I don't like curved displays

118 pointsposted 7 days ago
by max__dev
(blog.danielh.cc)

133 Comments

sigma02

3 days ago

As someone who wears corrective lenses for astigmatism, I can guarantee that what you perceive as a straight line, assuming you are human, is not, until your brain corrects it and signals 'straight line' to you.

It takes a day or so for your brain to get used to any consistent distortion and totally disregard it.

This is just pointless complaining... A bigger complaint with curved screens is: crazy reflections.

reaperducer

3 days ago

As someone who wears corrective lenses for astigmatism, I can guarantee that what you perceive as a straight line, assuming you are human, is not, until your brain corrects it and signals 'straight line' to you.

That is unrelated to astigmatism. In Art 101 class in college we explored this phenomenon. It's caused by the spherical nature of the human eyeball.

The exercise was to sit on the floor in the corner of a particular campus building that had a lot of long architectural lines and draw what you see without looking at the paper. If you drew straight lines, the prof knew you were thinking about drawing, and not just drawing what you saw.

SomeHacker44

3 days ago

Not so sure. When I first started wearing glasses for astigmatism, it turned rectangles into trapezoids. Totally destroyed my depth perception. After a while I got used to it and stopped walking into curbs and buildings. Later in life I moved to progressive lenses. The straight lines then became curves. Adjusted after a while again, but the curves never fully went away. Regardless, I have to take the glasses off for sports that require good depth perception like ping pong or tennis.

somat

2 days ago

Sometimes my depth perception goes off after getting a new pair of glasses with no prescription change, I always figured I had ended up with a different IOR poly-carbonate formulation in the lenses. But I have no idea if that can actually cause the effect.

mcpeepants

2 days ago

I experience this too, and always thought it might be caused by a change in alignment of my eye and the “center” of the lens with new frames and lens shape.

namibj

a day ago

Use contacts for astigmatism they need to be "fixed" to the eyeball to properly correct astigmatism.

orbital-decay

3 days ago

Yeah. If you try hard enough, you can slightly break the correction and directly notice the curvature of the straight lines, especially long ones moving towards you, on the border of your visual field. The eye physically produces a heavily distorted picture, but it's at least partially rectified and the brain does a sort of continuous neural SLAM, what you perceive is the result of it.

sigma02

2 days ago

What I said applies to any distortion. Astigmatism is just one example. Lenses that turn everything upside down is another. A few hours later, everything is normal.

cout

3 days ago

I had this experience back when the glass on CRTs was curved and monitors started shipping with knobs to adjust the curvature of the image. I had used a curved-glass CRT (curved the opposite way of today's curved monitors) for so long that nothing looked quite right after that until LCDs came into the picture (pun intended).

LocalH

2 days ago

This is very true. I've been measured as having astigmatism. However, I do not wear corrective lenses for astigmatism (only for general near-sightedness), as my brain has been correcting for it for the better part of 45 years at this point. I was told if I wore corrective lenses it would start giving me headaches.

sippeangelo

3 days ago

I like my curved ultra-wide. I didn't at first, but my brain has very noticeably adapted to where curved things on it appear straight just fine. I noticed this when I went back to the office after a few weeks absence, where I have a regular flat pancake screen in 16:9, and straight text looked CURVED in the opposite direction!

Brains are weird.

hakunin

3 days ago

I got a curved 5k2k lg display for games, and every time I switch to work monitor (5k regular flat lg), it feels like I'm looking at an old CRT that's bulging out at me. Such a strange sensation. I do like the curved display a lot however.

zeroq

3 days ago

Wow, that's a great insight and honestly a great point for not having one. At least till they get more popular.

hakunin

3 days ago

To be fair, this is a short lived effect immediately after transition. Goes away in 2 minutes.

DamnInteresting

a day ago

I have a curved monitor on my regular desk, and a flat panel on my treadmill desk. Switching between the two takes a few minutes of adjustment for things to look right.

I had a similar peculiarity with eyeglasses. I'd always had great vision, but middle age recently hit me like a truck, and my eyes have started to go. I got a prescription, and there was a difference between the two eyes. For the first few days, everything looked misshapen, larger on one side than the other, until my brain compensated. Most curious.

AdrianoKF

3 days ago

I've noticed the same when I tried to replace my ultrawide 34" with a Dell U3225QE for my home office the other day. I really wanted to like the Dell since I love the specs, but my head would hurt from the perceived bulge in the middle of the screen, where the curve used to sit farthest before. Stupid brains, really.

ChrisMarshallNY

3 days ago

I use a 49” LG ultrawide (5120 X 1440).

It’s curved, and I have no issues at all with it.

I thought I would, at first, but it’s been fine.

But it’s also only curved horizontally. Not sure how it would be, if it were square.

Jedd

3 days ago

TFA doesn't mention the size of their monitor, or the ratio of it, or the distance they typically sit from their monitor, or the horizontal placement (relative to their eyeballs), or the type of work they're doing.

I'd also expect a mention of the amount of curve they are upset about.

