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AOC's 21:9 Format, 29" IPS Display Put To the Test At 2560x1080
MojoKid writes "Ask any person who owns a dual-monitor setup and they'll likely tell you they couldn't fathom going back to a single display. But what if you could enjoy all the benefits of a dual-monitor configuration from a single monitor? Would you be game to reclaiming some desk space by trading in two panels for a single display? AOC aims to answer that question with its new 29-inch Q2963PM LCD monitor. Armed with an UltraWide IPS panel, this LED-backlit monitor boasts a 2560x1080 resolution with 21:9 aspect ratio, providing users with an extra wide panoramic view. With features like picture-in-picture (PIP) and picture-by-picture (PBP) built-in, workcaholics can multitask the night away from multiple video sources with plenty of horizontal real estate to play with. The funky aspect ratio limits the appeal of the Q2963PM for gamers currently; though if developers were to jump on board, a 21:9 monitor could offer a wider field-of-view of the action."
I would still rather have two 1600x1200 displays.
So-called "wide" screens are a scam to sell you more "inches" but actually a smaller area. That's actually a misnomer, they should be called short screens! The classic 4:3 ratio is better in every way.
Circumcision is child abuse.
Whatever. I write code. I want more vertical space. Why would I bother with one of these when I could just get a QHD [2560x1440] for ~$650 or a WQXGA [2560x1600] for a couple hundred more? If I'm going to spend more than $400 on a monitor, I'm going to get one that scales nicely.
My two 1080p monitors, side by side, give me a combined 3840x1080 pixels.
This is purporting to replace my setup, with 1/3 less pixels (or basically cutting 2/3 off of one of my monitors)? Really?
These days I feel more cramped vertically, and would rather have more pixels in that direction. Another failure from this monitor.
No thanks!
2013: 2560x1080
Having two discrete monitors that you can easily lock windows to is what I want. I consider the dividing line between the monitors a good organizational assist.
That being said, I miss 5:4 and 4:3 monitors and want them back, because having to set up widescreens vertically defeats the point. two 4:3 monitors give me the horizontal area I want without consuming my entire desk, but it's difficult to find good ones at a reasonable price.
The diagonal means something different depending on which aspect the screen has. We have 16:9, 16:10, 3:2 (Chromebok pixel) and 4:3, and now 2.37:1 and the angle of the diagonal is different on all of them. .. maybe the height of the screen.
How about using a metric that does not change, such as
This "29 inch screen" is only as large on the vertical as a 23 inch diagonal 16:9 screen. Both are 11" high.
"We mustn't be caught by surprise by our own advancing technology" -- Aldous Huxley
I like to angle dual monitors to meet my eyes. You can't do that with this thing, so I consider it ergonomically inferior to just using two monitors.
In 1985 I liked a 19" monitor because of the amount of information could be relayed. 1280x1024 was huge compared to the 13" monitor I had (800x640 or whatever).
What screen size I liked (in inches) was directly related to the pixels I could use. Two monitors meant that I'd effectively doubled the pixels. The cool feature there was that I could put *two* pages of dead-tree text side-by-side. The drawback was (with windows at least) that the second monitor was always somewhat a gimp. A you-tube video or a dvd meant it was useless. Playing EQ (because back in the day WoW didn't exist - remember those days?) meant it was useless.
When I migrated to my current setup, I got a 30" screen (Full HD! - 1280 x 1080p). Know what that means to me nowadays? My eyes don't strain to see the same content I used to. Does it mean my screen shows more information? Nope. Is it better than my old 19" monitor? Not noticeably. It's just a little easier on the eyes (and uses less energy, and since its' LCD instead of cathode-ray tubing, doesn't throw electrons directly into my eye). Marginal improvement!
What would be better though? More pixels! A wider screen? Not so much - How wide is a movie every going to be? I seriously don't want to watch a movie that has panoramic (21x4) type dimensions. It'd make me *so* disengaged from the movie I may as well listen on audio-tape.
What would be better? More pixels! DPI used to mean something, and used to be a valued number when buying monitors. Give me a quality monitor, and I'll pay for it. Quality? That means going back to basic metrics - speed, accuracy, precision, cost. How big of a picture can fix on the monitor (DPI!). How long does it take to render (Hz!). How much does energy does it use (And don't give me some eco setting, give me the number for regular use!). How good is the color rendering? [is there a serious value for the last one? I honestly can't remember anymore. I remember there used to be a metric I regularly looked for until I bought a monitor with a 50k:1 value that gave me a headache because everything blurred together).
