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Convert
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Curved Screens General Impressions + How does it look with 3?

Tue Sep 11, 2018 6:01 pm

I've heard a few people comment about upgrading to a single curved screen and saying it took some adjustment to sit center to the screen because it was distracting/weird if you were off center at all. people have also mentioned that while it's nice for gaming, normal reading and web browsing is distracting. Personally I've not had any real experience with curved screens, my setup has traditionally been one giant flat screen in the middle with an ultrawide in landscape off to a side for document reading.

I have a friend who is looking to do 3 27inch curved screens to use purely for reading and will keep the curve of the 3 screens within their natural arc but he's concerned that having that much surrounding him will look weird and there would be problems with viewing angles and distortion.

Any thoughts from those that have more experience with curved screens? Would 3 be too much of a good thing?
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Re: Curved Screens General Impressions + How does it look with 3?

Tue Sep 11, 2018 6:05 pm

The curve radius is usually 1800R or 2000R. No way he's going to sit 1.8M from the screen, right? The side screens will be at the wrong angle if he sticks to the screen's curve only.
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Re: Curved Screens General Impressions + How does it look with 3?

Tue Sep 11, 2018 6:39 pm

I've been using my single 27" 1800R screen for almost a year, I also use a flat 27" with a flat 24" outrigger at work. It's not much different going from flat to curved, even on a daily basis.
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Re: Curved Screens General Impressions + How does it look with 3?

Tue Sep 11, 2018 6:40 pm

Once you get used to a curved screen it's not distracting in any way...it's just there.

No experience with multiple monitors though.
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Re: Curved Screens General Impressions + How does it look with 3?

Tue Sep 11, 2018 6:41 pm

Yeah, viewing angles do get a bit weird at the extremes. I have two U3415W's here that are also positioned into a continuous arc. The little arrows on the side of Ubuntu's dockbar that indicate which programs I have open will disappear if I'm viewing the monitor off-center towards the opposite side. It's a small area of occlusion including maybe 20 pixels, but the further the screens wraparound the bigger I'd expect that area to be.

I often sit a bit to the right of center so I'm not looking straight at the bezels inbetween the two. If I had three smaller monitors that may not be a problem, but I'd rather just have one divider across the screen space than two. It also means the left-most third of the other monitor doesn't get much use. Any stuff over there is just too far away, and sometimes when there's notifications in the upper corner of one monitor while my attention is on the other I won't notice it right away.

The curve in the panel is kind of a non-issue for me personally. I know some people get really bent out of shape about some of the things I listed above, but fortunately I don't.
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Re: Curved Screens General Impressions + How does it look with 3?

Tue Sep 11, 2018 6:52 pm

I’ve got a curved Samsung C32HG70 monitor. It’s not enough to be bothersome.

You keep the edges and the center of the screen closer to the same distance from your eyes, which can be helpful for folks with presbyopia and its accessories.
Last edited by JustAnEngineer on Tue Sep 11, 2018 7:31 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Curved Screens General Impressions + How does it look with 3?

Tue Sep 11, 2018 6:54 pm

I’m curious about this also. Currently have 3x2560x1440. Would look to upgrade to 2x3440x1440. The gaps between them currently are annoying for large spreadsheets. I think non-curved would give too much distortion.
 
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Re: Curved Screens General Impressions + How does it look with 3?

Tue Sep 11, 2018 6:58 pm

I do my best to avoid spreadsheets in general, but the 2x3440x1440 setup is pretty nice if you need a lot of horizontal space. When I'm sifting through server logs I'll often stretch the console window out really wide to stop lines from wrapping which is pretty much the same thing you'd be doing with your spreadsheets. :P
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Re: Curved Screens General Impressions + How does it look with 3?

Tue Sep 11, 2018 8:02 pm

Has your friend considered a single 21:9 or 32:10 monitor instead?
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Re: Curved Screens General Impressions + How does it look with 3?

Tue Sep 11, 2018 9:14 pm

I have a curved 24" 16:9 Samsung monitor and don't notice the curvature until I get up. It's flanked by a couple flat LCDs; again, I don't really notice the difference.
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Re: Curved Screens General Impressions + How does it look with 3?

Tue Sep 11, 2018 11:18 pm

Convert wrote:
I have a friend who is looking to do 3 27inch curved screens to use purely for reading
...
Any thoughts from those that have more experience with curved screens? Would 3 be too much of a good thing?

If it's for reading, I'd consider 3 flat monitors in portrait mode, or a PLP setup with something like 24"/40"/24" monitors. Imo, tracking text and lines across wide screens is more annoying than reading a wall of it vertically.

As others stated, curved helps slightly with distortion and brightness/color shifts in the corners, but otherwise it's not that dramatic. I think it's not worth paying for unless you're in the 1800R-ish curvatures that Chrispy mentioned.

I like my curved ultrawide but I sometimes realize I'd be totally fine with a bigger flat UHD panel.
 
