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Comment by sundvor | Hacker News Reader

I bought the U3415W when it first came out. At first it was for games (coming from 3x U2412Ms) however I quickly realised how incredibly good the 21:9 3440x1440 resolution is for programming. No DPI scaling needs be involved, so I'm looking at Visual Studio experience where even with NCrunch unit test runners and the Solution overview, I have plenty of room for two main code editing windows. Brilliant.

I ended up buying an extra Acer X34 for home (surrounded by 2x U2412Ms on an Ergotech stand) and brought the U3415W to work as a personal device.

The 38" could potentially be even better, however I'm rather happy with the 34" as is. It's a bit of a shame they didn't add Freesync to it.

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I've had the Dell U3415W (3440x1440) since it was released two years ago, and it is the best monitor I've ever used. The resolution is great, and avoiding the DPI scaling needed for practical use of most 4K screens is key. As a bonus, it is absolutely perfect for movies in 21:9.

If you haven't seen one, a more familiar comparison might be that the U3415W is essentially the same as a 27" IPS panel, only wider. It has 1440 pixels of height at roughly the same physical height as the 27" IPS panels.

Many people argue that curved screens are unnecessary or a gimmick, which I would agree is true for TV screens with multiple off-center viewers. From my own comparison of several 32"+ monitors, I do think the curve is very useful in reducing neck/eye fatigue.

The new 38" does sound appealing, but at 2-3x the cost of the U3415W on sale I would probably still recommend the 34" to most people.

>> The resolution is great, and avoiding the DPI scaling needed for practical use of most 4K screens is key.

While ymmv, I have been using a pair of 27" 4K Dell P2715Q's as my working monitors running with no scaling (1:1). I have a standing setup (although lately I've been using a drafting stool because of plantar fasciitis, but that's another story) so I do have the monitors closer to my face than most people, but I find it's more than tolerable.

Out of curiosity what font sizes do you use for your editor? I have a 27" 4K monitor around 20" from my face and find it too small without scaling, 1.5-1.75x is around perfect for me (although support for that under Windows and Linux is hit or miss).

In Sublime for Windows, I am using the default font with a size of 10.5. I have always tended to use higher dpi screens on laptops (i.e. 1680 and 1080 @ 15" running at 1:1) so I have years of conditioning to small text on screens.

An added piece of information - I got presbyopia (in addition to my existing myopia and astigmatism) about 5 or so years ago, so I now use reading glasses, which also helps a little.

I had a special pair of single vision glasses prescribed to me from my optometrist where its optimal range of focus is between 21" and 27". I got those distances from measuring the closest and furthest points between my eyes and monitors. I see everything fine. Before I got the single vision glasses, I was using a flip up reading glass attachment that I wore over my normal progressives to see the screen, which a - looked goofy, b - was unwieldy, and c - not as good as the single vision glasses.

I had a colleague who did the same. Size 10 on a 27" 1440p monitor. Whenever I had to pair with him I always had to ask him to increase the font size.

I also have myopia and astigmatism, but if I use a smaller font eventually my eyes get tired and I get headaches. My optician suggested I wear slightly weaker than my prescription glasses for computer work which helped a bit, but still I find it more comfortable to stick to my size 14 at 1.75x scaling :-)

I ended up getting 2 Dell 43" monitors and are very happy with them for coding. I actually have 3, but the 3rd is too much (I never thought I'd see the day).

They aren't perfect, and the "old" version is buggy, so if you want these, get them straight from Dell. Resellers still have the old version that drops connection.

Also, the HDMI is only 30Hz while the DP and mDP are both 60.

Finally, they stretch a few pixels past the border, so you will need to shrink the picture slightly with the video card driver.

If you can deal with all that, they are incredible. Dell has a window manager that allows you to assign a grid and windows will snap to their respective cells once dropped into it.

http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?c=us&c...

Thank you for posting this. I've recently been considering buying one (Dell 43 Ultra HD 4k Multi Client Monitor P4317Q, right?) However, this negative review is holding me back. Is there any merit to its claim?

This monitor has glorious resolution made totally useless because the backlight uses PWM Pulse Width Modulation to adjust the backlight brightness. This leads to eye fatigue and, in some cases, severe headaches. One would be hard pressed to find other monitors in Dell's lineup with this outdated technology since it has almost entirely been removed from all modern monitors. As a business monitor, it is expected to have "Comfort View" aka "low blue light" mode to reduce eye stress during a long day of use. Fix these problems and you will sell more of these than you could make.

http://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/dell-43-ultra-hd-4k-multi-cli...

I'd be hooking one or two up to my late 2013 MacBook Pro Retina 15, btw, which has a miniDP, so I believe I'll be able to get full resolution at 60Hz.

Yes, that is the model. I'm sure different people have different sensitivities to different things. I work in front of them all day. The only complaint I have is they are so tall (I'm using arms) that I tend to look up more than usual. Also, you can't daisy chain them. Each one needs a dedicated port on your card (I'm running a single GForce 1080)

The real estate is amazing. I have my main one set to VS taking up about 2/3rds of the screen, then two large windows stacked next to it. The secondary monitor is divided by 6 portions, so I have Pandora, Email, Browser, Postman, Excel (for billing), Windows Exploder, SSMS, whatever. I'm typing on this in one of the 6 portions with VS opened on the main monitor. I rarely fill everything up. Also, I can make VS full screen and do split windows within it to compare code. I think the Dell Display Manager only works on Windows though.

Having said that, it's 4K, but it's so large, you don't get a retina PPI. You get a regular PPI but many more pixels, which, as a coder, is much more useful to me.

Like I said, I'm very happy with them. I've finally realized maximum useful resolution, and I work on them all day and many nights.

I got my P4317Q in Aug 2016, it was that early faulty A00 revision with PWM (flicker) issue. I took a flickering video on the phone camera with lowered exposure and filed a warranty ticket. Local (EU) Dell service center picked up the display, confirmed an issue and one week later I got a new screen of A01 rev. from Germany with no issues. Superb monitor, just make sure to get A01 rev.

A happy recent HP Z34c convert here. I realized it had roughly the same number of pixels as my previous two monitor setup (older HP LP series in 24" and 22" portrait mode) and made the upgrade. This screen looks better, runs cooler, has a cleaner physical footprint (except for the useless speakers on the side bezel--I wish I could cut them off), and requires half the cables. From HP's refurbished outlet at half price with PC purchase the price is tough to beat.

I did have to scale this one up by a few percent to save my eyes, but overall I found as you did that the orientation works really well for code window plus emacs/shell or browser. It's pretty impressive to flip an HD video to full screen once in a while.

Another U3415W owner here, it's the best monitor purchase I've made in years. I previously had a 27" and two 24"s and replaced the 24s with the U2415W. I do programming and gaming on it and it's excellent for both.

But isn't this a software, not a panel resolution problem? Fonts and icons could be scaled down in software just fine and could keep excellent readability.

In theory yes, but in practice I find that Windows 10 just renders fonts nicer when not in a scaling mode. Your tastes may vary, of course.

The other thing is that for games, 3440 x 1440 is much easier on the GPU than 4k+ resolutions.

Microsoft made a mess of the high dpi support in Windows, even with WPF which is supposed to be resolution independent I still have problems.

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