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gouthamveyesterday at 6:50 PM9 repliesview on HN

I just setup mine today, and I am not sure I recommend it.

I went from a 40" to a 52", and I'm just moving my head waaay too much and my shoulders hurt. It is curved, but very little imo, it's almost like it's flat. I'm going to try it for a week before making the call on whether to return it.

I feel like this needs a workflow where you do work in the middle and use the fringes for other applications that you rarely look at. Otherwise you're moving your head waaay too much and squinting a bunch.


Replies

cosmic_cheeseyesterday at 6:55 PM

Based on personal experience, I think the upper bound for comfortably useful size at normal sitting distances is probably about 32", and even then I think there'd be better returns on adding vertical pixels to a ~27" monitor. A modern equivalent to the old 16:10 30" 2560x1600 monitors (ideally 2x scaling 5120x3200) would be great for example, but one could also imagine a 4:3 or 5:4 monitor with the same width (~23.5") as current 16:9 27" monitors.

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switchbakyesterday at 7:02 PM

That was my issue with multiple monitors years ago - I'd be cranking my neck over too often (looking at logs, etc). I vastly prefer an ultrawide where I can put logs / monitors on the side flexibly.

I have a 34 inch now, and feel like I could use more space - but it's nice to know there's an upper bound. Do you feel like there's still room to go beyond 40, or is that the sweet spot?

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Mixtapeyesterday at 7:07 PM

Seconding this. I have one for my work desk, where (surprisingly enough) it made a lot of sense. The DPI isn't as big of an issue as people make it out to be if your workflow doesn't depend on high density, but the curvature definitely could benefit from being a bit tighter. You need a fairly deep desk or a keyboard tray if you don't want to be turning your head a bunch.

That being said, having this in combination with PowerToys FancyZones has been fantastic. At any given time, I'm usually running 1-4 main working windows plus Signal, Outlook, and an RSS reader. This gives me more than enough real estate to keep them all available at a moment's notice. I have roughly 40% of the screen real estate dedicated to Signal, Outlook, and my RSS client, with the interior 60% being hotkey-mapped to divide in different proportions. Compared to my old setup (one ultrawide plus two verticals) it's been awesome.

swiftcoderyesterday at 8:21 PM

When I owned a 40" monitor, I had to get a deeper desk and sit pretty far from it. Even then, I couldn't game on it, because games shove the HUD and minimal into the corners, and they were too far to the side to keep an eye on.

Can't picture a 52" being usable as a PC monitor, really.

maxgluteyesterday at 7:44 PM

Maybe it's a head turner vs eye mover thing. It's a lot less fatiguing moving eyes, which might not be option for glass wearers. I sit 2 feet away from my 50 inch OLED and moving eyes is much less work than windows management. Otherwise it is very workflow dependant, i.e. working on visuals or schematic diagrams.

qwertoxyesterday at 9:19 PM

You'll get used to it. I have 3 24 inch monitors side by side. Center one is usually the editor, right one documentation or more editors, left one browsers with info.

bilsbieyesterday at 8:55 PM

Let me ask you ..Would it work better with a standing desk? It seems like moving around would feel more natural standing up.

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fridderyesterday at 8:16 PM

hmm, good to know. I have an lg 40in 5k2k that I rather like but this tempts me

2OEH8eoCRo0yesterday at 7:07 PM

I sometimes think that my 40" is too much because the extra space just ends up hosting distracting junk like Slack.

I also have a mild take that large screens make screen real estate cheap so less thought goes into user interface design. There's plenty of room just stick the widget anywhere!

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