Aayyy! We're nitpicky but rightfully so! 😂 A lot of ultrawides lack adequate brightness so if you work next to a bright window, the screen can look dim. As an interface designer, accurate color and brightness is crucial because my whites look more like light gray... And think about how much whites and grays are our any app or website. It's a big issue if I can't tell them apart. 💀 Plus, I'm paying for these big windows for a reason. If I have to close my blinds and work in a dark room just to work effectively, it defeats the purpose. I might as well just live in a cave lol
2:07 "I was part of the NT GUI team that was responsible for adding multiple monitor support" Dude, are there any of the good features in Windows that you're _not_ responsible for?! It seems if you pick any of the things that Windows has nailed from a useability perspective, it's got davepl's name all over it!
I gotta multimonitor support on windows is something that drives me crazy to this day. Which monitor number gets assigned to which monitor seems to be a nondeterministic mess.
Oh and Dave, nice video editing and attention to detail - I appreciate paying attention to giving enough time for viewers to actually be able to read the hard coded text without having to rewind and pause the video, yet not having it on screen for too long where it becomes annoying. Keep up the good work.
The NECs were sweet. I remember as a teen saving up from my summer jobs to buy a P750 and it trounced everything my friends had. NEC customer service was awesome as well. One time I had a later model exchanged for bad geometry even the service menu couldn't fix and they literally sent a courier (from Germany to The Netherlands, mind you) to pick it up and deliver a new one the next day, no questions asked. Their digital CRT projectors were superb as well, I continued using my XG-110LC well into the 2000s. Being loyal to the brand I also tried their first LCD monitors but they were pretty bland and I sadly moved on.
I still have a NEC 20" WGX2 lying around in my basement, which was a pretty good 16:10 IPS lcd monitor. But it was hard to get at the time (in the Netherlands) and relatively expensive.
Nec Monitors were quite good as long as they did not break down. Their printers were terrible and their support was lies and non existent. I managed a large IBM PC reseller service section in Sydney Australia in the mid to late 1980s and some NEC products were part of the sales offering. We had broken NEC equipment on every self in the building, all under warranty waiting parts. Nearly all printers and nearly all with the same fault. Broken paper feed knobs. Could we get spares. No. They were always "on the way" and "being produced now" as NEC Japan had not made any as spare parts. We stopped selling them. Nec was supposedly a very profitable going ahead company, yes, because it had no post sale support and warranty costs. But NEC disappeared from the market sometime after. This was not limited to NEC several Japanese companies had no post sales support. Unlike the US and European manufactures who had recommended lists of spares that should be carried depending on sales volumes and market penetration.
The monitor that I really wanted back in early 1994 was the Sony 17" trinitron. Unfortunately my parents were with me at the store. Dad freaked out that I was going to spend $1,200 (or so) on a new 17" monitor. I ended up leaving the Fry's with a NEC 4FGe 15" monitor. It was adequate. But certainly not worth saving that $500 delta. The 4FGE claimed to be 15", but it was really more like 13.7" as I recall.
I had Mitsubishi 750SB. No LCD can offer picture quality any close. But it was only 17"... So it had to go in april 2009, when was replaced by 1080p Samsung P2370. Since 2016 it's 4K LG 27".
On the Mac, in HiDPI resolutions, you're actually driving the monitor at 2x the resolution you select. So 2560x1440 is actually driven at 5k; 3840x2160 at 8k, etc. If you use SwitchResX you can see the difference between 3840x2160 1:1 and 3840x2160 HiDPI mode (8k). Since there's no anti-aliasing anymore in MacOS, it makes a big difference.
Welcome to the club :) I have U4021QW for about a year now and LOVE it. Best investment and no back problems from twisting my body for looking on multiple monitors.
"The holy grail" ? I remember when the "pizza box" Sun workstations came with 20" black and white CRTs. That was the holy grail back then. 1 MB of RAM and a 100 MB SCSI hard drive ! That was heaven. Everything has been gravy since then.
Dam, I can remember humping one of those around to give demonstrations to customers. We had padded bags for all the individual components, but the monitor was a two-man lift.
@@davidclift5989 Yeah Sun was all proud of how small their computer was and then there was the huge monitor that went with it. It was very good for its time though. It gave the user enough screen real estate to view the analog clock beside a code window. LOL. Way nicer than a 13 or 15" CRT.
OMG Dave you just made me flashback to the 90s...I had the same NEC Multisync display. I even got to take it home, to power my home PC. As to two of those monitors I know that trading floors will use them, but not side by side. They will be stacked on top of the other. Love all your gear in the background. You are making me want to pull out my original Apple I that is signed by Jobs and Woz!
I had a couple of those NEC CRT's back when I worked for the oil company. They lent me one for home that they never asked for back and I used for a while after they were merged I was surplused. I am still using my Dell Ultrasharp from 2008 though not as my primary monitor it has been an incredible work horse and well worth what was a premium at the time but it wasn't curved and now I don't think I could go back to a flat monitor for my primary
Back in the days as a Tech support I used to come across employees using their tube monitor which was capable of around 75 hz. Problem was it was set to 30ish hz... They didn't notice the flickering. I was wondering how many headaches they had each days. So I quickly fixed that display setting. They never complained about the horrible flickering.. Just amazed me as I could spot wrong display settings from a mile away. This new monitor your are test driving is just incredibly awesome.. I would love to get my hands on it.. But for you to take advantage of it I guess I would also need to get an RTX 4090.. that is looking at a total of € 4500,= at local prices here (NL)..... Guess I'll have to wait and keep using my Dell curved S3220DGF which is pretty good..
I was running dual monitors in a DOS environment for debugging with Borland C++ and also with Clipper 5.x in the early 1990's. It was possible to have a VGA monochrome card and an ATI VGA Wonder in the same machine as they used separate memory addresses. If "memory" serves me you could run the monochrome VGA card at either B000 or B800. This configuration allowed you to have the app you were debugging on the color screen and the debugger running on the monochrome. Or you could do it the other way around and have the debugger on the color monitor and the application running on the monochrome. It was a much better environment for debugging a Small Grroup Insurance Proposal System with many complexities of different rules by state which drove product availability and rating. There was a presentation layer, a product availability module, and a rating engine that was used both for quoting new business and also used renewal rate calculations.
Yes, you remember correctly! I was running both a monochrome and color display, both in graphics mode, so I could more quickly make sure my (custom!) graphics code worked on both. It was painful to give up the monochrome display, but I eventually did to support 800x600 VGA, which required the full 64k address space (both 0xB0000 and 0xB8000). Well, actually, I temporarily gave it up so I could double-buffer my graphics… For me, the most impressive thing about W95 was its ability to _virtualize_ my double-buffered VGA code in a 640x350 window on a 1024x768 desktop, with the CPU utilization at less than 30% on a 33 MHz 486. (!!!) Of course, it sucked so much in so many other ways, I’ve been a Linux user since ‘96, but hey, I give credit where it’s due.
@@andynn6691 It was a Insurance quoting system written in Clipper 5.x ( a compiled version of dBase) There were modules for product availability and a rating engine. The front end was Clipper 5.x with console/io functions that we wrote in C. We also used a CAS 2.0 fax library so that our agents could fax quotes directly to clients. We were using Blinker for compiling and linking. The data was stored in dBase .dbf files using the foxpro .cdx indexes as they performed better. The software was distributed to insurance agents around the country on 3½ and 5¼ disks that we created on our own disk duplication machines and mailed out. Not bad for the early 1990's 🙂
Same here on and 286 with a VGA card and old monochrome card, does anyone remember control keys to switch back and forth between monitors, it’s not important but it just bothers me I can’t remember it.
broken kit was a valuable commodity in the 90’s for me because we had a way of getting it swapped for brand new kit - the same piece of broken kit may go through the system more than once each time providing a new bit of kit
I got a gen 2 odyssey ark in early december and can say its a pretty serious screen, i dont edit videos so cant comment on color accuracy but it is massive and really immersive, tons of features i wont utilize but the multi screen is sweet@@lucasrem
Synergy is for continuous experience for two different systems with single mouse/keyboard and clipboard sharing. Bought out by Logitech iirc. People say it works, but haven't tried it. So it may be the one for the OP to try out. There's also lots of various software for one-system multimon setups. Display Fusion, Actual multiple monitors, etc. the latter having lots of options including which window opens where, grid setups, hotkeys, etc. I can imagine two of those dell monsters one-above-the-other :)
I had 2 Sony Trinitron's that I also held onto for a long time, loved those things and the only reason I don't still have them is they were too big/heavy for me to bring when I moved states
The Trinitrons were great, but once I noticed the two horizontal lines (from the damper wires), I could never "not see them", and it drove me crazy. I had to replace them.
