I work as a developer and has previously been using 2 1080 24" screens. The last couple of years I have been using a 34" 1440 wide screen. It has been working fine but sometimes it can feel a bit small. I have been considering a 16:9 4k screen but I’m afraid it will be too tall for me.
Would a larger 49" ultrawide be better perhaps?
At home, I have a pair of 32" 1440 270Hz Acer Predator XB323U monitors. Excellent work from home devices. I have Teams and browsers on the right and my RDP session into my work PC on the left. Driven by a MSI RTX 3090 SUPRIM X
Then, at night, they turn into gaming monsters.
Just checked Amazon. You can get 32" Sceptre 4K for $260 a pop. The Odyssey 49" OLED looks impressive, but I have no hands on experience.
Two monitors. In case of issues with one, I have a fall back.
I’ve got this one from LG.
I actually like that it’s a bit taller. Being able to have two full windows side by side along with the 1600 pixels of vertical space is working out pretty well here.
And yeah, it doesn’t hurt to have a backup even if something cheap from ebay or your old, beat up and dead pixeled previous monitor that you just pulled out of the closet. It’s better to have it and not need it, than to need it and not have it.
Monitor preference is on the same league as Linux distribution preference… to each their own, to a point 
For me, a LG 43UN700 Monitor 43" UltraHD 4K LED IPS HDR, 3840x2160 placed at about 1m (3 feet) is what makes me not need a second monitor since 2016 (prior to the LG I had a Philips va panel)
I can use it at full 4k no scaling with macOs, it has plenty of real estate and at 1m I do not need to turn my head up/down or left/right to cover all the monitor. 49 inches would require more space in front or you may need to tilt your neck to cover all of it, and especially for the up/down movement it may get tiring…
In exchange I get 4x 1080p tiled virtual sections (sometimes physical as I use one quarter for a second PC input at 1080p) that gives me too much real estate … I am a window hoarder ™ and at any time have about 10-15 apps open at the same time, three of which are chrome/safari/Firefox, each with multiple windows and multiple tabs open…
I do not have to deal with the os getting creative in placing the second monitor, bezels, any complications related to having more than one monitor .
I’ve been using a 65" 4k on and off for a couple years. Honestly it’s too big, with a flat screen that wide at ~6 ft the edges are hard to read.
The benefit for me though is it’s more comfortable to focus on a screen that is further away like that.
Gaming is not really relevant since I dont game at my desk anymore, only stream everything to my TV 
But yeah, higher refresh rate than 60 would be nice. Currently use 100hz. Price is irrelevant since I will be buying through work anyway.
I recently had some issues with my lower back and my physician said my screen was way to low. I dont think a regular 16:9 will be good for me if I go up i screen size. Didnt know this 38" existed! Meh, backups dont matter for me in this case, I can use my laptop screen in a pinch.
Yeah I do like the though of this but I dont think this will be any good for my neck/back
Haha, that is the size of my tv and we sit maybe 2-3 meters away and its almost to big
i have a 37 inch 16:9. i sit maybe 1meter/4 feet back from it.
if i was gonna jump from 1440p to 4k then i would be looking at a screen thats maybe 45 inches max.
or i would have to get a deeper desk.
With the wide desk (second picture is for reference, it’s 80 cm deep - 32Inches) I use, I do not need to move my neck in any direction to cover all of the screen, just small eye movements.
I am not a tall guy, have the monitor up on the wall at an height where when sitting straight and staring straight I am looking at the center-top of the monitor, so center-bottom only requires moving my eyes slightly down, no neck movement at all.
I have the full 4K connected to a mac mini, and the top right quadrant is a 1080p Picture in picture from my gaming machine …
Sitting for long periods of time is tough on back, neck, hips and shoulders. It’s definitely a good idea to optimize your work area to help avoid that, but it’s not going to help as much as just getting up, getting away from the machine, and to get moving for a little while.
If you need more adjustment then the stand can provide you could get a monitor arm as well. That’ll help you separate positioning of the monitor from your choice of the monitor its self since you’ll get a lot more flexibility than you’d get trying to prop up the monitor on a book or something to get more height.