---jstlook ---For that is the way of Elves, for they say both yes AND no, and mean every word of it. --- J.R.R.T.
give me 1:1 aspect ratio or burn in hell.
>" But what if you could enjoy all the benefits of a dual-monitor configuration from a single monitor?"
Sorry but a 29" 2560x1080 is not a suitable replacement for my two 19" 4:3 1600x1200 monitors (3200x1200) on my Linux workstation. Not only do I get much more resolution but much more real-estate and I can angle the panels a bit to me so it is easier to see them both. I don't game or watch movies on it, so that part simply doesn't matter to me.
Maybe that product is a replacement for two tiny/cheesy 15" 1024x768 monitors.
Start screen and full screen apps at not meant for screens this big.
For work, I'd take a 16:9 display in which I could comfortably put two programs side-by-side over a 4:3 display
For work, I'd vastly rather have the extra few inches of screen at the bottom, since text scrolls up and down. You can still make things narrower (or overlap) to fit side by side, you can't fix height cropping.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Sitting on the underside of the stand are a pair of DisplayPorts. With the front of the panel facing you, the left DisplayPort serves as an input and the right is an output, which allows you to daisychain multiple monitors.
Uh... I looked at the photos and one is HDMI. The port that they claim is HDMI on the side of the stand? That's DisplayPort.
According to the AOC data sheet, it should have 2 HDMI ports total, but the product manual only shows 1. Something strange is afoot.
Stupid.
My mac monitors is higher res than this vertical (2560 x 1200) and I got it 4 years ago. that's a much better replacement for dual.
it size (29) has nothing to do with space. res is what matters.
Seriously, someone needs to start making these panels again http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_T220/T221_LCD_monitors
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
I like playing my games in fullscreen and having another monitor showing other"stuff" on the side. With this monitor, that would not be possible.
Forget about super-ultra-widescreens that are only good at showing panoramic shots of Arabia, what about a monitor that has sub-pixels laid out to allow for a NATIVE vertical resolution? I want appropriate viewing angles, appropriate sub-pixel smoothing, and the like when working on text documents
I don't care unless there are at least 1200 pixels vertically. Come back when you have one that's 2800x1200.
Not sure how a single 2560x1080 21:9 display is better than my current 2560x1440 16:9 display. If I wanted more pixels, I could get a second monitor, and if that was too wide, you could do two 2560x1600 rotated on their sides.
My Dell 27" 2560x1440 was about $600 I guess. But those 360 extra pixels vertically are really worth it. At work I have two HD screens now. But I really miss the vertical space and the flexibility to make the IDE a bit wider too. At least the price is somewhat competitive.
It's something new(?) and that gives the consumer the option to choose. So often you see consumer hardware all like the other and you don't really have choice.
Meanwhile Seiki are releasing a 39 inch 4k display this month for $700. Sure, their decision to limit the 4k resolution to a 30hz refresh rate by not including a displayport connection is really quite daft, but it should provide a whole lot of desktop realestate for coding and the like.
Deprecating diagonal measures, and mandating that screens prominently advertise area would prevent corporations from engaging in this common deception. As manufacturing cost is essentially directly proportional to area, it would enable people to accurately compare the value of different screens, and remove the motivation for continuously growing the aspect ratio. This would be a huge win, resulting in more choice in aspect ratio to appeal to different markets. 16:9 rarely makes sense on anything not a TV, and options would be very welcome for other use cases.
Obviously the aspect ratio and other measures should still be specified. Basically everything except for the diagonal, which is now obsolete, and an entirely useless measure.
Says it has a $500 MSRP and 400.00 on the street...I guess that doesn't include the street the link has to Amazon which is pushing them for ~ $770.00 USD with shipping.
Better deal? Try this
http://www.logicbuy.com/deals/dell-ultrasharp-u2711-27-inch-lcd-monitor/18859.aspx
Dell U27711 Monitor With 3 yr Advanced Exchange warranty for $549.00 USD with free shipping.
