Are curved monitors worth the premium?

[Jsimenhoff]

Earlier today we dropped a hands on preview 'Vast' 35-Inch Curved Gaming Monitor. With a UWQHD resolution of 3440 x 1440 pixels, 1800R curvature, and at a price most of can stomach, high definition immersive gaming is finally within reach for all of us.

All of this begs the question: is the immersive experience provided by gaming monitors worth the price premium? With 4K Freesync monitors hitting the sub $400 range is the loss in pixels worth the extra curve?

 

[hdmark]

I know for me its not. I'd rather save and put the money towards a better gpu 😀

 

[King_V]

I was one of those people who thought the whole description "immersive experience" was just a hackneyed marketing cliché, and I was planning on going with a 4K monitor in the upper 30s inches, maybe 40 or 42, in size.

Really, though, I was looking for a bigger monitor (I had a 27 inch 1920x1080) as well as something with more width, basically so that when I worked from home I'd have a screen that gave at least as much real-estate as the dual 1920x1080 monitors I had at work. I was hoping Samsung would come out with its 32:9 monitors at the time, so I could see what they looked like.

I wound up getting an Acer 38" 3820x1600. It's curved. It was also pricey. I got the horizontal resolution I wanted (I wasn't really looking forward to only 2560x1080), and the extra vertical space is nice. It was also reviewed here: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/acer-xr382cqk-curved-freesync-monitor,5067.html

While my monitor is technically 24:10 aspect ratio (basically 21:8.75) rather than 21:9, the wider aspect ratio is more fun in games as well, for the wider Field of View.

I actually went to a Microcenter, a 45 minute drive, the only store that had large, curved ultra-wides on display. They didn't have my particular one, but had some 3440x1440 monitors that I tried out.


I don't know if it's because of the curve, or if it's because of the wider aspect ratio, but I am EXTREMELY happy with it. Oh, not with the hit I took to my wallet, as these seem disproportionately expensive, but overall, it was well worth it for me. Wider aspect ratio, the screen real-estate I need when working, and the wider FOV when gaming. It's a hefty 38" screen, though. Still, an equally large or even larger 4K would've been cheaper, but flat. But 4K, while giving plenty of screen space, was still 16:9 aspect ratio.


So, while I don't know if the curve is the reason, or the wider aspect ratio, or maybe some combination of the two of them working together, overall, I'm very happy with the move I made.

Is there a downside? Yes. All those extra pixels mean that my video card, which handled 1920x1080 effortlessly, is woefully inadequate, unless I play with a lower than native resolution. I'm a light-to-moderate rather than a heavy gamer, maybe playing on weekends for the most part. Still, yeah, I guess I know what my next big expenditure is going to have to be. But, that'd be the case if I'd gotten a 4K monitor as well.


HOWEVER - and this is VERY important. I am absolutely adamant in that monitor preferences are EXTREMELY subjective. Size, pixel density, aspect ratio, etc. If at all possible, and if there's any in at least a halfway reasonable distance from you, to look at monitors in person - especially if it's the kind of place that has a PC attached to it and you can try it out for a few minutes of basic usage. Everyone's eyes are a little different, everyone's view of what constitutes a pleasant viewing experience is different, etc. I cannot emphasize enough that, at least in my opinion, seeing one working, in action, even if it's not the exact model you're looking for, to feel how the extra resolution, different aspect ratio, curve, etc., is for you is important.

I actually wound up trying a different monitor, I believe a 34 or 35 inch, 3440x1440, when at the store, because they didn't have the 38" models (only Acer and LG available at the time) on display. Still, having tried that slightly smaller, slightly lower res monitor, I made the purchase of the big Acer that day. I'd done research online for a while before going to the store, and tend to hem and haw and delay, and am most definitely NOT an impulse buyer, but, I walked out of the store with my Acer that day.

 

[Solandri]

At the distance most people view a monitor (about same viewing distance as the monitor is wide) the curve doesn't matter much. The monitor only covers about 50 degrees of your field of view at that distance. A curve won't start to matter until around 100 degrees. (Normal field of view of human vision is about 120 degrees for both eyes, 200 degrees including the sides seen by just one eye.)

The curve exists for engineering reasons. Technology has allowed us to make monitors thinner and thinner. But it's possible to make something too thin. Take a sheet of paper and try to hold it upright on a table by the bottom corners. The top half will flop over. Now curve the paper slightly. Ta-da! The paper no longer flops over. Curving the monitor allows you to make it thinner while maintaining its rigidity, without having to add structural cross-beams. (It's the same reason medieval armor and sheet metal panels on your car's body are curved.)

Get a monitor because it's a nice monitor. Ignore whether or not it's curved. That's just marketing trying to assign some nebulous qualitative value to something whose function is purely structural.

 

[cryoburner]

The 4K monitors you see in the sub-$400 range are either cheap TN panels, or are arguably too small for that resolution. 4K could be considered excessive, and even difficult to view without scaling on a 24-27 inch screen, and what good is having more pixels if the color and contrast of those pixels is mediocre?

To use the 35 inch Massdrop screen as an example, it's not just a curved monitor. It also uses a VA panel, giving it three times the contrast and better viewing angles compared to a regular TN panel screen. All the curved screens I know of use either VA or IPS panels, which are arguably superior screen technologies that naturally cost a little more. Some of them, like that Massdrop screen, also offer high refresh rates to enable the screen to display more frames per second, while pretty much all 4K monitors are stuck at 60Hz. So, you're typically not just paying extra for the curve. You're paying extra for higher image quality as well.

And of course, for gaming, you currently need a very high-end graphics card to run newer games at 4K with reasonable frame rates. And even with a $700+ graphics card, you'll still need to lower the settings a bit on some games to maintain over 60fps, and you'll undoubtedly have to pick up a new high-end graphics card to play the games coming out a couple years from now. From a total cost perspective, gaming at 4K is naturally going to cost significantly more than gaming at lower resolutions. Or you'll need to make do with reduced graphics options and low frame rates, which is bound to make games look worse, and probably isn't worth the tradeoff for a slightly sharper image. 4K gaming isn't all that practical yet, and likely won't be for a number of years.

So, let's compare the price of that Massdrop screen to a 4K display with similar screen area, which works out to be one with a diagonal measurement of 32 inches at a 16:9 aspect ratio. On Newegg, the lowest-priced 4K screen fitting that criteria is $588. It does use a VA panel, though only at a standard 60Hz, as opposed to the Massdrop screen's 100Hz. The second lowest-priced one is $762, and the prices only go up from there, with most 32 inch 4K panels being over $1000.

At the distance most people view a monitor (about same viewing distance as the monitor is wide) the curve doesn't matter much. The monitor only covers about 50 degrees of your field of view at that distance. A curve won't start to matter until around 100 degrees. (Normal field of view of human vision is about 120 degrees for both eyes, 200 degrees including the sides seen by just one eye.)

The point isn't just that a curved monitor covers more of your field of view, it's that the monitor is facing you more directly, even at the far left and right edges. With larger screens, and especially with the ultra-wide monitors that are popping up, if they were flat, you would be viewing the edges, and particularly the corners, from a relatively sharp angle. The curve reduces the angle at which you view those parts of the screen. This can reduce issues with off-angle viewing on some panel types, and help minimize distortion. Your eyes also won't need to keep refocusing as much when looking around the screen, since the distance between your eyes and the display won't have as much variance between the center and edges. There's certainly more to the feature than just structural integrity and marketing.