There's a few varieties, the 1500R and the 1800R were the most common two when I was shopping last year, in the AU domestic market. Those numbers refer to how the monitor might fit on an imagined circle's radius (measured in millimetres, naturally). So an 1800R is a gentler curve than a 1500R.

I find UW's beyond about 34" are mostly more comfortable in an 1800R for 'office work' activities (not including CAD, photo / image manipulation, etc) and gaming.

(I actually have a 43" flat, in 16:9, it sits about a metre from my eyeballs, and I usually aim for my eyes to be about 1/3 the way from the top of the screen. After several months with this, I now feel a gentle curve on this would be a bit more ergonomic.)

bpye

3 days ago

I have the Dell U4025QW which has a 2500R curve and I do think it’s beneficial. If I had dual 27” monitors instead I would also have a slight angle between them - so the curve seems like a natural progression.

dsr_

3 days ago

Different people have different preferences.

I suspect a bunch of smaller manufacturers would have more success with their products if there was an easy way to try them out for a week or two. Buying hardware sight-unseen incurs a heavy risk penalty. Buying it after seeing it in a store for ten minutes is some reduction, but not a lot.

How many people would spend $250 on a split ergo ortho keyboard having never touched anything other than a laptop or maybe a mushy $12 pack-in included with their Dell at work?

What's the appropriate solution other than inflating the price even more to cover a generous return policy?

I might buy a Keyboard.io or a Moonlander... but there's a pretty high risk I won't love it. These things can be subtle: I quite like the X-Bows Knight I'm typing on now, and can't stand the Keychron Q10 which, by all rights, I ought to find about as comfortable.

lisper

3 days ago

Once upon a time there were these places called “retail stores” where you could go look at actual products and even try them out before buying them.

Alas.

dsr_

3 days ago

That works for a conventional mouse: you've used one before. This one is a little different shape, a little bigger, ooh, no wires. That's fine: in five minutes you know whether it's OK.

How long does it take to decide whether you love or hate a thumb-ball? A big ball? A SpaceMouse? Has anyone who didn't use a ThinkPad decide to buy a keyboard with an integrated nubbin?

Sure, I can buy twenty devices for $200 each and return 19 of them. That puts 19 items into "open box" status, causes me to re-pack and re-ship and track 19 items, and makes 19 vendors vaguely cranky at me.

matsemann

3 days ago

I get your point. When I had RSI in my right elbow and tried to find a replacement for a traditional mouse there were soooo many attempts. And I had to use them for a while both to see if they helped, but also to see if I managed to use them properly. Like, a mouse where you rolled a ball with your thumb I never got friendly with even after a few weeks.

In the end the problem was actually moving the hand away from the keyboard, so no tilted mouse, thumb mouse or track pad worked. A RollerMouse saved me. I even game with it now, heh.

Just lucky my company paid for all of it (and the ones I didn't use they got back by me distributing to others within the company with issues)

comprev

3 days ago

Over the years I've gifted a few nice keyboards to people and their immediate response has often been "why didn't I get a proper mechanical keyboard sooner!"

They had only used cheap plastic or laptop keyboards until then and never saw a keyboard as a tool to invest in for their profession (which often required plenty of typing).

snickerer

3 days ago

I bought a Moonlander two years ago and the price (plus shipping to Europe) did really hurt. I also had to spend a lot of time into the complex configuration of the individual key mapping. And to learn the mapping.

It was absolutely worth it and I would do it again. I love that the keys aren’t staggered like on a typical keyboard — which I find rather silly — but instead are perfectly aligned in straight columns. And the thumb keys. And the configurable chords (yes, chords, that's nerdcore). And much more.

physicles

2 days ago

I bought a Voyager about a year ago. On day 1 I nearly had buyer’s remorse because I topped out at about 20wpm, even though all my keyboards have been ergo since 2001.

After more practice, and after swapping out the key caps, I now think this is possibly the last keyboard I’ll ever buy. I’m having a hard time imagining anything better (though I could use maybe 1 extra thumb key on each side).

timeinput

2 days ago

I was very uncertain when I bought my KINESIS keyboard. It really really helps my wrist pain though. If it hadn't have worked I probably would've returned it to Amazon after a week or two.

diggan

3 days ago

I'm not sure where you're based, but don't you have consumer protections that allow you to return goods you regret buying? I know that even in places with good return regulations, there are exceptions, but where I live, I could buy a monitor from Amazon to try it out, and if I don't like it, just return it within the 30 days and buy another one. I assumed it was like this in most of the western world? Maybe I'm a bit naive.

I know a bunch of people who do this for cloth shopping (which isn't a great idea considering everything else except themselves, obviously), where they don't know exactly what size will fit them, so they buy the same dress in 2-3 sizes, try them out at home then return the ones that didn't fit.

gruez

3 days ago

>I could buy a monitor from Amazon to try it out, and if I don't like it, just return it within the 30 days and buy another one. I assumed it was like this in most of the western world? Maybe I'm a bit naive.

1. While many places have no questions asked return policies, many also have more stringent return conditions, such as not allowing exchange for dissatisfaction. For tech retailers, where the margins are low and the goods value is high, I often find they're worse than with clothes, for instance.