I paid nearly $1100.00 for my 1st one in July 2010 ... figured two more won't hurt. Now I just need a pair of Nvidia's nuclear reactors to push the trio.
well, because of the wider FOV you can see more than a player that doesn't have that, it's also something with multimonitor setups for gaming.. In the end it's a form of cheating IMHO as you have an advantage over someonelse, which makes it just as much as cheating as someone who's got a radar.. That's the disadvantage of multiplayer gaming, if you have a better rig, you'll bound to outplay people with lesser rigs, which is unbalanced and in the end as I said it before, just as much cheating as just using real cheats like radar..
So when I press Maximize/Restore button on the active window, the window will maximize to the full screen or half the screen? The two screens are not only of reason of real estate, but also because of ease of multitasking, and one screen breaks most of the multi tasking tricks.
Why all this attention on extra width? It might be useful for spreadsheets and some drawings/photos but it is horrid for text. You cannot see much in the short textboxes, and perhaps that leads to microfocus (nitpicking) and flame-wars. Besides, long lines are hard to follow and read (40 char optimum).
Of course you can rotate to portrait (xrandr) and when time allows (home/work), I do! Personally, I find 1960x1080 to be a bit long(!) but 1600x1024 or 1960x1200 is fine.
But line-count has been slow to increase -- VGA had 480 (lower than NTSC at 525 and PAL at 625), then 640, 800 and now 1080 as common max. Only double in 30 years? You can find 1200 without too much expense, but any higher gets expensive quickly. Aren't all these big LCD/LEDs all stitched together from subpanels anyways?
I wait for years to get cheap monitor with res > 2560.
I don't care with 12xDVI or Thunderbolt hub or AmbiLightSound (tm). I just want a monitor.
I got a 22" AOC 1920*1080 and I'm pretty happy with it (for the price) so I thought AOC would be a good candidate for official distribution (and guarantee) in France.
But 2560*1080 ? WTF !
Who declares we want such resolution ?
Why the hell can't we get 27"(+) 2560(+) when every chinese tablet will get such resolution next year ?????????
We'll have a look at Korean ones.
I have 2650x1600 widescreen with complementing 1920x1200 widescreen but i vertical orientation and its fine ;]
but serously 16:10 is nice expecially in higher res two side by side windows loook good in it anad put it vertically it's also practical ... and you still can enjoy movies ...I like vertical space for you know .. webpages ...I'm so obsessive i have my firefox tabs beside adrress bar (no search bar) and few buttons and it works great. i tend to change window titile bars for few extra pixels ... every pixel of vertical space counts
21:9... this is not a 7:3 aspect ratio? Well, I'm holding out for the 42:18's.
The whores get mad when the sluts give it away for free.
So it does not matter whether they fail to multitask on one big screen or two smaller ones. Same result.
I just bought two 2560x1440 27" displays from monoprice. IPS, minimal backlight bleed, no dead or stuck pixels. Love 'em!
One of my 2 screens is larger than this one (2560x1600)!
Eventually we will have 100 inch monitors that are 1 pixel high. And people will still be blown away by the size.
The concept is interesting but I want my vertical space back. 1600x1200 is ideal, widescreen only came about when the HD scam started. PC monitors were initially 16:10 with some 16:9 but eventually the HD moniker was applied to screens with pathetically lower resolutions such as 1366x768. So as long as it qualified as "HD" then people thought it was the bees knees.
1920x1080 isn't the worst but here at work I have a nice HP 24" 1920x1200. At home I have a 27" 1920x1080 monitor on my windows system (mostly gaming). On my linux development system I have a real nice samsung 4:3 monitor running at 1600x1200. Perfect resolution for coding. My old HP laptop is 1680x1050, 16:10, which runs Linux and mostly used for coding on the go.
Fuck anyone who says "But 16:10 monitors have black bars when I play HD video." Shut the fuck up you whining maggot. Who the fuck watches that much HD video on a PC to actually care about black bars?
I used to have a triple U2410 Eyefinity display and I got sick of all the energy usage and bezels so I upgraded to a U3011.
Fast forward 2 years and I was frustrated nearly to the point of pulling out my hair because I just didn't have the screen real estate I needed...
I got the Seiki 50" at the beginning of May and I swear to god it was the best "monitor" purchase I've made in 15 years.
I can have /. open at what would be full screen on the U2410 and still be watching a BluRay in a ~39" window next to it.
