4K or widescreen ?

Luke7777

Luke7777

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Son has a 4k laptop (Dell 9560) . Current extending to a 24" LG Full HD monitor and a 19" one. This is a 100% productivity setup.. no gaming involved. Doing programming, web design, etc so screen real estate is important. So my question is .. do I look for a 4K 27" or an ultra-wide one like this ? Will probably still use the 24" as a 3rd monitor ... Those prices above indicate my max budget as well :)

Thanks
 
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4K.

That ultrawide has the same vertical resolution as an FHD screen, so it will not offer much in the way of more realestate and will have pretty crappy pixel density.

The link for the 4K dell doesn't work, but it seems to be the P2718Q?
I have the older model, the P2715Q, and I love it. I don't usually dev on it, but its a very pleasurable experience when I do. At 100% scaling websites and dev environments are a good size at arms length. At work I have 2 x FHD displays, one of which usually has a session to my VM on it. That same VM window now takes up a quarter of my 4K screen, as expected.

At 100% scaling the UI text in photoshop is a bit on the small side though, so I sometimes have to lean forward to see my layer names. You may want to look at something larger if he primarily does photoshop.

I am not sure how important colour accuracy is for what he does. If it is very, consider the P2715Q as well.

It’s a better buy for most people than the newer Dell U2718Q, which is inaccurate enough that it’s not worth recommending right now. (We mistakenly thought the P2715Q was discontinued, so for a few weeks we recommended the U2718Q as our runner-up, but its color-accuracy problems make it not as good as the P2715Q. We regret the error.)
Click to expand...

https://thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-4k-monitors/
 
Luke7777 said:
Fixed the link thanks. I think for pure dev work the ultra-wide will ok, but the( or a ) 4K will be more future proof (studying BIS Multimedia)
Click to expand...

Sure, it will be OK for purely dev, it will be slightly less OK than this for example.
Especially for web dev, where I work best with my dev env, browser and dev tools open at the same time on the same screen, resolution is king. You get exactly the same kind of productivity/enjoyment on a 24 and 34" display if both of them are effectively full HD, and if the 24" offers more pixels than the 34" (as the one I linked), the 24" will be better.
For gaming, movies, or something else where immersion is more important, then the widescreen would be the better choice.

That said, if he is still a student, having the best is not that important. At the office I still work with 2 x 1080p. I would wager that most others in the industry do as well.
I remember during my studies I HAD to have that R3000 graphing calculator. Which I used for 10% of the questions in one exam. Best waste of money ever.

As for being future proof, it is nice and all, but don't overspend now if you don't have to. He will most likely get a job instead of working freelance. There he will get what he needs to work, no need to take his own.
 
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You could, but there are some things you have to watch out for.
Some TVs have compressed chroma, 4:2:0, which means that some finer details go missing, which can make text look blurry. You do get TVs with 4:4:4 though.
The other thing is input lag, although you should also be able to get one that is fast enough. Just check the specs before you buy.

If you get one that's not working out, worst case scenario is that you now have a 4K TV for watching TV :D
 
I personally prefer 1440p 100% vs 4K 100% for dev, but have not tried anything bigger than 27”.

In reality when you are doing software dev you are mostly reading, and the larger size feels better to me.

But then again I also 200% scale my notebooks 4K
 
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