2. I did some cursory searching and it doesn't look like even EU guarantees the right to return for satisfaction reasons. The closest is the 14 day right of withdraw for distance purchases, but that can be waived and doesn't cover in-store purchases.

3. Even when returns are theoretically allowed, there are many ways for retailers to make it a hassle, such as not covering return shipping, which for a monitor could be a sizeable amount of money.

II2II

3 days ago

I'm fairly certain such regulations don't exist anywhere. They would be far too easy to exploit, raising the cost of doing business and exposing them to outright fraud. Regulations meant to protect consumers usually protect them from dishonst business practices.

The type of return you're talking about is usually intended to encourage people to make a purchase and to protect the reputation of a business. Yet the moment they detect abuse, abuse being return patterns that are atypical or that will end up costing the business more money in the long run, you can be sure they will stop honouring their return policy.

frotaur

3 days ago

This is 100% a European law that exists. You are entitled returns within 14 days of purchase for most goods. No reason need be provided.

chrysoprace

3 days ago

Huh, TIL.

This is something I always wanted here in Australia; hopefully we get enough push for it one day given our otherwise good consumer protection laws.

LorenDB

3 days ago

> a mushy $12 pack-in included with their Dell at work

For what they are, the standard Dell keyboards are quite nice.

formerly_proven

3 days ago

Pepperidge Farm remembers when Fujitsu computers (those assembled in germany into the 2010s) used to come with rebadged steel-plate Cherry keyboards. Okay, they had mushy browns I think, but still. You go unpack the bundled keyboard and it weighs a kilo. They were still rubberdomes (G83 I think?), just really nice ones.

paleogizmo

3 days ago

Was there actually more to this posting and it got cut off? I'm not seeing why this is a practical issue. I'm partial to large displays with a more traditional aspect ratio, but using ultrawides, including curved ones occasionally isn't annoying to me. What really grinds my gears is that one coworker who doggedly insists on sharing his full desktop every single damned time which makes text nearly unreadable on anything other than another ultrawide.

matsemann

3 days ago

I don't mind curved screens, but what I do mind is that so many wide / curved screens have such low vertical resolution. 1440px is just so little space.

jsheard

3 days ago

It's a cost thing, ultrawide has always been expensive relative to how much extra area you get, and pushing the resolution up compounds that. 5120x2160 (extended 4K) panels do exist but they cost a fortune.

Kon5ole

3 days ago

But why is it a cost thing? I got a 55 inch 8k tv for less than 1000 usd years ago, including sales tax and overhead from a physical store. It’s the best monitor I’ve used.

Today, many years later, monitors are still way worse and more expensive! Also you can basically not buy the tv’s anymore either.

The panel factories existed, and the panels were cheap, years ago. They’re just not used anymore (or so it seems).

rabf

3 days ago

Dell UltraSharp 40 Curved Thunderbolt™ Hub Monitor - U4025QW

Worth every penny.

digitalsushi

12 hours ago

I have a U4025QW and there's a glitch I'm typing here for google to pick up.

If my macbook (any macbook, perhaps any computer?) is plugged into the U4025QW and the power goes out, the U4025QW won't get the signal from the laptop and will remain blank. There's two ways to 'fix' this:

The first is to unplug the monitor for a long time, perhaps 2 to 4 hours. Sometimes I'll plug it back in at hour 2 and it wasn't long enough and I'll have to start over.

The second, and this works reliably, is to unplug the U4025QW, and then also unplug the monitor side of the HDMI cable, and then plug it back in with no signal, and then reinsert the HDMI cable. This gets the U4025QW to receive the signal after as long as the above operation takes, a minute or so.

I have had two U4025QW units. The first one was overheating and losing the signal as above on its own. I stopped having overheating issues when I stopped using an undersized UPS. I ran it straight into the wall.

But if there's a power outage (i live in an area with monthly power outages), the signal loss operation is how I restore functionality to the U4025QW.

I finally got one of those 300 dollar UPS units for the U4025QW and it's been very stable since then.

A multi variable episode that took me a very long time to reduce. U4025QW is a great monitor but dont give it bad power and it needs a little love after a power blip.

adamcharnock

3 days ago

I’m in the market for new monitors (or maybe only one in this case!)

A question if you don’t mind - Do you find 4K resolution to be sufficient on a 40” screen?

Also just eager to hear any others reasons why you like it

bpye

3 days ago

I have the same monitor and think the resolution is fine. I run at 125% scaling, which is close to 2560x1440 at 27”, 100% which is the density I moved from.

lloeki

3 days ago

I have one as well. Indeed worth every penny, although to be fair that's quite a lot of pennies.

skhameneh

3 days ago

And not in OLED, only in VA panels, unfortunately.

I can't justify going high end on a monitor without it being OLED.

jsheard

3 days ago

LG has a 5120x2160 OLED already, but it's 45" so the pixel density isn't great. It's also stupid expensive, about double the cost of a regular 4K OLED for 30% more width. They have 39" and 34" variants on their roadmap though.

skhameneh

3 days ago

True, that is an option I forgot about. I generally don't see it any better than a standard 16:9 OLED given the price and limited (in comparison to 32:9) width though.