I usually prefer height over width when I am doing development. So I get an IPS monitor and rotate it. Most of the developers I knew in the office ran dual 4k 27 inch rotated 90 degrees, joined on their thinnest edge. If they were over 35 it was dual 32 inch. The thing with dual monitors is that it is easier to put reference material on one and the current project on the other.
There are many studies showing that multiple large monitors increase productivity. For employers it is an increase in morale, decrease in frustration, increase in productivity, for a very minor up front cost usually less than 2 days pay.
oh and if at all possible, wall mount the monitors on an arm that can bring them closer and further. This way you can adjust them throughout the day, or get them out of the way and do a task that uses your desk without the clutter of monitor stands. Also desk stands often jiggle the monitor as you type, which is annoying. Wall stands don’t have the monitor jiggle when you type.
If work is paying for it anyway you might want to take a peek at monitor arms from Spaceco or Ergotron. I got one from Ergotron a few months ago and it’s pretty nifty.
Yep I have a real office chair, height adjustable desk, standing mat and monitor arm as well. 
mt physitherapist said that usually youd want to have the top of the monitor in eye level. But not always, depends on your actual tasks you do.
So I was first thinking of buying a better arm. But then I thought I wanted a new screen as well. And then my stand might not work for that screen. 
In that case, the view from a Varjo Aero with Virtual Desktop can’t be beaten. Universally control how large and close your screen is. Plus, you are not distracted by neighbors. Crystal clarity.
You do need to be a decent touch typist through as you can’t see the KB. 
This. Dual monitors for work is one of the greatest things.
to throw out an option, that i’d say is worth considering:
asus pg38uq.
that is a 16:9 ips 4k uhd 38 inch high refresh monitor with a verified RGB subpixel layout.
i don’t have one, but i heard generally good things about it, sadly no review on it out yet.
it has a NOT adjustable stand, only tilt, so you would need a custom stand, but that sadly applies to all very big 16:9 displays.
that monitor would have better text clarity than all the oled monitors (well except RGB oled, but that’s not a thing at that size) and oled burns through anyways 
to me at least this sounds like small monitor world nonsense.
imagine looking straight at the top edge of a 40 inch 16:9 monitor how extremely far down you would have to look to look at the center even, not even thinking about looking at your taskbar.
my triple monitor setup with 2 24 inch 16:10 screens (for now) i have setup to look straight at 1/3 down from the monitor i guess.
either way, that advice i would suspect just comes from very small office monitor data at best and not giant monitors or triple monitor setups, etc…
of course you’ll know best what will relief any issues longterm from testing 
either way, basically just wanted to mention the 38 inch 16:9 pg38uq, because it can get easily missed and figured you might like the specs.
Some very interesting comments in this thread, nice one . I’m not a Dev but design houses / extensions, and find 3 x 27" monitors works nicely for my use case. Work in the middle on CAD (ViewSonic VP2770-LED), work emails to one side and site photos / client briefing notes in the other (side monitors AOC Q2778VQE). It’s only practical with a 800mm (31.5") deep desk though.
I use these to hold the monitors. LINK
I’d really like a new arrangement, the bezels are really thick and the VESA mounting point of the centre and side monitors has never lined up 
I’m still thinking triple monitors is good, but I do lean towards those mega wide curved monitors from time to time. But hey, it’s a £1000 that I’d prefer not to spend right now…and I’d quite like 2 of them Something like this
Pic when my officer was cleaner and even less finished
Not sure if this helps, probably not!
tbh i would pull out 1 or both of the 1080p screens.
sitting either side of your 1440p screen you should have enough screen for your needs.
and being on different panels, offer a level of separation you cant get on a single screen.
or if the screens are gone then i would go with another 1440p screen.
but im being bias as this is how i roll myself…2 1440p’s, 1 in portrait.
and it works well for me.
Roll two 4k 32 inchers, why…. Because of zoom! If you have the ability to go old man font on your eyes while still having the space to view volume your eyes will thank you.
In 2014 my main office monitor (on my desk within arms reach) was a 40 inch 4K. I will say that for the first 3 months of using it my neck and shoulders were often cramping up due to having to turn my head so much so often.
I had a project for 2 months where I had to keep open 13 windows virtual desktop connections. I finally figured it out, but my neck…
Wide without tall may be ok, but most of those are VA, and will quickly give you a headache if you attempt to use them rotated to portrait mode.
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