I’ve still got my Sun Trinitron. The 1152 x 900 resolution was a bit odd, but it was a fabulous picture for its day. Also that funky D shell size B connector with the coaxial ports and 13 pins or whatever it was had to be the strangest video interface cable o the planet. It was kind of cool that Sun used Apple ADB for the mouse and keyboard cables.
I've always been a fan of the Apple/Dell 16 by 10 monitors -- the Apple 30'' Cinema Display is still one of my favorite monitors -- especially the later upgraded ones. The fact that Dell still makes a variant of these just goes to show how good these monitors were for the time. These monitors are approaching 20 years old now.
I had an ingenious Frankenbuild in 1987: A MacPlus, modded with an SE motherboard, an internal SCSI harddisk and a PC PSU and a fan, partly hiding behind an E-Machines "The Big Picture", a 1024 x 768 17" display with a slow phosphor, that had an asymmetric back so that the Mac just showed enough so you could access the Floppy drive. Word 4 was king for years on the Mac. An amazing step up from WordPerfect 5.1. Sadly no longer have it :-( Around 2001, I upgraded my Apple 13" Trinitron (gorgeous) to a Sun 17 inch LCD that lasted for many years. That was a rock solid display.
I went to dual 40" HDTV's in about 2006 when TV's were finally suitable to use as a monitor. I still use 2 40" screens as monitors as well as a 23" touch screen. Love your videos and thank you for sharing your knowledge and experience!
Love the history and review of this, I equally am super excited about this release! I also just bought and read your book and it was profoundly helpful in understanding certain parts of myself, for which I thank you greatly. ♥
13:30 As the owner of a Samsung Odyssey G9 OLED 49" 32:9 widescreen, I can relate to the feeling. The embedded software on this thing is terrible! Way too complex when all you want to do is switch inputs or maybe go to split view mode. And as soon as you unplug a device, it forgets all the settings and you have to reset everything! On the other hand, the display itself is beyond words, truly amazing. So it's sorta worth it!
I'm running 3x 40" ultrawide LG monitors off a Mac Studio. They are the 40WP95CP-W so only 5K72. Having 10 feet worth of diagonal monitor is something you get to live with easily. I could never go back.
I'm a mere mortal with vertically stacked 21:9 3440x1440 monitors, but I agree - ultrawide monitors are my only solution to both gaming & productivity. The only reason I would use a 16:9 monitor these days would be if I were a streamer with a dedicated vertical chat/stream monitor on the side.
My neck would hurt unless that whole 10 feet was probably 10 feet away lol. I use a Samsung 55" QLED for a monitor and that's hard to be closer than 3-4 feet...
@@smiththers2 if your neck hurts if you regularly use it, that's a health issue. My eyes are 35 inches from the centre of all 3 screens. I use the very outside edges of the outside monitors for things I don't use regularly like CCTV monitors and stock readouts. Whatever I'm doing like editing photos or video will be in the centre monitor. The inside edge of the outside monitors will be open folders of things I need and whatever I have playing on UA-cam.
Oh Dave, you just took me back through 30 years of my computing career . The NEC Multisync, the Trinitron, the huge amount of space they took up in the corner of my desk
Nostalgia! My Commodore Plus4 still works. I loved that computer. The cartridges, the cassette drive, the built-in spreadsheet and word processor, two games on cassette. So fun.
Just a small correction: when the term "Retina Display" was introduced by Apple for the iPhone 4, Steve Jobs said it needed to be about 300 dpi at the distance a phone is typically held. The lowest ppi they have called Retina is 218.
*"The lowest ppi they have called Retina is 218."* That is interesting, as the original Samsung Galaxy S (AKA "Vibrant") has a resolution of 233 ppi, and the pixel structure can easily be discerned by one with good eyesight at normal view distances.
@@bricaaron3978 Distance matters too. The 218 ppi Retina displays are desktop devices or laptops. For iPads, Apple seems to think 264 ppi is the threshold. For iPhones, 326 ppi is the lowest they went with.
I bought a car from a friend for £500 back in 2001. When he dropped it off he told me there was a surprise in the boot. Turned out to be an IBM P76 24 inch monitor. It was an absolute beast of a monitor (I had to buy a new computer desk to support it) and would do 1600x1200 at 75Hz, could support up to 120Hz at lower resolutions, had BNC inputs as well as VGA and supported driving the beam directly to do pin-sharp vector graphics CAD style. All my friends were stuck at 1024x768 30Hz so everyone wanted to use my computer when we had LAN games. The best feature: a degauss button that made a loud twang when you pressed it and made the screen wobble for a few seconds. I ran that monitor for nearly 10 years as it was head and shoulders above any flat screen you could get at the time and eventually had to replace it with a Dell Ultrasharp U2311 after I dropped the P76 whilst cleaning and the case shattered and one of the circuit boards cracked. 😭
I had a magazine clipout of this monitor (Hitachi superscan 21") on my cubicle for over a year before I could finally afford to buy a used one for $1400 with shipping (early 1998). Lasted me well over 10 years. The degauss button - it had it too!
I've had this monitor for 2 weeks. I work in Logic Pro 80% of the time. It's a great upgrade from my 1440 LG 34". I'm able to use it at it's native 5120x2160. Sharp, perfect size for music production.Highly recommend it!
Love your channel. We are about the same age and have similar experiences, albeit I was not a Microsoft wiz kid. Watching this made me remember my Sony Trinitron 21 monitor I had that like you was my last CRT monitor. The size was huge but the weight is what killed me. I am a large strong man and hauling that thing around was a huge PIA. I also remember the tow feint lines that all Sony Trinitron CRT's had. I think they were for a filter or something but they were there when the monitor was mostly all white or a very light color. So fun going down memory lane with you.
Seems we've had very much the same journey on displays! I started my snobbery with the Wyse VT-420 displays connected to VAX-VMS that provided 48 lines of text rather than the pedestrian 24 lines. I had the same series of NECs, Trinitrons, and Viewsonics (multiple sizes) before going LCD. Dell UltraSharp has always been my go-to as their professional screens, particularly the factory color calibrated ones were workhorses! I also went to the 34-inch Dell curved. Recently, I've switched to the Samsung NEO G9 49" for my personal workstation, relegating the Dell 34" to my WFH desk, but this new Dell looks amazing! Thanks for your video and consistently engaging content! For those of use who've been around since Windows and before, I can relate to so many of your topics. Also, was thrilled to see you were a Corvette guy as well!
This might be my new favorite channel and I barley understand your ramblings of relics from yesterday year but damn is it fascinating to learn. Thanks Dave!
4:49 Actually typing “Sony Trinitron” as a defiant response to the NEC, right as you disclose what you bought for your home office after researching the NEC. lol
My original background was in design (now in IT), and I am extremely sensitive and picky with monitors. I really appreciate all the beautifully saturated colors using this video, as it looked great on my 32 inch 4K LG.
I use to have 3 x 21" NEC MultiSync (in the mid-90's) and a 24" SGI monitor (with BNC's) that I acquired from a drafting shop. Those were the days. lol
Former Amiga user here. I had them all other than the 3000T. I loved them to an unreasonable degree. I'm a car guy as well, 74 455 Trans Am and 70 Olds Rallye 350 in the garage. I'm looking for an "affordable" 5k ultrawide to use with my new PC build once the 9950X3D and 5090 are available.