> the pixel density isn't great.

I got one of the 49" 32:9 OLED and it has 1140 vertical. I'm making due with it and had to tweak settings like crazy to make it tolerable... I'd love a proper 2160 option for the ratio. I came from a 28" 4K TN panel, so it's been a major change of tradeoffs.

It's hard to justify the higher price on the smaller 45", it makes it a hard sell over a standard 16:9 ratio 4K OLED (although I wonder if that would have been the better choice over what I got).

bpye

3 days ago

IPS ultrawides also exist, the U4025QW I have is one.

bilekas

3 days ago

I just recently picked up a 32 inch curved 1440p screen and it's awful, for that size I should have realized I needed a 4k. Text is horribly pixelated and when looking dead on it feels like the aspect ratio is closer to 4:3 or something. Coming from an ultra wide 1440p I'm really disappointed.

leptons

3 days ago

My holy grail of computer monitors is an 8k 55" curved screen. Not a shorty, but a full 55" or 65" 16:9 (or similar) screen with 7680 x 4320 resolution, but curved.

I currently have three 4k 32" screens in portrait arranged in a sort of curved configuration. I love it, except for the bezels. It's something like this: https://i.sstatic.net/YocaE.jpg

I was almost ready to purchase a flat 8k 55" TV for my workstation, but decided to try a flat 4k 55" TV I already had, and the flatness just ruined it for me. I need a slight curve when using such a large surface area only a few feet from my eyes. I guess I'll have to stick with my three 4k monitors for now.

JonChesterfield

3 days ago

You might like a larger one in landscape in the middle, keeping the two 32" in portrait either side. Angled inwards.

I did not check the physical geometry so the side screens are taller than the center but whatever. 43" flat center, 32" either side. Felt strongly like a mistake when first set up but has grown on me.

leptons

2 days ago

No, I wouldn't like that. I want one massive curved high-resolution screen with no bezels.

stronglikedan

3 days ago

For a 34 incher, 1440px is perfect, and so is a 34 incher. A higher resolution renders text too small to read, and a larger monitor has one moving their head around instead of just their eyes.

Of course, they are not ideal for the graphical work that the author implies, but they can't be beat for productivity work imho.

antonvs

3 days ago

> A higher resolution renders text too small to read

This is a misunderstanding of what higher resolution is for. Higher resolution allows text at exactly the same size to be much sharper and crisper. I have a 34” curved 1440p, and it’s like using a monitor from the pre-HD era in terms of sharpness. Other people in this thread have observed the same thing. The idea that it’s “perfect” is unfathomable to me.

kasabali

3 days ago

it's not a misunderstanding, it's reality. yes in theory you can render text in dimensions you want, but in practice we have like 20 different UI systems running at the same time and each have their own quirks and limitations and the end result is unless you're using 96dpi or it's exact multiples. either som ui elements will be looking ridiculously out of proportion compared to something else, another element or image will look like a blurry fudge, and the end result always looks horrible.

antonvs

3 days ago

Are you thinking of Windows perhaps? Mac and Linux can both handle this well. Even on X11 (which is old and limited in many ways), on 4K monitors global scaling of 200% works really well. But Windows has legacy apps that are bitmap-scaled, which apparently leads to blurriness (I’ve never seen this myself, only read about it. I’m allergic to Windows.)

kasabali

2 days ago

> global scaling of 200% works really well

I've already said that.

dotnet00

2 days ago

I haven't seen this on Windows in quite a while.

skirmish

3 days ago

People differ. For me, 4k is perfect for an 31.5 incher I have, and I make fonts as small as possible (6.5px fonts in my editor I use all day right now). I appreciate huge expanses of quite readable (for me) text I get.

messe

3 days ago

> A higher resolution renders text too small to read

Have you missed the last decade of High DPI displays and scaling?

bangaladore

3 days ago

> 1440px is just so little space.

1440px tall on a common 13 tall ultrawide is 107 PPI.

In my mind > 100 PPI is pretty much perfect for most tasks. Or are you talking about physical size?

antonvs

3 days ago

Try using a 27” 4K monitor, which has a PPI of around 163. It’s difficult to go back to considering 100 PPI “perfect”.

denkmoon

3 days ago

100ppi is like minimum bar to entry. It’s barely better than 24” 1080p from 20 years ago.

_zoltan_

3 days ago

100 ppi is horrible for coding.

remlov

3 days ago

I found the LG 38GL950G-B to be a good compromise with a resolution of 3840x1600 that I purchased back in 2020.

ooterness

3 days ago

Easy solution: Reorient the monitor in portrait mode. /s

ggm

7 days ago

For the investment of one image, maybe a second image might have made your point. I don't like curved displays either, but I observe many widescreen photos offer a distorted view of the scene taken on a large flat monitor, since the lens is a compromise as is printing on flat media, and so the image as presented from a wide-angle is NOT accurate, any more than a curved screen of a 55mm lens would be. The problem here is horses-for-courses: if you have a wide curved screen then you should ask your digital devices to render images as if they are being displayed on a curved surface, not as if they are flat.

