're talking about having a smaller number of giant screens it would need to be able to be partitioned into logical "zones" for virtual desktops to enable this way of managing sets of windows together, and I've not found anything that really does this, let alone does it well (though honorable mention to HerbstluftWM [2] which I think, with patience, could probably do something pretty close).
[1] preferably 16:10 but that seems to have died out as an aspect ratio :(
I use sway on my laptop only, but Gnome 45 and macOS is easier for me, for now. When it comes to multiple displays. The best feature of sway for me is the ability to assign apps to their workspaces, and also assign hotkeys to these workspaces. So e.g. cmd+alt+e opens Files app (nautilus) and it’s always on its files workspace that I activate with cmd+e. Quite very useful for me. I almost never open windows tiled, very seldom that I have two at one screen.
So with multiple displays, I am quite unsure how to organise that, which logic to apply here. Maybe I alt-tab out of old habit, but it’s so much easier, cognitively speaking, comparing to remembering all the logic for my multiple displays setup.
move workspace to output right
- Assigns most apps to a specific workspace
- Assigns the standard hotkeys to focus specific workspaces
- Assigns a hotkey for Rofi to filter and focus apps directly
- Assigns hotkeys to move a workspace to the current output/display
- Sets hotkeys to move a workspace 1 output left/right
Now I can quickly bring the most relevant contexts for a task to each display, and can also quickly switch to another context and back as needed.
It's not perfect, but it's pretty good. I'd like some apps to be on multiple workspaces, for example. And I am exploring the idea of a way to search for and bring an app onto the main display as a centered float temporarily then dismiss it back to where it came from with a single key — for example to bring up a Slack channel front and centre, reply to a message, then quickly dismiss it again.
I hate using the mouse to manage windows, and having one huge ultrawide just feels like a nightmare to manage -- I'd need some way to split it logically into 2 or 3 virtual monitors.
The ability to mix and match these between monitors is seriously powerful and basically eliminates window micromanagement and seriously curbs alt/cmd-tabbing. Everything stays put as switching desktops becomes the primary form of navigation.
Ain't that the truth.
The "top of the line" CalDigit docks are incredibly expensive and buggy.
...and they're on their 3rd or 4th iteration.
Plus not much competition, so not much choice either.
If I could go back, I would have also gotten a single ultrawide monitor.
Plus Macbook Pros multiple monitor support sucks relative to windows AFAIK.
I use an old intel macbook running macos, and found that the docking stations with usb-c didn't support secondary video, while those with thunderbolt (usb-c with lightning bolt) worked fine for all docking station needs (secondary video, charging, USB keyboard / mouse / camera / etc).
A thunderbolt docking station and a 24 inch 19:10 monitor transformed my home office setup. Big monitor in portrait mode in front of me, macbook to left, old IBM M4-1 (trackpoint) keyboard, webcam perched on top right corner of macbook so I can have windows in either screen and it kinda looks like I'm still looking toward the camera instead of being rude.
I've found the biggest problem with the big monitor is where to put the video call camera -- if you're looking anywhere but toward the camera it looks like you're not making eye contact with the people on the screen and it seems "rude" because there's the impression that you're not engaged.
This is easily fixed by plugging my laptop into a separate USB C power supply.
It’s other brands, especially USB-C (rather than Thunderbolt) stuff that I find extraordinarily flaky.
However, Macs have spotty support for this. I believe it works on the newest Mac books, but not older generations, and not the Mac mini?
32" 4k is nice as well, if you scale down to 2560x1440, or 3008x1692. On 32" 2x scaling (1920x1080 is just too big, and native (3840x2160) is just too small.
But if money is no problem, 3x 24" 4k, 2x 27" 5k, or 1x 32" 6k is really the endgame. That 2x scaling is just soooo crisp. :)
Depending on how close we're talking about, it may not be so great, especially with a non-curved screen, because the actual angle at the edges is possibly not so great anymore. That's the case on my 32" LG, for example (with an IPS panel, FWIW).
Significant difference. 32" 4k is not pleasant to read natively, and bringing it that close that is would be readable means you are putting things out of your focus and you need to start moving your head a lot.
27” 5k (5120 x 2880) -> 218 PPI
32” 4k (3840 x 2160) -> 137.68 PPI
34” 5k (5120 x 2160) -> 163.44 PPI
39,7 5K (5120 x 2160) -> 139.97 PPI
Apple Pro Display XDR 32" 6k (6016 x 3384) -> 218 PPI
I do dislike the fact that Apple removed decent support for lower resolution monitors, but I also don’t see why anyone would prefer them to higher res unless it’s a budget issue.