Back when the DRMO auctions were a thing, one of the lots I won had two minty 21” NEC Diamond Pro monitors on the pallet. Both me and the wifey ran those beautiful displays for ages. Threw my back out one time moving one of those beasts solo. So worth it at the time.
I remember going down to the local computer store (remember those) and plunking down $1050 for a NEC Multisync 17". This was back in the day when a dollar was still worth 50 cents. I never regretted the purchase, and there was no complaint from my wife once she saw the screen. The monitor you're reviewing is likely cheaper than the NEC after accounting for inflation. I wish I needed it.
This is what I'm getting - HP E45c G5 44.5-inch super ultrawide. I'll also add a couple of smaller screens at the sides, but haven't decided what models they'll be. Upgrading from a 49" 4K TV that I've been using for almost 5 years. I do not play games on any of my computers, just work stuff.
The IBM 3290 Displays were pretty nice for their day. Worked on those while working in a NOC and having side by side sessions or quad sessions was ahead of its time
I have been running a U3419W for about two years now. It's hard to go back to dual 27" monitors at the office. Though I do have a 27" in portrait at home now I use mainly when working at the house. Thanks for the great content, Dave!
Oh man, this brings back memories. My first color monitor was some no-name 15" CRT. Sometime around Win98 SE I managed to finesse a pair of 19" Sun workstation CRTs with 13W3 input. It was fun finding an adapter for those in the pre-Amazon days. As I recall I had to open them up and solder a sync wire jumper. They supported some obscene refresh rate, and at one point i had an Asus video card with wired LCD shutter glasses for some decent 3D. My first LCD would have been a 15" Viewsonic around 2004. I'm the only person in our office with Dell monitors, been running triple 27"s for about 4 years now.
Oh, I had similar obsession during that era, I managed to scrounge up a Dec 20 inch crt from an engineer that retired since I was the "System Support" crew in our Dec installation. It was on a Dec Mate workstation that had a 286chip on it. The most interesting aspect was setting the monitor to "non-intelace" mode that was great for my eyes. This I did from Houston, London, Wellington and Hong Kong when I was travelling on the job. My technical customers loved me so much that divisions used to fight over my time. And they were a bunch of government scientists!!!. Memories...
Took just one video I saw from Dave and I was instantly astounded by his competence. Back in the day, we had Commodore PETS running CP/M and it was like whaaat? Networked access to a dual floppy disk unit. It took years before DOS got that far. And the NEC monitor, well, yeah. Had one where I was working although it was a showpiece and I certainly didn't code with it in front of me. So I went through those days as well - just without his level of intellect. In case anyone is wondering, Dave's the real deal.
I used our 2020 WFH stipend to purchase a standing desk and my first 32” Ultra-Wide IPS curved display, I’ll never go back to dual heads. And I’m one that adopted dual very early, 1993-ish on my Sun workstation, a Sparc 10 iirc with dual frame-buffers. Had two of those Sun monitors that took a forklift to get them on the desk. People though I was nuts, “why do you need two?”. Fast forward a decade and everyone wanted two. I’m over it, UW IPS any day.
That very NEC monitor is the reason I have a bad back! It weighed a ton and lifting it badly was a good way to get yourself a bad back as I proved. The old days of hitting the degaus button and the potential flicker if your lighting was not optimal. I always made a point of getting my users the best monitors I could buy because people are looking at for 8+ hours a day.
As a Dell Ultrasharp user, I can confirm that they are great... when work pay for them lol. The KVM features are the bomb and the PBP modes are the killer feature for the ultrawides, splitting the screen up for multiple inputs, giving you "multiple monitors" again when you need it.
I started with dual monitors on Windows 98. It was nightmare with poor support and drivers. I clearly remember getting it to work once with my initial setup (one supported Matrox card and one not quite supported card driving a LCD-screen). Worked OK though as soon as I got two supported cards. Since then I've always had multi monitors getting bigger and better over time. My preference is not a curved screen, but one main screen in the middle and smaller screens on the sides. Suits my needs better than one huge screen. I find it very convenient to place utilities windows on one (or two) of the smaller screens while the main screen is used for whatever I'm working on. Just replaced my last really old 24" Dell and currently I've a four screens setup with a 30" as the main display, two cheap Lenovo 2560x1440 screens on one side and a LG Dual Up (2560x2880) on the other. My next upgrade will most likely be the 30" main screen which is getting old and could benefit from a resolution upgrade.
A few years ago I stopped using computer monitors. I switched to 48" OLED TVs. I never look back, 4K 120hz HDR, Screens are further from my eyes, and I have more free desk space. The colors, refresh rate, and sound are perfect. The price is lower by factor than a good monitor. The only disadvantages I can think of are no desktop background image, autohide taskbar, and Windows dark theme is necessary to protect them from burn-in. Also, I wrote some code to control inputs, sleep, wakeup, pixel recovery, and disabling Google Movies. Network control API is limited on smart TVs, so I ended up using ADB to control them. That was fun and joy for my masochistic side.
I have had three Dell UltraSharp 4K 27" monitors for several years and really like them. Some day I plan to set up a second PC station and that curved baby looks like an ideal candidate. Thanks for the info!
I have the U3818DW since 2017 and love the KVM. I added an usb hub to the back and hooked up my DAC/Headphone Amp, Mouse, Keyboard, Microphone and Webcam to it. The usb-c connection connects it to my work laptop and DP to my private PC
You just made me feel old..still have the VIC20, C64, and C128 with tape and 1541 sitting next to me. The 386 with a math coprocessor was a big thing. Great video as always, people don't remember that the serial port to connect that printer of yours weighed more than a brick
I also believe bigger is better when it comes to monitors. I have 32 inch Dell that i use daily. I've considered moving to an even larger curved monitor and your video helped move me closer to making that leap. Thanks again for your good solid reviews!
ok, the cabbage patch reference almost made me spew my coffee. Ever since HDMI showed up on PCs I'd been using whatever television I had around as a "monitor" (all available funds -> latest graphics cards). I finally managed to purchased a high end monitor last year and there's really no going back. Thanks for the tips! I always salute back by the way.
Thank you for this video, Dave! I too am a multi monitor lover. I started with a Hercules card and a VGA card to get two monitors and then coding in MS QuicBasic and Assembly to write on each of them for a home made alarm using the parallel ports as inputs for sensors. Keep up the great work! Thank you so much!
Your lucky to get a evaluation monitor. I talk to companies and I'm ignored. I suppose it's because i'm too old to be worth anything now or black listed. My Mac Studio Display blew up in my face up and this is what I'm considering although the price in Oz is extremely high. Nice to see the cheese grater Mac, absolutely classic model.
You were on the NT multi-monitor dev team? Nice! I beta tested NT 4.0 back in the day, and the ability to have multiple monitors (and on Windows 98) was wonderful, having given that up in the move from Mac to PC in the early '90s. My pair of PCI Matrox Millennium cards were great for 2D work in both OSes. I also had fun playing Microsoft Flight Simulator 98 on *THREE* displays. My two old Millenniums plus some modern AGP 3D card. I, too, had "retired" professional BNC-connector displays. (Two of those at 20", plus one old 14" VGA.) I'm looking at this monitor right now. This plus a Dell/Alienware OLED 4K that has the same vertical height to sit side-by-side to replace three Samsung 4K displays - two 28" in landscape plus a 24" in portrait. I'd been waiting for an ultra-wide that has: * At least 2160 vertical pixel count * curved * >90Hz. * HDR This is the first one that hits all three bullets, and has the bonus of having a 2.5GbE port, so it will replace my Thunderbolt Dock completely. I'd also been wanting an OLED, so the "matching" (same 2160p vertical at the same viewable height) Alienware OLED seems like a great second, to replace my portrait-mode. (I mostly have it in portrait due to physical space concerns - the two curved will alleviate that in landscape next to each other.) I'll be using them split between my work laptop, personal Mac laptop, and Windows desktop. The KVM part will switch between laptop and desktop, and I'll just switch the Thunderbolt plug between personal and work laptop as needed.