-or-
have 3 large Excel spreadsheets open while my Access database is open
-or-
game for hours on end at RFH Resolution (RFH = Really Frikkin High)
I know it's not capable of 60Hz. I don't care. I don't notice it AT. ALL. in the games I play.
Considering the unit is now less than $1000 on eBay and they just released a 39" for $600, I think the migration to 4k2k will go faster than people realize.
I even like it for the gaming I do (mainly Skyrim, Neverwinter, PoE, etc)
Sig Follows: "Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself." -- Mark Twain
You may have noticed that your eyes are laid out horizontal. You also may have noticed that you have a much wider horizontal FOV and vertical. That is the reason for wide screens, and why movies have been doing it for years and years.
Now that doesn't mean things should be as wide as possible, or that all monitors should be equally wide. Vertical space is useful. In general, the smaller, the more square they should be. Laptops would probably benefit from 4:3 screens in general. However when you have a nice large 30" desktop display, well 16:10 is real nice. It do a better job of covering your FOV in a useful way, and looks good too (16:10 in particular is near the golden ratio).
For that matter, if you want a real long screen, they are good for that too. If I wanted to I could flip my screen in to portrait mode and have 25" vertical which rather beats out any 4:3 display I ever saw.
Also remember that monitors are used for a lot more than scrolling text. People use them for watching movies, playing games, that kind of thing, which really do benefit from that wide FOV (as I noted about the whole eyes thing).
2 x 5:4 ratio Dell 1905FP
I'd take a single 2560x1080 if the option were available.
Yes, I'd absolutely rather have 2560x1440 or 2560x1600 but you underestimate how cheap my management is.
All that being said, I have no huge complaints about my current monitors. It's a better setup than most of my coworkers have.
At home I'm using a 1920x1200 and a 1600x1200. I'd really like another 1600x1200.
My two screens at work are at an angle to each other. If I could get a third screen, I'd put that one to the right of the middle one, at the opposite angle of the one on the left. I certainly wouldn't want one giant monitor all in a line.
I can also full-screen applications in each monitor. You couldn't do that if it was a single monitor. I don't need or want a 3-monitor-wide Firefox display, I want a one-monitor Firefox window and a one-monitor remote desktop and a one-monitor Visual Studio.
You can have my 16:10 monitors when you pry them from my cold, dead hands. (Or, you know, when they stop working and I can't replace them because monitor manufacturers are dumb. Which is more likely, sadly.)
Hmm.. The author might want to research before posting. I was a dual monitor user who went down to a single monitor ...
(a) TVs do use DVI (b) DVI does to 4K Did you even try to look that up?
What kind of video card is needed to access the full native resolution? Or is it just a matter of having enough video memory + suitable video drivers?
I come here for the love
No.. a bigger monitor doesn't make you productive.. nor does the number of monitor (well directly). Productivity increase comes from the fact that you can separate multiple tasks on multiple monitors and your context switches are as long as moving your eyeball/turning your head. None of the windowing managers/OS do tiling very well IMO(well except wmii). Now if I can "see" the one long monitor as X logical monitors (which still depends on the widowing manager), then I'll use it.
Initially I had 2 7970s in Crossfire and it was fine, but I wanted more so I got a pair of Titans.
Performance-wise, the 7970s were fine at native resolution when using lower levels of AA. I scored a little over 2400 in Uningine Heaven using High settings with 2xAA. It was only when I tried Extreme HD that the cards came up to their framebuffer limit...That doesn't happen with the Titans though
Sig Follows: "Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself." -- Mark Twain
Is it just me that is bothered that they call the ratio 21:9 instead of 7:3?
I was taught that one should simplify fractions. 16:9 is such because it can't be simplified any further. Same with 4:3. But not 21:9.
Sounds nice.
You don't think a single GTX770 4GB (or a single Titan) could do the job, though? If you're capped at 30fps I'd think all that matters is minimum FPS at the resolution.
"The Adobe Updater must update itself before it can check for updates. Would you like to update the Adobe Updater now?"
Looks to be competively priced (about £350/$500) 2560x1600, 29" IPS with very narrow bezel and USB Hub.
I could see a case for gamers/developers having one of these and two smaller screens to either side...
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
I think it'd work fine at 30Hz.
I used a single reference 7970 for a week before I went Crossfire and only went crossfire then because I was under the impression that it may be possible to run 2 HDMI cables to the Seiki to enable 60Hz.
Sig Follows: "Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself." -- Mark Twain