Anamorphic lenses should be projected/presented on curved surfaces and packages like Hugin will render images which should look pretty good on a curved surface of a known radius, assembled from sets of non-curved flat images put together in a panorama. Or apps like Bimostitch on android, which looks to use the same algorithms.

I don't like curved screens because I haven't learned to rotate my head the way needed to deal with content on the edge. I like dual monitors in a V more than a single wide-screen because they can be independently desktop-panned, only some widescreens do this (by s/w rendering it as two heads)

For some work (Audacity - audio editing, and related video work) a wide screen is fantastic. Horses for courses.

hnuser123456

3 days ago

This got me thinking, are there any games that have a graphics setting for monitor curvature? Because they should, IIRC the standard is rectilinear rendering, where the perspective comes out correct only if the monitor is flat. But if people can get used to glasses that severely distort the image, I guess this isn't a big deal.

Also, my obligatory rant, ultrawide monitors do not exist, only ultrashort, and 16:10 shouldn't have become a "premium/business/designer/prosumer" option, it should just be the standard. Nobody gets a VR headset and crops off the bottom and top thirds of the image and claims it's more immersive that way.

drcode

3 days ago

I don't like straight displays, things at the corners are a different size than things in the middle, because they are further from my head. On curved displays, objects on different areas of the screen are the same size as they originally appeared.

diggan

3 days ago

> I don't like straight displays, things at the corners are a different size than things in the middle, because they are further from my head.

Are you sitting really close or have a really enormous monitor? Measuring how I'm sitting right now, my nose is exactly 61cm from the center-center of my monitor, and ~72cm between my nose and any of the corners, and it's a 32" monitor.

I'm usually sensitive to things not being 100% straight/level/aligned, and if I create five identically sized windows and put them in the middle and one in each corner, I see no difference between them.

marginalia_nu

3 days ago

The distortion is mostly a problem with ultrawide monitors, which typically have the pixel density of a regular 16:9 monitor, but with twice as width.

Flat ultrawides are an especially miserable experience, where the sides of the monitor are viewed at a 60 degree angle, a pronounced deviation from the 90 degree angle in the middle.

bill876

3 days ago

> On curved displays, objects on different areas of the screen are the same size

This is only true if your eyes are in the focus point (center of the circle) and you never move your head or chair.

jovial_cavalier

3 days ago

It's much closer to true on a curved screen than a flat screen.

Joker_vD

3 days ago

Yeah, projecting onto a plane instead of a... spherical dome? means that things at the border of your screen are more visible than the things at its middle which definitely not how eyes usually work.

It's especially glaring when the far plane serves as the place where the view-distance limiting fog is rendered: if there is some thing barely visible before you, turn 45% to the side, and you'll see that thing very clearly at the side of your view.

rrrrrrrrrrrryan

3 days ago

I'd go absolutely apeshit over a 4:3 dome curved screen.

izacus

3 days ago

Yep, that's what I noticed when I got a 34" ultrawide. After swapping for a 38" curved screen, the experience is better.

beloch

3 days ago

Would the author of this post have enjoyed or hated seeing a movie in Cinerama? Anyone who has been seated too close to a flat IMAX screen knows that even a flat screen can give a severely distorted viewing experience if you're not in a good viewing position (e.g. if you're seated off-axis and close).

In recent years, curved panels have been a way to compensate for issues created by limited viewing angles offered by LCD screens. If a screen is sufficiently large and the seating position close enough, one could often see a pattern on the screen even when viewing a single solid colour. The choice of screen geometry was a choice between different forms of image distortion. As technology improves and viewing angles become wider and more consistent, we'll probably see curved panels become more niche again.

foobarian

3 days ago

I use a nice 32" 4k IPS panel for work and it's borderline OK in the corners. However I got a really wide curved screen for a second computer and in that case I really appreciate the shape just because it mitigates the distortion somewhat.

beanjuiceII

7 days ago

i never thought i'd like a curved display until i got one..now i want to move all my monitors to curved...i guess to each their own!

JohnFen

6 days ago

I had no opinion until I was assigned one at work. My opinion is the opposite of yours. I find it very annoying (for reasons entirely unrelated to what the article is talking about), and wish that I could swap it out. I may smuggle my own monitor in to do that.

Different strokes for different folks!

bityard

3 days ago

I think LCDs have been around long enough that we no longer notice all the problems with them. If you have a large monitor on your desk, chances are very good that there is nowhere you can place your head where some part of the display doesn't look noticeably darker than another part. You can TRY to compensate for that by cranking the brightness up, but then you set yourself up for eye strain.

I'm lead to believe that OLED displays don't have these issues (and have much better color fidelity as well) but they have a limited lifespan.

tbomb

3 days ago

For me, I've found that some curved displays are better than others. My home monitor is curved, on a seemingly very large radius, and I love it!

However some that I've used that are more curved make everything look distorted.