I feel it. Long history with multiple displays, 20", 17", and 14" CRTs in the 90's. Part of the niche audience with 2 Macs, 1 PC and 5 displays wrapped around me, preferring one keyboard and mouse. I've upgraded 2 displays to higher refresh this past year but can't give up my 23" Apple Display from 2005.
dude im 41 and when you said "I got a 21" NEC Multisync" haha I know exactly what you were talking about! NEC did have awesome displays back in the day, I too am a monitor snob oddly enough ive never paid for a monitor. I worked in the MSP world for 12 years, so I just took what my customers didnt want. I always loved Viewsonic stuff too!
The backstory was amazing! Your story of how you obtained the best monitor available at Microsoft was fantastic and reminded me of how I also used opportunistic tricks at my previous workplace, and ended up being the only one with a triplehead Samsung 24" 16:10 setup! My daily driver since 2017 has been the Dell UltraSharp U3417W. I've been tracking the price of the predecessor of the monitor reviewed here for the last 3 years. On March 2023 it's price dipped close to my price/pain threshold at 1200€ shipped, but I hesitated and the price jumped back the next month and has only been increasing since! Currently it sits at 1600€ shipped! Today I found about the U4025QW by accident and ended up here watching this fascinating review! It'd be 1800€ shipped here in Finland... I can't justify the price no matter how much I try... It looks like I'm going to be driving my trusty 34" for the years to come. 120Hz would be too sweet to miss, so from now on my eyes are on the U4025QW.
I’ve run Dell UltraSharps at work for as long as I can remember. They’re workhorses. But Ive been stuck on 1080p for a while. Going to the real estate on my 1440p display at home is always an upgrade. I think this is the display to replace my 3 1080p UltraSharps. May even be worth my own investment if I can’t convince a requisition. Thanks, Dave!
As a color expert, it is nice to hear the albeit short callout on the specs of the 40". What would be more interesting on such a monitor of that size is the uniformity. A lot of larger monitors struggle to keep backlighting and color uniformity across larger spans. But it certainly looks like a heck of a piece of kit!
KVM woes, keyboard, mouse, cam, boom mic, get disconnected from source machine and pop up as new usb devices on the switched-to machine. Works ok-ish for a few times, but eventually Windows gets super confused and crap hits the fan. Instead I would need the powered & R-Pie driven KVM switch, called PiKVM, that does actual USB routing, the source machines never have a USB drop & reconnect. Caveat, price. I got the info from a LTT video in 2022, if you want to search for it. So with a KVM-integrated monitor, if you "cold swap" meaning you power off one machine and power on the other machine, you will have zero issues. Hot-swapping won't work for very long. So now I use KVM to swap between laptop & desktop HDMI/DisplayPort Keyboard, mouse and cam/mic are doubled-up, which is a major PITA but much cheaper than a PiKVM as I already have multiple peripherals. Plus, my desk is wide enough. Currently using a Gigabyte M28U 4K 16:9 IPS @ 144Hz, it is lovely. A big step up from the LG 28" 4K IPS @ 60Hz, they are now my side monitors. MSFS with 3x 4K monitors is fun, the central one being 144Hz and side ones at 60Hz. No more using my laptop screen as an extra monitor screen. 3x 28", though, neck pain IS a thing...
Ive been using a Dell D3221QS, 32" 60hz curved 4k for 3 years or so now. I got it for work and after seeing it in person my boss got one for himself as well. I absolutely love this display for productivity work so i can just imagine how much better their new model is. 120hz is the only thing i wish this had. It sits above a trio of 360hz alienware monitors, and by comparison it feels "laggy" i guess is the best way to describe it
For those interested in this monitor: please be aware that this monitor seems to suffer from a production issue where affected panels are damaged with scratches over the entire width of the monitor. I went through multiple replacements, but 3/3 monitors (all produced May '24) suffered from this issue in varying degrees. My model from July '24 does not have any scratches, but does have some green bleed at the bottom part of the monitor. Not really the kind of quality control issues you expect from a top-of-the-line monitor meant for video editing.
been waiting for a monitor like this for so long. Very excited to see they are finally coming to market. Will wait a bit for them to become more reasonable, but its finally here!
I was an early multiple monitor adopter as well. I used two networked Win2k PCs (each with its own monitor) along with a KVM switch (minus the V). Now-a-days, my main Linux box has two big monitors and between VNC and Virtual computers, I can control any computer in the house.
I am a fellow multi-monitor guy from what back when. Those multiple 20 inch trinitron based monitors were hard on the desks! I killed more than one desk back in the day LOL. Was even worse when I added the 3rd 20" Sony on a swing arm! I now use one monitor, but it's a 55" Samsung Ark. Love the size, love the curve, the panel itself ... not so much, but hey, it's HUGE.
I love the walk down memory lane. In college I ultra-splurged on a Mac II with the Apple Color Monitor (Trinitron) that was my go-to screen for many years. But it's rival was the NEC Multiscan which was also one of the best out there. As for curved screens, I daily drive two Samsung C34H89x, one for each Mac. They aren't anywhere in the class of the Dell you have but they work and my company paid for them for remote work (the offices have them too).
Great video Dave! What a impressive monitor. That KVM is a huge selling feature for me. Being able to work off my desktop during my day job and then switch to my Macbook for personal use in the evening is a huge selling feature
I have 2x Dell 27" 2K monitors, giving me a 5120x1440 desktop. Combined with a 4 port dual 4K KVM serving 4 PCs, this gives me a comparable desktop at about half the price.
People who obsess over monitor brightness are just nit picking.
😆
😂 nice
Aayyy! We're nitpicky but rightfully so! 😂 A lot of ultrawides lack adequate brightness so if you work next to a bright window, the screen can look dim. As an interface designer, accurate color and brightness is crucial because my whites look more like light gray... And think about how much whites and grays are our any app or website. It's a big issue if I can't tell them apart. 💀
Plus, I'm paying for these big windows for a reason. If I have to close my blinds and work in a dark room just to work effectively, it defeats the purpose. I might as well just live in a cave lol
@@katwdesigns your problem!
@@katwdesigns I always look dim. I blame my multiple LG monitors.
2:07 "I was part of the NT GUI team that was responsible for adding multiple monitor support"
Dude, are there any of the good features in Windows that you're _not_ responsible for?! It seems if you pick any of the things that Windows has nailed from a useability perspective, it's got davepl's name all over it!
I gotta multimonitor support on windows is something that drives me crazy to this day. Which monitor number gets assigned to which monitor seems to be a nondeterministic mess.
the camera cut to the monitor with you still talking was a nice touch
Oh and Dave, nice video editing and attention to detail - I appreciate paying attention to giving enough time for viewers to actually be able to read the hard coded text without having to rewind and pause the video, yet not having it on screen for too long where it becomes annoying. Keep up the good work.
that blend from the video recorded off of the monitor to the source video was just perfect :P
And having that all be true while watching at 2x is perfection
The NECs were sweet. I remember as a teen saving up from my summer jobs to buy a P750 and it trounced everything my friends had. NEC customer service was awesome as well. One time I had a later model exchanged for bad geometry even the service menu couldn't fix and they literally sent a courier (from Germany to The Netherlands, mind you) to pick it up and deliver a new one the next day, no questions asked. Their digital CRT projectors were superb as well, I continued using my XG-110LC well into the 2000s. Being loyal to the brand I also tried their first LCD monitors but they were pretty bland and I sadly moved on.
I still have a NEC 20" WGX2 lying around in my basement, which was a pretty good 16:10 IPS lcd monitor. But it was hard to get at the time (in the Netherlands) and relatively expensive.