I'm also unable to believe someone would consider 27" 4K text illegible on a mac since that's what I use that every day and can read text comfortably. Edit: Unless you're using it unscaled, then yeah, text isn't that legible.
These are strange statements to make without any detail.
https://github.com/waydabber/BetterDisplay
I'm saying macOS is unusable on native resolutions - everything is either too small or too blurry, so a 4k display won't do me any good. 25x14 is the sweet spot for me, but I guess Apple decided I'm holding it wrong, because they want me to get a 5k display to get usable 25x14.
This forces you into 5k screens, or tricks to make the OS do actually useful scaling.
PPIs will display sharper pictures, provided that they have enough quality.
You don't get more real estate, indeed, since that depends on zoom level. However, depending on your setup and habits, you may actually gain some. In my case, I use 4k at 100% zoom. I don't care for window decorations, interface icons and so on, so it's not an issue if they're small.
Have a 27" 4k monitor and a 42" 4k monitor? Move the 27" close enough that it takes up the same FOV as the 4k and you get the same experience.
This isn't like home theatre where you're constrained to the dimensions of a room (ie. wall or console location a TV sits on top of and seat viewing distance).
If that is true, I'd consider move the screen closer to not be an option.
Otherwise this is a commonly propagated myth related to radiation from early TV sets.
https://theopticalshoppetn.com/is-sitting-too-close-to-the-t...
For gaming it isn't as desirable. HDR also gives the brightness a boost for media so it is plenty fine for that too.
The only thing that I found annoying is lack of inputs. There is 1DP and 1TB, and 2 HDMI (60hz). I wanted at least 2DP and 2TB to be super useful with a dock and a few other inputs.
The size is perfect however.
If LG release an OLED version better brightness, you bet i'll be ordering that too. It has been so ideal, the ROI has been better than any monitor setup i've used.
It seems so obvious once you start using it.
It's more like having 3 portrait monitors for productivity work. For media editing, splitting the monitor into 2 is like a classic dual monitor setup with enough width for widescreen video.
Then, if you really need it, it works great as a single wide monitor without making the workspace too "letterbox" like other ultrawides.
Honestly, for me, it is the absolute ideal.
Anything beyond this size may be OK for games, but too much space and too much windows is actually too much of cognitive load.
It is not a surprise that many ppl (not me though) start to prefer full screen terminal rather than dozen windows arranged in some disarray on a large screen.
> Anything beyond this size may be OK for games, but too much space and too much windows is actually too much of cognitive load.
I find the oppposite. The goal is not to be looking at everything all of the time but to make anything I might want, from key chat channels or monitoring dashboards, to my calendar, reference docs, secondary source files, etc. to all be "glanceable" within a given context.
I find a glance, even if it requires a turn of the head, is far preferable and breaks my flow/immersion much less than having to switch windows/desktops in place. It feels much more natural to me to place things like my calendar in a consistent physical place than to have everything intrude on one place, and I find it much easier to build the muscle memory for these glances.
The biggest downside is that travelling, even with a small second monitor, completely breaks the setup.
Probably with a modifier key though so I don't move out of a game just to read a wiki page though.
However, I also find it easier to recall where I was looking by moving my head between static content instead of having it change.
FWIW I use a 32" screen positioned so that I barely need to move my head to see it all, and try to have all things I'm looking at visible at the same time.
I use virtual desktops as more to separate unrelated areas of work (like different projects). It's like having a completely different desk with different books open on it. Having more screen space is just like having a bigger desk. It's like having multiple books open on your desk at once as opposed to picking up one at a time to look at it.
One big monitor would be ideal (it could be split into an odd number of frames, for example), but in practice multiple monitors is a good compromise between flexibility and price.
I always will be. I am about condensing information to just what I need.
The only thing that somehow could do the job would be iMac’s panels but I’m just not interested in an All in one and I already have good enough computers.
There’s also this refurb 21.5″ 4K LG on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/LG-22MD4KA-B-UltraFine-Display-4096x2...
And I’ve no idea about the quality, but the Dragon Touch S1 Pro 4K Portable Monitor is apparently 4K at 15.6″: https://www.dragontouch.com/products/s1-pro-4k-portable-moni...