Insanity

3 days ago

I've been thinking of getting one. What is your use-case and why do you like it? Mine would be mostly work, but at least some gaming each week.

ge96

3 days ago

My regret is I didn't buy a 4K one at 32" but it's still good

Some of my buddies have that 8K Samsung one, that one is nuts to see in person

layer8

3 days ago

The eye adjusts to it. Since getting used to a curved monitor, flat monitors now look convex-curved like an old CRT to me when sitting in front of them.

ziml77

3 days ago

Yes! The edges of my large, flat monitor feel like they are curved outwards. It's certainly not a huge deal, but next time I get a monitor this large I'll be going with curved to counteract that effect.

maxlin

3 days ago

This is only true if the monitor is the size of the CMOS/CCD sensor. Which it pretty much never is.

Not the highest effort blog post. I'm actually a bit curious why it's on the front page though. Accidental engagement bait? :D

timeinput

2 days ago

My ideal coding configuration is 3-4x vertical 32" UHD screens (with the smallest bezels you can get) in a 'curved' formation.

I find that configuration miserable for any hobby activities. I really like a horizontal screen, and curved is nice, but one screen even the ultra wides just isn't enough for work.

Maybe I could imagine a pair of ultra wides in an over/under configuration, but I really like vertical real estate.

seper8

3 days ago

I have a 2x 4k ultrawide. The Samsung Oddysey 55(?)inch variant.

Not only is it very bright and legible, the fact that the screen takes up my field of view helps me focus.

And I connect it to my MacBook using two seperate HDMI cables, so it's essentially two seperate monitors without bezels. I think I'll probably keep this monitor for a decade or so: any higher DPI and it doesn't make any difference because you have to size up the text. Any brighter and my eyes will burn out of their sockets.

zamadatix

3 days ago

The top end Samsung Odyssey monitors definitely near impossible to beat with any other choice for folks that prefer curved displays. For folks that like flat, something like the PG32UQX is probably one of the better equivalents since the flat Odyssey monitors always assume "I want the highest end version" = "I want the curved version".

For those who don't care about maximum brightness quite as much, the new OLEDs are getting quite good for both curved and flat (though the lifespan issue isn't quite as fully solved as the manufacturers would like to have you believe, it's significantly better).

> any higher DPI and it doesn't make any difference because you have to size up the text.

I get irked (to perhaps irrational levels) when a monitor's DPI (really PPI) is phrased in terms of how big text appears. Text is already sized in physically based units (even when CSS lies and says "px" it's really fractions of an inch, similar to pt), DPI is how sharp/clear the text ends up looking for the given font size.

A monitor with twice the DPI should give you clearer text, not smaller text.

helsinki

3 days ago

How do you use two of these massive monitors? They are stacked vertically?

seper8

16 hours ago

Sorry, I should have been more clear: the resolution is equal to two 4k monitors glued together.

eviks

3 days ago

> so viewing the image on a flat screen looks exactly the same as how it originally appeared.

What about all the other things you view on your screen?

_zoltan_

3 days ago

I used to not like them until I've switched to the 57", 1000R Samsung. I love it.

zkmon

3 days ago

This is so true. Glad someone posted about it. But ofcourse, the buyers won't care. They are easily sold with the idea that the far edges of the screen have low angle of view if the screen isn't curved. When people believe myths, sell them myths. When they believe the purpose of computers and phone is to share photos and videos, sell them fb and ig.

Also, for companies buying the curved monitors, the looks of the monitors across the workplace fit nicely into their "modernization" targets. No physics needed.

antonvs

3 days ago

I’ve recently been using (in different locations) a flat 27” 4K, a flat 32” 4K, and an old (2018) 34” curved 3440x1440.

I find the flat 32” too large to use at normal desktop distances, because the corners are in a bad position/distance/angle to actually read easily. This isn’t a “myth”, it’s what I experience.

For me, the curved 34” doesn’t have this problem. The only problem I find with it is its resolution is too low for its size (i.e. low DPI).

As a result I actually like the flat 27” best, but I suspect a larger curved monitor with higher DPI would be nice.

cwmoore

3 days ago

I have a view of a brick wall, that has a setback, so the left part of the wall is closer than the part to the right. From a certain distance, the setback has six vertical courses aligning with the mortar and on the closer face of the wall every five courses. I wonder how perceptive our visual areas might be with respect to pixels when I see the shattered shadows of LED panel parking lot lights (32 individual point sources) or the strobe at night of headlights. Still, I would like a curved display. Maybe a Las Vegas Eyeball.

back2dafucha

3 days ago

Little curve good, big curve bad. Imagine its 20 years ago before these monitors were made and you had multiple monitors.

Ever see a dashboard chihuahua? (Or on the rear deck of a car). Thats you if you use a multimonitor setup. Do that for even 10 years, your neck hurts and your focus is distracted because you cant look straight ahead at your work and are constantly turning your head from left to right all day.

Its a bad ergo. Little curve good. Big curve only for gaming immersion. I refuse to use dual monitors even if a 27 inch panel is provided.

Joker_vD

3 days ago

Is turning you head left and right really worse for the neck than rigidly keeping staring straight for hours? Somehow I find it hard to believe.