Nec Monitors were quite good as long as they did not break down. Their printers were terrible and their support was lies and non existent. I managed a large IBM PC reseller service section in Sydney Australia in the mid to late 1980s and some NEC products were part of the sales offering. We had broken NEC equipment on every self in the building, all under warranty waiting parts. Nearly all printers and nearly all with the same fault. Broken paper feed knobs. Could we get spares. No. They were always "on the way" and "being produced now" as NEC Japan had not made any as spare parts. We stopped selling them. Nec was supposedly a very profitable going ahead company, yes, because it had no post sale support and warranty costs. But NEC disappeared from the market sometime after. This was not limited to NEC several Japanese companies had no post sales support. Unlike the US and European manufactures who had recommended lists of spares that should be carried depending on sales volumes and market penetration.
The monitor that I really wanted back in early 1994 was the Sony 17" trinitron. Unfortunately my parents were with me at the store. Dad freaked out that I was going to spend $1,200 (or so) on a new 17" monitor. I ended up leaving the Fry's with a NEC 4FGe 15" monitor. It was adequate. But certainly not worth saving that $500 delta.
The 4FGE claimed to be 15", but it was really more like 13.7" as I recall.
I had a NEC 3D early on and then got a deal on a new NEC 6FG. That was a 150lb monitor.
I had Mitsubishi 750SB. No LCD can offer picture quality any close. But it was only 17"... So it had to go in april 2009, when was replaced by 1080p Samsung P2370. Since 2016 it's 4K LG 27".
I swear he said 'parsec'. I started chuckling and was totally entertained. Well done Dave!
Got to keep the display chromulent.
Niche monitor geek jokes.
He had Trekkie shock from the massive pixel count.
He DID say it! I thought so, too, but now I'm sure!!
On the Mac, in HiDPI resolutions, you're actually driving the monitor at 2x the resolution you select. So 2560x1440 is actually driven at 5k; 3840x2160 at 8k, etc. If you use SwitchResX you can see the difference between 3840x2160 1:1 and 3840x2160 HiDPI mode (8k). Since there's no anti-aliasing anymore in MacOS, it makes a big difference.
Welcome to the club :) I have U4021QW for about a year now and LOVE it. Best investment and no back problems from twisting my body for looking on multiple monitors.
12 minutes before any description of the monitor in the title. Should have been "My history with monitors."
Thanks for the heads up, I have learned to read the comments first lol
"The holy grail" ? I remember when the "pizza box" Sun workstations came with 20" black and white CRTs. That was the holy grail back then. 1 MB of RAM and a 100 MB SCSI hard drive ! That was heaven. Everything has been gravy since then.
Dam, I can remember humping one of those around to give demonstrations to customers. We had padded bags for all the individual components, but the monitor was a two-man lift.
@@davidclift5989 Yeah Sun was all proud of how small their computer was and then there was the huge monitor that went with it. It was very good for its time though. It gave the user enough screen real estate to view the analog clock beside a code window. LOL. Way nicer than a 13 or 15" CRT.
The "gravy" 👍seems to improve with every dip into the pot.
OMG Dave you just made me flashback to the 90s...I had the same NEC Multisync display. I even got to take it home, to power my home PC.
As to two of those monitors I know that trading floors will use them, but not side by side. They will be stacked on top of the other.
Love all your gear in the background. You are making me want to pull out my original Apple I that is signed by Jobs and Woz!
I had a couple of those NEC CRT's back when I worked for the oil company. They lent me one for home that they never asked for back and I used for a while after they were merged I was surplused. I am still using my Dell Ultrasharp from 2008 though not as my primary monitor it has been an incredible work horse and well worth what was a premium at the time but it wasn't curved and now I don't think I could go back to a flat monitor for my primary
Back in the days as a Tech support I used to come across employees using their tube monitor which was capable of around 75 hz. Problem was it was set to 30ish hz... They didn't notice the flickering. I was wondering how many headaches they had each days. So I quickly fixed that display setting. They never complained about the horrible flickering.. Just amazed me as I could spot wrong display settings from a mile away.
This new monitor your are test driving is just incredibly awesome.. I would love to get my hands on it.. But for you to take advantage of it I guess I would also need to get an RTX 4090.. that is looking at a total of € 4500,= at local prices here (NL)..... Guess I'll have to wait and keep using my Dell curved S3220DGF which is pretty good..
I was running dual monitors in a DOS environment for debugging with Borland C++ and also with Clipper 5.x in the early 1990's. It was possible to have a VGA monochrome card and an ATI VGA Wonder in the same machine as they used separate memory addresses. If "memory" serves me you could run the monochrome VGA card at either B000 or B800. This configuration allowed you to have the app you were debugging on the color screen and the debugger running on the monochrome. Or you could do it the other way around and have the debugger on the color monitor and the application running on the monochrome. It was a much better environment for debugging a Small Grroup Insurance Proposal System with many complexities of different rules by state which drove product availability and rating. There was a presentation layer, a product availability module, and a rating engine that was used both for quoting new business and also used renewal rate calculations.
Yes, you remember correctly!
I was running both a monochrome and color display, both in graphics mode, so I could more quickly make sure my (custom!) graphics code worked on both.
It was painful to give up the monochrome display, but I eventually did to support 800x600 VGA, which required the full 64k address space (both 0xB0000 and 0xB8000).
Well, actually, I temporarily gave it up so I could double-buffer my graphics…
For me, the most impressive thing about W95 was its ability to _virtualize_ my double-buffered VGA code in a 640x350 window on a 1024x768 desktop, with the CPU utilization at less than 30% on a 33 MHz 486. (!!!)
Of course, it sucked so much in so many other ways, I’ve been a Linux user since ‘96, but hey, I give credit where it’s due.
@@altosack what distro do you prefer for your desktop PC?
Full stack DOS application sounds like a tech stack 1 level deep :-D
@@andynn6691 It was a Insurance quoting system written in Clipper 5.x ( a compiled version of dBase) There were modules for product availability and a rating engine. The front end was Clipper 5.x with console/io functions that we wrote in C. We also used a CAS 2.0 fax library so that our agents could fax quotes directly to clients. We were using Blinker for compiling and linking. The data was stored in dBase .dbf files using the foxpro .cdx indexes as they performed better. The software was distributed to insurance agents around the country on 3½ and 5¼ disks that we created on our own disk duplication machines and mailed out. Not bad for the early 1990's 🙂
Same here on and 286 with a VGA card and old monochrome card, does anyone remember control keys to switch back and forth between monitors, it’s not important but it just bothers me I can’t remember it.
broken kit was a valuable commodity in the 90’s for me because we had a way of getting it swapped for brand new kit - the same piece of broken kit may go through the system more than once each time providing a new bit of kit
I have the older brother of this monitor (the non-120 Hz 40 inch 5k one). It's pretty nice as well. It's absolutely enormous.
I keep waiting too, or this DELL, Samsung Qled gen 2 Odyssey ?
love everything about it. The 50/50 split, the docking station, the sharpness and colours. what's not to love?;)
I got a gen 2 odyssey ark in early december and can say its a pretty serious screen, i dont edit videos so cant comment on color accuracy but it is massive and really immersive, tons of features i wont utilize but the multi screen is sweet@@lucasrem
There is a software called Synergy that will let you mouse between 2 computers. Mac and Pc.
I also work on Linix , but steal your speed a bit
Microsoft has Mouse Without borders, works the same, only windows though
that's not the solution to the problem though. the question is to swap the screen input.
Synergy is for continuous experience for two different systems with single mouse/keyboard and clipboard sharing. Bought out by Logitech iirc. People say it works, but haven't tried it. So it may be the one for the OP to try out.
There's also lots of various software for one-system multimon setups. Display Fusion, Actual multiple monitors, etc. the latter having lots of options including which window opens where, grid setups, hotkeys, etc.
I can imagine two of those dell monsters one-above-the-other :)
@@GottZuseful if you have one monitor per machine but only want one kbd/mouse.
My favorite ever monitor was the Sun branded 17" Sony Trinitron. I hung on to that for many years!
I had 2 Sony Trinitron's that I also held onto for a long time, loved those things and the only reason I don't still have them is they were too big/heavy for me to bring when I moved states
When did you finally part ways with and why?
Part of me still misses CRTs.