There's a few 24", Dell has at least a couple.
I have another monitor next to it, which I sometimes use for to put documentation on, a hot reloading web app I'm working on, maybe a video I'm watching while doing some work, or a video conference while I'm screen sharing. But turning my head to the secondary monitor is too much of a burden to really use it a lot. 80% of the time the second monitor is just empty.
Two monitors let me compartmentalize my workflow. Window management is otherwise too messy for my needs with a single display.
My main use is writing, and it can a little overwhelming to see all my copy at once. I tend to fill out my screen with other resources that I’ll use.
Since it’s an odd-ball ratio, built-in Windows 11 window snapping also has some weird default behaviour that assumes that I want my windows a third of the height and stacked.
In Intellij and VSCode, I can see project outline, 120 columns of code, and DB details all on the same screen. I use it as a side monitor, with main monitor being a Dell 32 inch 4k.
It is the best configuration I've found for programming and CLI work. For gaming I typically use one of the normal widescreens to the left/right of it.
Only downside I've found is that I screen share often, and the odd aspect ratio means sometimes I have to use one of the normal widescreens instead to avoid small text on the audience's side.
Also I ran into some scaling issues on Mac but got past these using BetterDisplay.
Overall - love the LG DualUp, my only suggestion is to pair it with a normal monitor :)
I'm intrigued by it, potentially as a replacement for a vertical screen, but I'm unsure if it would work well with my Mac-based work environment.
I’ve got it set up for occasional PIP with a Bay Trail home server. That device has an HDMI out that does max 1920 x 1080 and won’t do the full width of 2560 x whatever.
I have the triple-27" monitors @4k setup described elsewhere..
Left-side monitor is Slack and Discord, and sometimes a File explorer or other misc apps that usually live minimized (Spotify, etc)
Center monitor is my IDE and terminal, or whatever "main" app I'm working in at the moment (sometimes Lightroom etc)
Right-side monitor is work browser (we use GSuite so lots of various tabs in GDrive, Calendar, Gmail, Docs etc)
You can certainly do this all on one screen, but I like to be able to glance at those things while still having my main screen laid out for ongoing work.
I also use multiple desktops so I have one for work and one for personal, and I can swipe all 3 monitors over to a different workspace with one key command, which makes macro context switching easier.
My only complaint is one of the thunderbolt displays is getting flaky. It likes to briefly turn itself off and on again, and unfortunately Apple's braindead software flashes all three monitors on and off when this happens. I've tried replacing the display's power supply, main board, and thunderbolt cable with no luck. Other than that, the setup has been rock solid and being surrounded by monitors makes me feel like I'm running The Matrix.
It’ll be a bummer when it finally goes. In addition to being a secondary monitor it also gets used to test how graphics appear on“normal” DPI displays (main monitor is a Studio Display) and while decent 2560x1440 are now cheap and ubiquitous none of them are going to be controllable via keyboard without third party software.
I usually use all the monitors for the task I'm currently working on, and not for different serial tasks. For context switches I use Alt+Tab or sometimes virtual desktops.
Last detail to add is that I use Powertoys FancyZones in Windows 10 to set up zones in my screens that let me snap windows into specific layouts easily on the side monitors, so setting up dedicated layouts per-monitor is more intuitive and easy for me.
When needed I can fullscreen across both.
No borders!
3 screens, all 4K, in | - - arrangement (portrait, landscape, landscape)
Left, vertical screen: terminals, Dash app, and documentation.
Middle, horizontal screen: Emacs showing org-journal+org-roam, VSCode, Firefox.
Right, horizontal screen: Chats and email, devtools from Firefox, separate VSCode workspaces, etc.
Main problem I've ran into was the newer M1-based non-Ultra/Max Macbook Pros don't support more than 2 external displays unless you use DisplayLink which is CPU-based and lags enough to notice. I wasn't able to convince our client to buy a laptop that would support my layout :/
F1 -> Terminals. (Wezterm showing 4 terminals in a 2x2 grid)
F2 -> Code editor or IDE. Sublime Text in my case.
F3 -> Internet Browser. Firefox with Container extension.
F4 -> File Manager or any other misc apps.
F5 -> unused
I'm so used to these keybindings, that when I'm on foreign computers I involuntarily find myself pressing F1 or F3 when I want to enter some command or browse some web page.
But then I _really_ like a vertical display for coding.