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Re: Curved Screens General Impressions + How does it look with 3?

Wed Sep 12, 2018 5:36 am

In terms of distortion, don't worry about it

I've gone back to a flat screen at the moment (previous was an Acer curved VA 144Hz) and there's no difficulty dealing with the curved screen.

Don't forget, the image you see on a flat screen is also distorted if you look at any part of the screen except the dead center. Your brain corrects for the distortion without you even noticing and technically a curved screen is less distorted than a flat screen, but only in one axis. Potentially the first time you use one you may notice the curve but you'll stop thinking about it very quickly.

TL;DR, A curved screen is actually less distorted than a flat screen, but your subconscious doesn't care.
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Re: Curved Screens General Impressions + How does it look with 3?

Wed Sep 12, 2018 5:45 am

Chrispy_ wrote:
Don't forget, the image you see on a flat screen is also distorted if you look at any part of the screen except the dead center. Your brain corrects for the distortion without you even noticing and technically a curved screen is less distorted than a flat screen, but only in one axis. Potentially the first time you use one you may notice the curve but you'll stop thinking about it very quickly.

This.

The first time I used a flat LCD monitor (after many years of using CRTs), it actually felt like the display was concave, since my brain had gotten so accustomed to dealing with convex screens!

At work I have a non-curved 42" 4K display, and I find I don't use the last few inches on either side very much, because they're too far away and the viewing angle is non-optimal. Maybe a curved screen would help a little with this.
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Re: Curved Screens General Impressions + How does it look with 3?

Wed Sep 12, 2018 7:04 am

just brew it! wrote:
At work I have a non-curved 42" 4K display, and I find I don't use the last few inches on either side very much, because they're too far away and the viewing angle is non-optimal. Maybe a curved screen would help a little with this.


It absolutely would help - both with viewing angles and also requiring less focus shift for your eyes to scan from edge to center. I'm not quite old enough that my eyes struggle with this yet, but I'm well aware it's a problem for most people in later life as well as anyone younger with long/short sightedness.

The problem with many screens is that the radius is too high to really mitigate the issue. IPS curves are usually 4000R or 3000R at most, meaning that they don't offer a constant viewing angle or focal distance unless you sit 4m or 3m from the screen, respectively. VA curves are usually around 1800R, the most aggressive I've seen is 1500R and that is definitely still further than a normal viewing distance, but it's enough that it will split the difference between an ideal constant viewing angle and focal distance.

Again, because the screens are only curved in one axis, it's not worth splitting hairs over a mismatch between curve radius and viewing distance, just know that the closer the two values are, the better. Once you've sat in the center of a 180-degree 12-television display, you realise that a perfect semicircle of screens is neither distorted nor weird, it just feel like it ought to be wrong because we're so used to seeing the virtual world through a flat, distorted viewport. As long as the FOV of the rendered image roughly matches the FOV of the displays in your vision, your brain will kludge it together subconsciously.
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Re: Curved Screens General Impressions + How does it look with 3?

Wed Sep 12, 2018 10:36 am

Chrispy_ wrote:
The curve radius is usually 1800R or 2000R. No way he's going to sit 1.8M from the screen, right? The side screens will be at the wrong angle if he sticks to the screen's curve only.

This never occurred to me. I'm tasked with setting up and planning a custom desk layout for him so I guess I need to find out how to properly place a curved screen!

Duct Tape Dude wrote:
If it's for reading, I'd consider 3 flat monitors in portrait mode, or a PLP setup with something like 24"/40"/24" monitors. Imo, tracking text and lines across wide screens is more annoying than reading a wall of it vertically.

He's more in the "I've got lots of money and curved screens are cool so I want them" buyer category. Though as DPete27 mentioned I might be able to persuade him to do one or two larger curved screens.

Thanks all for the great input!
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Re: Curved Screens General Impressions + How does it look with 3?

Wed Sep 12, 2018 12:29 pm

Convert wrote:
He's more in the "I've got lots of money and curved screens are cool so I want them" buyer category. Though as DPete27 mentioned I might be able to persuade him to do one or two larger curved screens.


If he's after the "oooh lookit that!" effect, one of the new 32:9 monitors may be a good way to go.
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Re: Curved Screens General Impressions + How does it look with 3?

Thu Sep 13, 2018 3:08 am

JustAnEngineer wrote:
I’ve got a curved Samsung C32HG70 monitor. It’s not enough to be bothersome.

You keep the edges and the center of the screen closer to the same distance from your eyes, which can be helpful for folks with presbyopia and its accessories.


I have the same screen, I don't even notice the curve on it at all, in fact it looks flat to me while I am using it. Only time I notice the curve is when I actively look for it or look at it from the side when walking past it.
 
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Re: Curved Screens General Impressions + How does it look with 3?

Thu Sep 13, 2018 9:53 am

I have a 38" curved display (38UC99-W - 3840 x 1600). It felt weird for the first few days but that soon past. Awesome display.

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