The Trinitrons were great, but once I noticed the two horizontal lines (from the damper wires), I could never "not see them", and it drove me crazy. I had to replace them.
I’ve still got my Sun Trinitron. The 1152 x 900 resolution was a bit odd, but it was a fabulous picture for its day. Also that funky D shell size B connector with the coaxial ports and 13 pins or whatever it was had to be the strangest video interface cable o the planet. It was kind of cool that Sun used Apple ADB for the mouse and keyboard cables.
I've always been a fan of the Apple/Dell 16 by 10 monitors -- the Apple 30'' Cinema Display is still one of my favorite monitors -- especially the later upgraded ones. The fact that Dell still makes a variant of these just goes to show how good these monitors were for the time. These monitors are approaching 20 years old now.
I had an ingenious Frankenbuild in 1987: A MacPlus, modded with an SE motherboard, an internal SCSI harddisk and a PC PSU and a fan, partly hiding behind an E-Machines "The Big Picture", a 1024 x 768 17" display with a slow phosphor, that had an asymmetric back so that the Mac just showed enough so you could access the Floppy drive. Word 4 was king for years on the Mac. An amazing step up from WordPerfect 5.1. Sadly no longer have it :-( Around 2001, I upgraded my Apple 13" Trinitron (gorgeous) to a Sun 17 inch LCD that lasted for many years. That was a rock solid display.
I went to dual 40" HDTV's in about 2006 when TV's were finally suitable to use as a monitor. I still use 2 40" screens as monitors as well as a 23" touch screen. Love your videos and thank you for sharing your knowledge and experience!
Love the history and review of this, I equally am super excited about this release! I also just bought and read your book and it was profoundly helpful in understanding certain parts of myself, for which I thank you greatly. ♥
I love your channel, feels like watching my ideal future self talk about tech. Thanks Dave!
13:30 As the owner of a Samsung Odyssey G9 OLED 49" 32:9 widescreen, I can relate to the feeling. The embedded software on this thing is terrible! Way too complex when all you want to do is switch inputs or maybe go to split view mode. And as soon as you unplug a device, it forgets all the settings and you have to reset everything! On the other hand, the display itself is beyond words, truly amazing. So it's sorta worth it!
I'm running 3x 40" ultrawide LG monitors off a Mac Studio. They are the 40WP95CP-W so only 5K72. Having 10 feet worth of diagonal monitor is something you get to live with easily. I could never go back.
I'm a mere mortal with vertically stacked 21:9 3440x1440 monitors, but I agree - ultrawide monitors are my only solution to both gaming & productivity. The only reason I would use a 16:9 monitor these days would be if I were a streamer with a dedicated vertical chat/stream monitor on the side.
72 hertz !!!
just a TV !
My neck would hurt unless that whole 10 feet was probably 10 feet away lol. I use a Samsung 55" QLED for a monitor and that's hard to be closer than 3-4 feet...
@@lucasrem It's a Mac, I'm not gaming on it.
@@smiththers2 if your neck hurts if you regularly use it, that's a health issue.
My eyes are 35 inches from the centre of all 3 screens. I use the very outside edges of the outside monitors for things I don't use regularly like CCTV monitors and stock readouts.
Whatever I'm doing like editing photos or video will be in the centre monitor. The inside edge of the outside monitors will be open folders of things I need and whatever I have playing on UA-cam.
Oh Dave, you just took me back through 30 years of my computing career . The NEC Multisync, the Trinitron, the huge amount of space they took up in the corner of my desk
I will pretend I never watched this video and I know nothing about the new perfect Dell monitor that I’m drooling over.
Nostalgia! My Commodore Plus4 still works. I loved that computer. The cartridges, the cassette drive, the built-in spreadsheet and word processor, two games on cassette. So fun.
Just a small correction: when the term "Retina Display" was introduced by Apple for the iPhone 4, Steve Jobs said it needed to be about 300 dpi at the distance a phone is typically held.
The lowest ppi they have called Retina is 218.
*"The lowest ppi they have called Retina is 218."*
That is interesting, as the original Samsung Galaxy S (AKA "Vibrant") has a resolution of 233 ppi, and the pixel structure can easily be discerned by one with good eyesight at normal view distances.
@@bricaaron3978 Distance matters too. The 218 ppi Retina displays are desktop devices or laptops. For iPads, Apple seems to think 264 ppi is the threshold. For iPhones, 326 ppi is the lowest they went with.
I ordered mine 1 week ago. I'm glade to here from you, that I seem to picked the right monitor. Thanks for making such videos.
I bought a car from a friend for £500 back in 2001. When he dropped it off he told me there was a surprise in the boot. Turned out to be an IBM P76 24 inch monitor. It was an absolute beast of a monitor (I had to buy a new computer desk to support it) and would do 1600x1200 at 75Hz, could support up to 120Hz at lower resolutions, had BNC inputs as well as VGA and supported driving the beam directly to do pin-sharp vector graphics CAD style. All my friends were stuck at 1024x768 30Hz so everyone wanted to use my computer when we had LAN games.
The best feature: a degauss button that made a loud twang when you pressed it and made the screen wobble for a few seconds.
I ran that monitor for nearly 10 years as it was head and shoulders above any flat screen you could get at the time and eventually had to replace it with a Dell Ultrasharp U2311 after I dropped the P76 whilst cleaning and the case shattered and one of the circuit boards cracked. 😭
I had a magazine clipout of this monitor (Hitachi superscan 21") on my cubicle for over a year before I could finally afford to buy a used one for $1400 with shipping (early 1998). Lasted me well over 10 years. The degauss button - it had it too!
I've had this monitor for 2 weeks. I work in Logic Pro 80% of the time. It's a great upgrade from my 1440 LG 34". I'm able to use it at it's native 5120x2160. Sharp, perfect size for music production.Highly recommend it!
Video starts at 11:25
Love your channel. We are about the same age and have similar experiences, albeit I was not a Microsoft wiz kid. Watching this made me remember my Sony Trinitron 21 monitor I had that like you was my last CRT monitor. The size was huge but the weight is what killed me. I am a large strong man and hauling that thing around was a huge PIA. I also remember the tow feint lines that all Sony Trinitron CRT's had. I think they were for a filter or something but they were there when the monitor was mostly all white or a very light color. So fun going down memory lane with you.
Thanks for the tip! I just ordered one based on your review.
Hope you enjoy it!
Seems we've had very much the same journey on displays! I started my snobbery with the Wyse VT-420 displays connected to VAX-VMS that provided 48 lines of text rather than the pedestrian 24 lines. I had the same series of NECs, Trinitrons, and Viewsonics (multiple sizes) before going LCD. Dell UltraSharp has always been my go-to as their professional screens, particularly the factory color calibrated ones were workhorses! I also went to the 34-inch Dell curved. Recently, I've switched to the Samsung NEO G9 49" for my personal workstation, relegating the Dell 34" to my WFH desk, but this new Dell looks amazing!
Thanks for your video and consistently engaging content! For those of use who've been around since Windows and before, I can relate to so many of your topics. Also, was thrilled to see you were a Corvette guy as well!
So awesome man! Great show! Thank you!
Great insight, Dave! So glad I finally found an old I.T. kindered spirit who speaks our world so well. Your videos are amazing! Keep them coming!
Lovely review. Does the M2 support the full 120Hz 5k2k over Thunderbolt? I have not been able to confirm this anywhere.
As a software engineer who games in the side, this is exactly what I needed. Great review!
This might be my new favorite channel and I barley understand your ramblings of relics from yesterday year but damn is it fascinating to learn. Thanks Dave!
4:49 Actually typing “Sony Trinitron” as a defiant response to the NEC, right as you disclose what you bought for your home office after researching the NEC. lol
I too have a Dell 38" with a Macbook and love it, excellent review this will be my next screen, thanks Dave.
My original background was in design (now in IT), and I am extremely sensitive and picky with monitors. I really appreciate all the beautifully saturated colors using this video, as it looked great on my 32 inch 4K LG.
O.L.E.D. or G.T.F.O.
