I posted this on reddit, but I don’t think the subreddit is very active or responsive. I would like to get 2 x 27" monitors for my work laptop. I have a docking station that has 2 x DisplayPort, 1 HDMI, 1 DVI and 1 VGA connectors. I do not need 4K and I don’t need anything terribly fancy. I mostly use excel and other office type products and no gaming. Could anyone recommend a monitor on Amazon that would suit my purposes. I would be open to something different than 27", but want to keep the costs at least reasonable. Many thanks in advance.
My generic monitor recommendation is usually Dell. They’re nice without being extravagant. Your I/O should be sufficient.
If you want to find a better deal, pretty much any 27" QHD monitor will do the job.
If you’re mostly living in spread sheets, a widescreen monitor might be worth considering.
Something like this:
If you do go this route, you’ll need to confirm that your display port or HDMI ports will support 4k resolution though.
I don’t have any 27" monitors but LG has never disappointed me for price performance. I have 4 24" LG displays in my house. My work machine is 2 Dell 24". They are good too but were a bit more pricey and I don’t think they have anything on the LG aside from more adjustments to the stand. My main display is a 144hz 1440p 32" viotek. It’s not the greatest on color or view angle but the added resolution is something I would rather not due without after getting used to it.
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I can confirm LG is generally reliable for monitors. Currently, my main monitor is an LG.
I love the asus pro art series . you can find the older models very cheap now ( compared to the original pricing )
PA246Q
PA248Q
PA249Q
many more . check used if u don’t mind buying used
You think you don’t need 4k, but it is a game changer. Large format 4k (40"+), especially if you are on windows 10, can drastically improve your productivity. The reason windows 10 is important is because it supports snapping to corners, so you can have 4 usable 1080 workspaces. I don’t think the older windows versions support more than just snapping to the sides.
You can do things like have multiple spreadsheets open in a full screen view, and have separate documents open to grab data from.
My old Latitude E7440 could push 4k just fine, but the two docking stations I tried could not, that’d be my only concern. For me it was worth having to plug in power, ethernet, and monitor each morning.
If you do still want to go dual 27" I’d just recommend getting the lowest priced IPS/VA panel you can from a decent source (LG, Samsung, Dell, HP, ASUS, Acer). But 1 40" 4k has more screen real estate, and takes up less horizontal desk space. Additionally if you get a 40-50" model the pixel density will be similar to what you’re used to, and you wont need any text scaling like you would with a smaller screen.
I was just looking at electricity rates, so here’s a simple example of what i mean. You could have 2 “full screen” spreadsheets open and a double height browser window open to pull data from, or have stack exchange open while you’re trying to figure out for the 40th time how VLOOKUPs work. or whatever. I do understand that it’s also a game changer in that, it’s unfamiliar and the prospect of jumping off is not easy, but I don’t think I could ever go back to my old multi-monitor setups.
All that having been said, there is a slight price difference between the two. Getting 2 mid-tier 27" IPSes is around $500. Getting 1 low-end 40" IPS is about $550. That price jumps to about $700 for an apples to apples comparison.
For your original request, this is what I’d get for my money: https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824011188
If I were to replace my current 40" 4k I’d probably get this: https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1325220-REG/lg_43ud79_b_uhd_monitor_43_4k.html
This is the monitor I use and it’s fantastic for having lots of terminal, browser and editor open all at once. However, if I could do it again, I would get the Dell alternative because of the falloff on the right and left edges. When I have a terminal window up against the side of the monitor, I lose about half of the first letter. It’s annoying.
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Good looking out. Apparently it has an “underscan” option, but yeah, that’s less than ideal.
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I generally go with The Wirecutter for questions like this. Given that prices are identical and you aren’t gaming on it, I would absolutely go with 4k.
IMO high pixel density makes a huge difference on spreadsheets and text, much more so than games and media consumption. I tend to consider high DPIs largely a gimmick on TVs, but absolutely essential on monitors as you sit so much closer to the display.
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Thanks to everyone for the suggestions. I ended up going with the LG38UC99. It just arrived yesterday, and so far it is really nice.
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