Ok, so as my working from home situation is not going to change anytime soon I really need to invest in a new monitor. I current shuffling between an Apple Thunderbolt Display for my ‘personal’ stuff and two 1080p monitors (different size screens!) for my work windows laptop. I need to get down to one monitor that I can use with my MacMini, MBP16 and windows laptop.
I think I’ve decided on a curved ultra wide and going for the biggest I can fit in my work space, so probably a 38” which is 3840x1600. Though I’ve still not discounted the 34” LG 5K2K model.
Does anyone have any long term feedback to using an ultra wide monitor (Dell or LG for example) with MacOS and what the quality of the displays are like plus what scaling they are useable at. I’m looking for something that can probably fit the equivalent of three web pages wide and be able to be read comfortably from normal distances.
I have the LG 5K2K and it has been great, here are some thoughts:
it displays and charges my personal MBP over Thunderbolt
it displays my 1 or 2 work Windows machines over HDMI
it also has displayport
it can act as a USB hub for the MBP - particularly useful for the USB Soundsticks
it can display 2 of the 3 connected computers at a time either dividing the display equally or unequally
I can quickly switch inputs using the joystick on the bottom edge
I used to find the screen occasionally misbehaved and went black and had to be power cycled. Then I found that this situation strongly correlated with my MBP’s temperature going to 90C for no reason. This hasn’t happened recently, maybe because I finally updated to Catalina, and the MBP temperature is staying in the low 60s C.
The display is not curved, but the resolution is great, and it’s great to have room for multiple documents side by side.
There’s a lot to be said for having a device that fits into both your work and personal computing worlds, rather than the Apple LG display that just has a single port and can only be used with a Mac.
As well as this you may want to consider a multiway keyboard and either a multiway mouse or one mouse per device.
Thanks for the feedback Diane . Curious to know when you just have it ‘Mac’ mode, then what scaled resolution do you use for typical day to day use (I have my MBP set to ‘Default’ which it says ‘looks like 1792 x 1120’.)
Yes, I glanced at this but it is just too big for my office space (I am on a mezzanine area in the roof space that has a beam just to the right of my head). Sadly I can’t fit two 27" inch displays side by side or that would have been the obvious solution.
I have it on default for display and don’t have any issue reading the text. I’m using Catalina and I don’t see any way to find out the pixel dimension.
In system preferences if you select the scaled option it tells you the “looks like” resolution (sorry for the non English interface, but you get the point )
Thank you and no need to apologize, how delightful to see MacOS in Italian! I didn’t realize I had to actually hover over the scale buttons to see the “Appare come” pixel dimensions.
@chrisa - my monitor is about 27" from my eyes, which is a bit too far away. However I am good with it on the default which is 2560x1080 and also good with it on the next finer scaled step which is 3360x1417.
Hi have a 34" ultra widescreen Dell (work provided). It’s good as it can charge my MacBook through the monitor, meaning one less cable! It also enables you to plug in a Windows phone and use it as a desktop - pretty neat but not something I’ve ever been able to use as an iPhone owner.
The main issue I have is with screen sharing, especially now we’re WFH. I’m sure there’s a fix but text appears incredibly small for people I am sharing my screen with, so much so that I now share my tiny MacBook 13" screen instead of my beautiful massive screen!
Other than that it works really well, especially with BTT where I can easily snap two apps next to each other using half the screen each.
I have that issue with my 27" iMac screen, I use Display Menu to quickly change my monitor resolution from the menu bar and then change it back after I stop sharing my screen.
Aaahhh fantastic! Didn’t know about this and it’s sorely missing from Mac OS. I think Apple must have a bounty for every developer who finds a new way to hide a number from users
I am considering buying an M1 Mac mini with an Ultrawide Display - but today for the first time I saw/read some criticism that the ‘Display’ settings on the Mac Mini don’t allow for a 3440 x 1440 display without some additional 3rd party software.
Can anyone confirm if this is ture?
I am considering buying the LG UltraWide 35WN73A 35 Inch Curved Monitor-21:9 QHD (3440 x 1440), USB-C, HDR 10, 100 Hz, FreeSync
. Curious to know when you just have it ‘Mac’ mode, then what scaled resolution do you use for typical day to day use (I have my MBP set to ‘Default’ which it says ‘looks like 1792 x 1120’.)
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