I get motion sick on anything over 27" so that kind of limits my screen real-estate. I also like to be able to quickly reference material across two apps without having to mess around with window sizing or the like.
It's sort of like having two computers from back in the 90's I guess, which is likely where I picked up the habit.
I still find it difficult to work on a laptop due to the lack of a second display. It's fine, but not quite as mentally satisfying to me.
I would also argue any ops-oriented position where you need to have a lot of graphs and logging displayed at once can benefit from multiple screens - or at least screen real estate. Using multiple monitors for these setups is usually more practical just due to desk layouts.
#1: My main 4k monitor, where I do the bulk of my work. I need the whole screen for this.
#2: My second 4k monitor, which I use for looking through documentation, taking notes, and working with the file system. (I have it split into quarters using PowerToys, but it's still very busy with many overlapping windows that I have to flip between frequently, which is why I wish I had a fourth monitor.)
#3: My old Cintiq, which I use when I need to hand draw something. In the meantime, it is dedicated to monitoring communication with colleagues (it's too low res for much else).
I then returned it and went for a flat 34" monitor (HP X34), and I'm happy for it.
A lot of recent models also support "picture by picture" mode, allowing you to connect two separate inputs to the monitor and avoid doing anything in software.
When I'm not working I sometimes connect the work computer display to a Chromecast or as a 2nd monitor to personal computer.
Work computer is much shittier than personal computer and doesn't support 2 monitors.
Stacking window compositors do much better than tiling, it's quite natural to just spread things around, wherever the best place may be.
The 43” is where I actually work. The other two are like static displays, the left one is slack on top and iMessage on bottom. The right one is task list app on top and calendar on bottom.
You get used to it pretty quick. It’s just great for like having a few conversations in progress without being interrupted and so on. They’re right there I’m just not looking at them.
Not sure if it’s decades of driving or something in the brain but having static readout displays like that really doesn’t bother me the way trying to juggle everything on one screen does. Reminds me of how a dashboard full of indicators in a car can be constantly changing without feeling like it’s “interrupting” my ability to look at the road.
It's one of those things that I never knew I couldn't live without, until I had it.
Running my laptop (with a much greater pixel density) is downright painful.
Disclaimer: I'm 61, so all those packed-in pixels are wasted on me.
Are you able to read text at 1:1 native scaling?
I believe once you reach 150% scaling, you end up with the same screen real estate as a 2560x1440 monitor. 200% scaling is the same as 1080p.
If I had a taller, 16:9 version of my 49" 32:9 ultrawide, I think that much screen would swallow me alive.
However, then you run into the need to do display scaling for UI elements for everything else. Windows mostly works in that regard and when it does not it is often the program in use that is not quite up to snuff.
After a lot of research, it seems to me the best approach is trying to get the resolution you want at a physical size that doesn't require excessive scaling (like 300%) as after all, we all want more desktop real estate and scaling reduces the effective resolution for most non-photo/video apps.
I've been looking closely at the Dell Ultrasharp 32" 6K monitor. The dpi is a little high at 223 but it will fit about 75% of an uncropped photo. I'd likely also get one of the LG dual UPs as well.
The one issue with both monitors, disappointing for the price of the Dell, is they are 8bit+FRC panels. Don't want to find out that I'm one of those who are sensitive to flicker or that the panel does not age well. At least the Dell is a 3yr warranty and the LG can be had in a commercial version that has 3 yr too.
I personally like my wide monitor, and I don't even particularly care to go for more pixels when available, ie my preferred resolution is ~1440p. They're nice and cheap, they look good to me, and they're easy to drive for the gpu.
I go more for deep blacks and good colors, pixels just look good until your eyes adjust and then it's all the same.
That being said, it is still my current setup as this wide turn holds me off from looking at the second screen, where slack and other distracting stuff is placed.
I have a 1440 ultra wide and it's been great, for gaming and dev, 2 windows side by side is basically like having two separate monitors, but with the ability to have like 0.25,0.5,0.25 window layout if I really want.
I do need to upgrade it at some point, I think it's easy to justify the higher price of a high res uw given that it's a replacement for two monitors, not one.
The only ultrawide that makes any sense is the 5k x 2k resolution one. These have more pixels than a single 4K. But they are expensive.
Even then, a 16:9 5K monitor has more pixels.
I personally use 3 x 27 inch 4K - which is cheaper than a single 5k Ultra-wide and gives you a TON more pixels.