I use to have 3 x 21" NEC MultiSync (in the mid-90's) and a 24" SGI monitor (with BNC's) that I acquired from a drafting shop. Those were the days. lol
That would be the ultimate street cred... Oh, the 21" Multisync? That's my *small* monitor!
It should have had 1600 height, this is basically a downgrade to the 38" ultradwides from a few years ago for anyone who cares about screen estate.
How is 2160p in height a downgrade?
Gotta love a perfectly cromulent monitor!
Came here to say the same. Not too sure on the parsecs though.
Dave Plummer reviewing a display and embiggening our vocabulary.😉
Is "par sec" not Star Wars jargon? I thought he was taking the piss 🤣
I'm only a couple months away from paying off my M2 Ultra and was prepared to buy a second Studio Display. But now you've got me rethinking this.
Former Amiga user here. I had them all other than the 3000T. I loved them to an unreasonable degree. I'm a car guy as well, 74 455 Trans Am and 70 Olds Rallye 350 in the garage. I'm looking for an "affordable" 5k ultrawide to use with my new PC build once the 9950X3D and 5090 are available.
From one Amiga lover to another, thank you for the recommendation. I bought this monitor because of this video, and I absolutely love it!
Back when the DRMO auctions were a thing, one of the lots I won had two minty 21” NEC Diamond Pro monitors on the pallet. Both me and the wifey ran those beautiful displays for ages. Threw my back out one time moving one of those beasts solo. So worth it at the time.
I remember going down to the local computer store (remember those) and plunking down $1050 for a NEC Multisync 17". This was back in the day when a dollar was still worth 50 cents. I never regretted the purchase, and there was no complaint from my wife once she saw the screen. The monitor you're reviewing is likely cheaper than the NEC after accounting for inflation. I wish I needed it.
This is what I'm getting - HP E45c G5 44.5-inch super ultrawide.
I'll also add a couple of smaller screens at the sides, but haven't decided what models they'll be.
Upgrading from a 49" 4K TV that I've been using for almost 5 years.
I do not play games on any of my computers, just work stuff.
Dell makes a nice monitor. I’ve had a U2420 for over a decade now. No problems and still going strong.
Dell has been making great monitors for years. I've always loved thier ultrasharp line.
This likes exactly what I have been looking for. However, the only thing I wanted it does not have is OLED
The IBM 3290 Displays were pretty nice for their day. Worked on those while working in a NOC and having side by side sessions or quad sessions was ahead of its time
I have been running a U3419W for about two years now. It's hard to go back to dual 27" monitors at the office. Though I do have a 27" in portrait at home now I use mainly when working at the house. Thanks for the great content, Dave!
Oh man, this brings back memories. My first color monitor was some no-name 15" CRT. Sometime around Win98 SE I managed to finesse a pair of 19" Sun workstation CRTs with 13W3 input. It was fun finding an adapter for those in the pre-Amazon days. As I recall I had to open them up and solder a sync wire jumper. They supported some obscene refresh rate, and at one point i had an Asus video card with wired LCD shutter glasses for some decent 3D.
My first LCD would have been a 15" Viewsonic around 2004. I'm the only person in our office with Dell monitors, been running triple 27"s for about 4 years now.
Hopefully we get an OLED version, LG will drop one next
Oh, I had similar obsession during that era, I managed to scrounge up a Dec 20 inch crt from an engineer that retired since I was the "System Support" crew in our Dec installation. It was on a Dec Mate workstation that had a 286chip on it. The most interesting aspect was setting the monitor to "non-intelace" mode that was great for my eyes. This I did from Houston, London, Wellington and Hong Kong when I was travelling on the job. My technical customers loved me so much that divisions used to fight over my time. And they were a bunch of government scientists!!!. Memories...
Took just one video I saw from Dave and I was instantly astounded by his competence. Back in the day, we had Commodore PETS running CP/M and it was like whaaat? Networked access to a dual floppy disk unit. It took years before DOS got that far. And the NEC monitor, well, yeah. Had one where I was working although it was a showpiece and I certainly didn't code with it in front of me. So I went through those days as well - just without his level of intellect. In case anyone is wondering, Dave's the real deal.
I used our 2020 WFH stipend to purchase a standing desk and my first 32” Ultra-Wide IPS curved display, I’ll never go back to dual heads. And I’m one that adopted dual very early, 1993-ish on my Sun workstation, a Sparc 10 iirc with dual frame-buffers. Had two of those Sun monitors that took a forklift to get them on the desk. People though I was nuts, “why do you need two?”. Fast forward a decade and everyone wanted two. I’m over it, UW IPS any day.
That very NEC monitor is the reason I have a bad back! It weighed a ton and lifting it badly was a good way to get yourself a bad back as I proved.
The old days of hitting the degaus button and the potential flicker if your lighting was not optimal.
I always made a point of getting my users the best monitors I could buy because people are looking at for 8+ hours a day.
As a Dell Ultrasharp user, I can confirm that they are great... when work pay for them lol. The KVM features are the bomb and the PBP modes are the killer feature for the ultrawides, splitting the screen up for multiple inputs, giving you "multiple monitors" again when you need it.
I started with dual monitors on Windows 98. It was nightmare with poor support and drivers. I clearly remember getting it to work once with my initial setup (one supported Matrox card and one not quite supported card driving a LCD-screen). Worked OK though as soon as I got two supported cards.
Since then I've always had multi monitors getting bigger and better over time. My preference is not a curved screen, but one main screen in the middle and smaller screens on the sides. Suits my needs better than one huge screen. I find it very convenient to place utilities windows on one (or two) of the smaller screens while the main screen is used for whatever I'm working on.
Just replaced my last really old 24" Dell and currently I've a four screens setup with a 30" as the main display, two cheap Lenovo 2560x1440 screens on one side and a LG Dual Up (2560x2880) on the other. My next upgrade will most likely be the 30" main screen which is getting old and could benefit from a resolution upgrade.
A few years ago I stopped using computer monitors. I switched to 48" OLED TVs. I never look back, 4K 120hz HDR, Screens are further from my eyes, and I have more free desk space. The colors, refresh rate, and sound are perfect. The price is lower by factor than a good monitor. The only disadvantages I can think of are no desktop background image, autohide taskbar, and Windows dark theme is necessary to protect them from burn-in. Also, I wrote some code to control inputs, sleep, wakeup, pixel recovery, and disabling Google Movies. Network control API is limited on smart TVs, so I ended up using ADB to control them. That was fun and joy for my masochistic side.
Wow your Amigas are in immaculate condition. Zero yellowing. Impressive.
6:45 - This is why I never understood, back in the day, why Color TV was advertised on (mostly) Black & White TV sets!
I have had three Dell UltraSharp 4K 27" monitors for several years and really like them.
Some day I plan to set up a second PC station and that curved baby looks like an ideal candidate. Thanks for the info!
I have the U3818DW since 2017 and love the KVM. I added an usb hub to the back and hooked up my DAC/Headphone Amp, Mouse, Keyboard, Microphone and Webcam to it. The usb-c connection connects it to my work laptop and DP to my private PC
You just made me feel old..still have the VIC20, C64, and C128 with tape and 1541 sitting next to me. The 386 with a math coprocessor was a big thing. Great video as always, people don't remember that the serial port to connect that printer of yours weighed more than a brick
I also believe bigger is better when it comes to monitors. I have 32 inch Dell that i use daily. I've considered moving to an even larger curved monitor and your video helped move me closer to making that leap. Thanks again for your good solid reviews!
Love your channel, but man, 11 minutes into this 20 minutes video and finally we start with the DELL.
Had to set the stage so you could appreciate the Dell!
I'm using 14 year old Samsung 16:10 (1920x1200) LCDs. Still working fine for me.
ok, the cabbage patch reference almost made me spew my coffee. Ever since HDMI showed up on PCs I'd been using whatever television I had around as a "monitor" (all available funds -> latest graphics cards). I finally managed to purchased a high end monitor last year and there's really no going back. Thanks for the tips! I always salute back by the way.
