I use the win hot keys all the time but that’s kinda what I don’t want, I want 3 parts so I have a definite center. Having just two split on my right or left means I am looking to the side for everything, which strikes me as less than ideal. Or is it? Never having used an ultrawide for day to day I just don’t know.
Good question! I’m very frequently looking off at my side monitor so I hadn’t really thought much of it. I haven’t had an ultrawide before either, so I’ll see how it is later this week. :)
And by the way guys, if anyone is still shopping for ultrawides I just saw that this went on sale today only:
Very interested to hear about the ultrawide productivity experience @KevinC and anyone else!
@BloodyBattleBrain - best investment I ever made (in terms of this thread anyway) was in monitor arms. Clamp them bad boys to the back of your desk and not only do you reclaim a ton of desk space, but you can have your monitors at the correct height without stacking 2-3 textbooks under them.
Just make sure your displays are VESA-compliant (or otherwise are able to properly attach to the arms you buy).
monitor arms…
great idea.
my other idea, apart from makeshift desk extension, was wall mounting it.
Your idea is much better on so many levels.
I haven’t got a new desk because I have an excess of old furniture, and bits thereof, lying about so don’t really want to add to it.
Any desk I do get will probably be from Ikea because Amazon delivery to this little island is unreliable and takes a while.
Seconding the monitor arms suggestion. I just upgraded to three of them, and they made working with three monitors in my tiny desk space possible.
They’re really great. And portable between desks, so there’s no sunk cost in getting them now when your desk situation is, ah, fluid.
Agreed. I got three of these wonderful things.
They work like a charm.
I just ordered the AW3418DW from Bestbuy for $799. There was a newegg ebay deal for the almost identical X34p for $750 but I like the Alienware look a bit better plus it’s available local and newegg wanted to charge tax anyways.
Obviously not going to be doing much gaming until my 2080 shows up but I can have fun with Gsync for now and a non UW resolution. Maybe. My 970s were already struggling with 1200p in some games, let alone 1440p.
Gonna flip my 2 side 24" monitors to portrait and see how it all fits, I have ergotron monitor arms that should work with the new UW monitor.
Should plan before buying if you want to use a second monitor, because the ultrawide tends to dominate the desk. I wasn’t intending to use a second one, which is just as well because I don’t know where I’d put it.
New monitor was delivered Saturday. One thing about the Alienware monitor is that the stand alone takes up a fair amount of space. My desk was made back when CRTs still roamed the earth, and it has elevated trays which were made to accommodate monitors and other accessories with substantial depth. Unfortunately the trays weren’t designed to fit a stand with such a large footprint.
My solution was to fashion an extended platform out of particle board that rests on two of the trays, with enough overhang to fit the monitor stand. Painted it black so it doesn’t look too out of place.
While waiting for the paint to dry, I played around with the monitor briefly just setting it on the desk proper, and it consumed about two-thirds of the available space. I had my arms extended to the keyboard and my head craned back, probably looking like I should be in the ‘I Hate This Guy’ thread.
Looks great!
Looks pimp.
And I shall get those arms.
Edit- I’ve had to use my old alienware today. It’s 4 years old and a fickle beast, overheats so very easily.
However it survived today.
I doubt I’ll ever buy another one.
However, Dell do something with or to the alienate monitors that makes them a joy to look at. I have no idea what this tech is, or how to start searching for it.
Any ideas?
Also, can anyone recommend a good, large capacity SSD (off-topic but not worth a new thread…although I’m now going to go search and probably find one…😁)
They also make dual display arms that let you put one display on top. I’ve thought about doing that, and if I had an ultrawide it would feel mandatory. One display on top to have your Netflix or Hulu running while you game sounds pretty good to me.
I’ve also been thinking of upgrading to a standing desk at home. I have one at work and I really like stretching my legs and standing every few hours for a few hours, two on and two off. It would be nice to get some standing time in while I game at home.
If I perch the monitor high enough I can improvise a standing desk!
EDIT: So, instead of 49 inches for £900, I found 40 inches for £500 including transport and importation fees (aah i have to pay import fees despite being in a Spanish territory…f*ck me if I understand it. Still, if an autonomous Spanish region can do this then so could England as an autonomous region of Britain…err…oooopss…wrong thread).
Ahem…
Plus I got an arm, like you all recommended:
Ultrawide is super excellent for productivity, simply because you can have multiple windows open all at once and be able to refer to one window while doing work on another. The chore is usually having to arrange the windows manually but Divvy made it super easy with just a top of keyboard shortcut (Ctrl-D for me) and a mouse drag to draw the size your wanted. The window immediately snap to the grid you wanted it.
I can have a few spreadsheets and power-point charts opened (I have a dumb job) and it is so easy to do @Vlookup and copy and paste objects from one to the other. A real time saver there, to be honest. Less Command Tab or Alt Tab to do. And less mistakes.
Just finished setting up the new UW and so far I am liking it. I grabbed DisplayFusion first and set it to create 3 virtual like monitors on it that just change where it maximizes a window to. So far I would say it’s a small step up from using separate monitors for productivity tasks. Will check out Divvy later.
What I noticed when I had 3 1200p monitors was that I only liked to use the closer to center half of the 2 outer monitors. Anything more and I would have to turn my head. The UW stops well short of that so you don’t feel like you have to turn your head or move your eyes to an uncomfortable amount.
That sounds like a great tool!
DisplayFusion is WONDERFUL if you use multiple monitors.
Right now I am waffling between DisplayFusion and MaxTo.
DisplayFusion I could use to replace my old copy of UltraMon and handle all my window management for the UW monitor but MaxTo looks like a better split/region setup but I haven’t really played with it yet.
I just watched a little video showing this off, it doesn’t seem to do anything WIndows 10 doesn’t do natively, except maybe dual screensavers (but who uses screensavers?). The video was old though, from 2012 - how has it improved? What would make a Windows 10 dual-display user use it today?
A lot of what DisplayFusion does is worthless with W10, like taskbars, screensavers, background patterns, etc. But we are talking about window management.
DisplayFusion calls it Splits, watch this video to get an idea -
Basically you setup regions on the monitor and can maximize windows to it easily. Not sure how you would use an ultra wide without some solution like this and not go crazy or just end up maximizing across the whole 21:9 ratio. I think it would be useful for a 16:9 as well but not as much.