Dilettante_

3 days ago

Yeah, "turning your head is an unnatural movement" is a wild take. Setting aside the matter of ancestral environment, there are plenty of professions where people work at a desk/workstation on which they have to look at different "zones" while working.

back2dafucha

2 days ago

JCPenney security guard?

Dilettante_

2 days ago

Specific examples I had in mind were Kaizen-Style assembly workers and craftspeople who work on things fine/small enough to fit most of their workflow on a (large) desk.

back2dafucha

2 days ago

I ----------------------------------------------------- Dunno

nottorp

3 days ago

Hmm i suppose it's how you use your multi monitor setup too.

I don't have both displays in front of me, I have one mostly in front and one to the left side, which i keep angled more than what a curved display will give me.

Main work in front, reference on left.

I suppose I'd keep a curved ultrawide the same way. Not that I'm thinking of trying one, I like the physical separation that two different monitors provide.

conradludgate

2 days ago

Since I'm not actually looking at images, instead I'm looking at text, I love my 4k 32" 16:9 curved display. I typically have 2 vertical windows open on it, so since I do more work on the edge rather than the center, the curve does help me see my work just a bit clearer than otherwise.

It's subtle, but it feels weird when I look at a flat display now

akch

3 days ago

You are serving Menlo font on your website (monospace). This is not an open font. It is Apple IP and is not licensed for being served over the internet.

Although it is a derivative of the FOSS fonts-- Bitstream Vera and DejaVu, Menlo itself is not released with an open license. It's only meant for use with Apple devices.

I'd suggest changing to one of the many high quality FOSS fonts available online.

esperent

3 days ago

Are you an Apple IP lawyer? If not, why are you doing their work for for them?

ehnto

3 days ago

Curved for games makes a lot of sense because it can emulate the 3D camera's Field of View making it more naturally display a wrap around world.

I also do a lot of VR stuff and those lenses are a whole different kind distortion. You get used to it super fast. You can really mess with the perception of visual reality in VR, and the brain is very good at just accepting the new reality and adjusting.

curvedstan

3 days ago

Curved displays are great if you are near a window or any other light source that causes glare. I switched from flat to curved and there’s no more glare on my display.

davemp

3 days ago

I had a curved ultrawide for a while, and didn’t have many complaints. But I switched to a 32” 16:9 and 24” 16:9 portrait and wouldn’t go back.

I’ve found having extra vertical space to be really nice and that window managers are easier to organize with separate monitors. I think it takes up less desk space as well.

ziml77

3 days ago

I have a 32 inch flat display and I actually do think it would have been better with a bit of a curve. It would help keep the distance of all points of the screen from me more consistent. If I sat another couple feet back from the display, then I think the flat screen would make more sense because the relative difference in distance would be smaller.

DiabloD3

3 days ago

I don't get the use case of curved displays.

I game, games do not support spherical "fisheye" rendering, thus the entire product concept is effectively dead, as no software supports correcting for these, since high end monitors are only typically sold for gaming, rarely office productivity.

numpad0

3 days ago

distances between viewpoint and arbitrary points the panel is not constant. To some people, this variation becomes painful enough with ultrawide displays...

DiabloD3

3 days ago

I can almost see this complaint with poorly designed (ie, common and cheap) polarizers in LCDs and/or non-IPS/IPS-like LCDs at normal DPI.

However, that doesn't really work with OLEDs or MicroLEDs at any DPI, or any HighDPI IPS/IPS-likes.

Also, ultrawides are pretty rare. Multiple monitors have a lot more use, are a lot cheaper per pixel, and back to gaming again, a lot of games simply do not support anything but their native aspect ratio and will blackbox the viewport to prevent bugs and cheaters.

numpad0

2 days ago

It's not the matter of viewing angles. Distances.

Try calculating distances between eyes to the edges of especially ultrawides, for which curved displays are pretty common. Standard recommended distances between head to display is 50cm(20").

DiabloD3

2 days ago

Optimal viewing distance for most media (including text found in programs and websites made in the "Vista" and "Retina OSX" era to today, but also all movies and TV shows cut for modern 16:9 displays) is between 30 (SMPTE rec.) and 40 (THX rec.) degrees.

THX's recommendation is based purely on the viewing angle of the fovae (the inner part of the retina that is "high res"), and trying to optimize full coverage of it (ie, pixels on the screen should not fall outside of the fovae).

Microsoft, during Vista, and Apple, during the evolution of OSX, both standardized font sizes as a little larger to make all text sizes comfortable at the 30 to 40 degree range. 30 degrees is * 1.6 diagonal size, 40 degrees is * 1.2 diagonal size.

So, if you have a standard 24" 1080p monitor, that is 28.8 to 38.4 inches, not 20.

SMPTE and THX did not change recommendations for 4k, as the view angle of visual media (ie, the focal length in movies/TV shows) did not change, and text doubles in (pixel) size (but not apparent size) to accommodate it; ergo, do math as if you're on a 100% DPI display. Ergo, 24" 4k would be the same.