Oh yeah. I remember our office upgrading to the NEC Multisyncs in the '90s. They were sweet.
Thank you for this video, Dave! I too am a multi monitor lover. I started with a Hercules card and a VGA card to get two monitors and then coding in MS QuicBasic and Assembly to write on each of them for a home made alarm using the parallel ports as inputs for sensors. Keep up the great work! Thank you so much!
Your lucky to get a evaluation monitor. I talk to companies and I'm ignored. I suppose it's because i'm too old to be worth anything now or black listed. My Mac Studio Display blew up in my face up and this is what I'm considering although the price in Oz is extremely high. Nice to see the cheese grater Mac, absolutely classic model.
You were on the NT multi-monitor dev team? Nice! I beta tested NT 4.0 back in the day, and the ability to have multiple monitors (and on Windows 98) was wonderful, having given that up in the move from Mac to PC in the early '90s. My pair of PCI Matrox Millennium cards were great for 2D work in both OSes.
I also had fun playing Microsoft Flight Simulator 98 on *THREE* displays. My two old Millenniums plus some modern AGP 3D card. I, too, had "retired" professional BNC-connector displays. (Two of those at 20", plus one old 14" VGA.)
I'm looking at this monitor right now. This plus a Dell/Alienware OLED 4K that has the same vertical height to sit side-by-side to replace three Samsung 4K displays - two 28" in landscape plus a 24" in portrait.
I'd been waiting for an ultra-wide that has:
* At least 2160 vertical pixel count
* curved
* >90Hz.
* HDR
This is the first one that hits all three bullets, and has the bonus of having a 2.5GbE port, so it will replace my Thunderbolt Dock completely. I'd also been wanting an OLED, so the "matching" (same 2160p vertical at the same viewable height) Alienware OLED seems like a great second, to replace my portrait-mode. (I mostly have it in portrait due to physical space concerns - the two curved will alleviate that in landscape next to each other.)
I'll be using them split between my work laptop, personal Mac laptop, and Windows desktop. The KVM part will switch between laptop and desktop, and I'll just switch the Thunderbolt plug between personal and work laptop as needed.
I feel it. Long history with multiple displays, 20", 17", and 14" CRTs in the 90's. Part of the niche audience with 2 Macs, 1 PC and 5 displays wrapped around me, preferring one keyboard and mouse. I've upgraded 2 displays to higher refresh this past year but can't give up my 23" Apple Display from 2005.
dude im 41 and when you said "I got a 21" NEC Multisync" haha I know exactly what you were talking about! NEC did have awesome displays back in the day, I too am a monitor snob oddly enough ive never paid for a monitor. I worked in the MSP world for 12 years, so I just took what my customers didnt want. I always loved Viewsonic stuff too!
That's an insane amount of bandwidth for a single port. Definitely a dream monitor
I have it's predecessor, the U4021QW, using an earlier revision of this same panel, and it truly is the best monitor I've ever used.
The backstory was amazing! Your story of how you obtained the best monitor available at Microsoft was fantastic and reminded me of how I also used opportunistic tricks at my previous workplace, and ended up being the only one with a triplehead Samsung 24" 16:10 setup!
My daily driver since 2017 has been the Dell UltraSharp U3417W. I've been tracking the price of the predecessor of the monitor reviewed here for the last 3 years. On March 2023 it's price dipped close to my price/pain threshold at 1200€ shipped, but I hesitated and the price jumped back the next month and has only been increasing since! Currently it sits at 1600€ shipped! Today I found about the U4025QW by accident and ended up here watching this fascinating review! It'd be 1800€ shipped here in Finland... I can't justify the price no matter how much I try... It looks like I'm going to be driving my trusty 34" for the years to come. 120Hz would be too sweet to miss, so from now on my eyes are on the U4025QW.
I’ve run Dell UltraSharps at work for as long as I can remember. They’re workhorses. But Ive been stuck on 1080p for a while. Going to the real estate on my 1440p display at home is always an upgrade. I think this is the display to replace my 3 1080p UltraSharps. May even be worth my own investment if I can’t convince a requisition. Thanks, Dave!
As a color expert, it is nice to hear the albeit short callout on the specs of the 40". What would be more interesting on such a monitor of that size is the uniformity. A lot of larger monitors struggle to keep backlighting and color uniformity across larger spans. But it certainly looks like a heck of a piece of kit!
KVM woes, keyboard, mouse, cam, boom mic, get disconnected from source machine and pop up as new usb devices on the switched-to machine.
Works ok-ish for a few times, but eventually Windows gets super confused and crap hits the fan.
Instead I would need the powered & R-Pie driven KVM switch, called PiKVM, that does actual USB routing, the source machines never have a USB drop & reconnect.
Caveat, price. I got the info from a LTT video in 2022, if you want to search for it.
So with a KVM-integrated monitor, if you "cold swap" meaning you power off one machine and power on the other machine, you will have zero issues. Hot-swapping won't work for very long.
So now I use KVM to swap between laptop & desktop HDMI/DisplayPort
Keyboard, mouse and cam/mic are doubled-up, which is a major PITA but much cheaper than a PiKVM as I already have multiple peripherals. Plus, my desk is wide enough.
Currently using a Gigabyte M28U 4K 16:9 IPS @ 144Hz, it is lovely. A big step up from the LG 28" 4K IPS @ 60Hz, they are now my side monitors.
MSFS with 3x 4K monitors is fun, the central one being 144Hz and side ones at 60Hz.
No more using my laptop screen as an extra monitor screen. 3x 28", though, neck pain IS a thing...
Ive been using a Dell D3221QS, 32" 60hz curved 4k for 3 years or so now. I got it for work and after seeing it in person my boss got one for himself as well. I absolutely love this display for productivity work so i can just imagine how much better their new model is. 120hz is the only thing i wish this had. It sits above a trio of 360hz alienware monitors, and by comparison it feels "laggy" i guess is the best way to describe it
First time viewer to the channel really enjoy this format of product review with a bit of story telling here and there
For those interested in this monitor: please be aware that this monitor seems to suffer from a production issue where affected panels are damaged with scratches over the entire width of the monitor. I went through multiple replacements, but 3/3 monitors (all produced May '24) suffered from this issue in varying degrees. My model from July '24 does not have any scratches, but does have some green bleed at the bottom part of the monitor. Not really the kind of quality control issues you expect from a top-of-the-line monitor meant for video editing.
been waiting for a monitor like this for so long. Very excited to see they are finally coming to market. Will wait a bit for them to become more reasonable, but its finally here!
The first 5 minutes of this video might be the greatest monitor review ever.
I was an early multiple monitor adopter as well. I used two networked Win2k PCs (each with its own monitor) along with a KVM switch (minus the V). Now-a-days, my main Linux box has two big monitors and between VNC and Virtual computers, I can control any computer in the house.
Jeez that's amazing. Pricey, but it shows what's next. Super impressive.
I am a fellow multi-monitor guy from what back when. Those multiple 20 inch trinitron based monitors were hard on the desks! I killed more than one desk back in the day LOL. Was even worse when I added the 3rd 20" Sony on a swing arm! I now use one monitor, but it's a 55" Samsung Ark. Love the size, love the curve, the panel itself ... not so much, but hey, it's HUGE.
I love the walk down memory lane. In college I ultra-splurged on a Mac II with the Apple Color Monitor (Trinitron) that was my go-to screen for many years. But it's rival was the NEC Multiscan which was also one of the best out there. As for curved screens, I daily drive two Samsung C34H89x, one for each Mac. They aren't anywhere in the class of the Dell you have but they work and my company paid for them for remote work (the offices have them too).
Great video Dave! What a impressive monitor. That KVM is a huge selling feature for me. Being able to work off my desktop during my day job and then switch to my Macbook for personal use in the evening is a huge selling feature
I have 2x Dell 27" 2K monitors, giving me a 5120x1440 desktop. Combined with a 4 port dual 4K KVM serving 4 PCs, this gives me a comparable desktop at about half the price.