Also, for completeness sake, 27" 1440p are rare, but a bit more common with gamers, and their math works out to be between 32.4 and 43.2 inches. This is assuming you adjusted your DPI to 133% and/or you're purely focused on movies/TV and games; if you consume only text and stay at 100% and never view media, you may wish 24.3 to 32.4 inches instead.

numpad0

a day ago

I'm not sure if I understand your thought process. I'm talking about distance errors between center of screen and edges of the screen, not singular distance. Frankly you can just paste this to ChatGPT. It's correct enough for this type of topics.

> let distance between head to display 20 inches, screen width 20 inches as well, tell me how to calculate distance errors between center of screen to edges of screen

^ this yields a figure of 2.36 inches among few kBs of padding data

> does that mean the eyes need to be refocused when there's distance error of 2.36 inches, ok to go step by step for this

^ this yields a figure of 30 um among few kBs of padding data

> does that mean the eyes need to be refocused when there's distance error of 2.36 inches, ok to go step by step for this

^ this yields such elaborate responses as "Estimated DoF is about ±1 to 2 inches around the focus point", "Yes, the 2.36-inch distance error is right at or slightly beyond the typical depth of field of the human eye at 20 inches.", "The effect is subtle, but in precision tasks or long durations, your eyes may notice the strain"

Which are all more than correct enough. btw the math is mostly just basic Pythagorean theorem so not hard to follow.

DiabloD3

10 hours ago

>I'm not sure if I understand your thought process. I'm talking about distance errors between center of screen and edges of the screen, not singular distance.

Yes, I covered this above, but maybe it wasn't clear: this is only a concern on low quality polarizers on normal DPI LCDs. Mostly due to sub-pixel text rendering in combination with certain forms of eye problems (nearsightedness and astigmatism are two I know of, but aren't limited to that), your angle of view through the polarizer changes enough that it causes eye fatigue via color fringing.

Another issue is non-IPS/IPS-like screens: gamma and hue shift happens on traditional TFT and MVA/PVA screens, which leads to eye fatigue.

The fix for TFT and MVA/PVA is going to IPS. The fix for shitty polarizers is either good polarizers or exclusively HiDPI monitors (all 4k monitors of any size seem to have exceptionally good polarizers, in comparison of the past 20 years, even if the panels themselves are sometimes mediocre) or just getting rid of LCD altogether and going to MicroLED and OLED.

I have not observed extreme color fringing or LCD-like gamma/hue/brightness defects on off-angle viewing on MicroLED or OLED.

And for full disclaimer, I will state: some MicroLEDs and OLEDs do not have standard RGB layouts, which may lead to a different (although consistent) sub-pixel color fringing effect: DirectWrite in Windows only understands (V)RGB and (V)BGR, not any other alternative format which a lot of MicroLEDs and OLEDs seem to be experimenting with. Freetype CAN do others, but Gnome, KDE, and other desktops lack ability to describe new formats via GUI. This is less of a concern on HiDPI, but Windows is allergic to making greyscale AA a normal thing again.

So, to reiterate:

* Hue/gamma off angle: Curved can help, but so can using IPS or non-LCD

* Brightness off angle: Curved can help, but IPS is extremely mild, and non-LCD doesn't have it

* Sub-pixel text off angle: Curved can help, but good polarizers on IPS _or_ HiDPI IPS or MicroLED or OLED are better

* Sub-pixel text on-angle: Curved can't help, HiDPI is only way out.

So, given eye fatigue is what we're trying to cure, all the other technologies (which many curved monitors also employ) seem to be a better option.

ubermonkey

3 days ago

I don't get 'em either.

What I really don't like are superwide monitors. They play hell with usability in screen-sharing contexts.

ziml77

3 days ago

That was a concern when I had an ultrawide monitor. Fortunately I remote into work and the screen share happens on that remote side. So whenever I had to screen share, I would take Citrix Viewer out of full screen and size the window to my best estimate of 16:9. I don't think anyone ever knew that I was using an ultrawide monitor, though I do wonder if they ever noticed that the aspect ratio of my desktop shifted a bit between each sharing session.

pfedak

3 days ago

This is nonsense, at least in part because it's mixing two different ideas. The notion that the image "looks exactly the same as how it originally appeared" is only true when one of your eyes is positioned exactly where the camera sensor would have been, which requires a specific distance away from the screen.

Lines in 3D remaining straight in a photo is unrelated and not actually demonstrated by the image. I'm having trouble imagining why this matters - you're trying to find the intersection of two lines in an image without drawing anything?

nancyminusone

3 days ago

I don't like them either, because they reflect and focus sound back at you.

Havoc

3 days ago

Depends on size. With a 49" it absolutely helps because it reduced how much you need to change the distance your eyes are focusing at between center and sides.

ardit33

3 days ago

Nah... I do like them. I like having an ultrawide monitor, and curved is a must .

theodric

3 days ago

I think curves make sense for e.g. those 34-40" 21:9 and 49" 32:9 displays, because otherwise the edges are much further from your peripheral vision, requiring you to change focus significantly to look at different parts of the screen. My mother has a 22" 16:9 curved screen, and it's impossible to sit at a distance for which the curve is useful while still preserving your ability to actually focus on the fucking thing.

gtech1

3 days ago

"straight lines are no longer straight"

Minkowski space-time enters the chat