Single Large Work Monitor Recomendations

Hardware Other Hardware
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what 43 inch 4k monitor should I get?

I’m leaning more towards Dell, but I’m willing to read replies

  • Dell
  • Viewsonic
  • LG
  • Philips
  • Other, reply

0 voters

background

why now?

I’ve been working from home and setup a desk seperate from my gaming. Furthermore, my job is offering rembursement up to a certain amount for healthy and ergonomic office equipment.

my workflow

I work on my work laptop primarily with python, jupyter notebook, and data analysis. I like to have multiple tabs and guides pulled in multiple windows. Aside from data tasks, I will be using the word, powerpoint, and excel. When I’m not working I would use it as a tv with either a lapdog or a logitech mouse+keyboard.

monitor requirements

  • 4k
  • 40-43 inches
  • hdmi or usb c display outputs
  • VESA (center + even weight distribution)
    Ideally the monitor is mounted on a vesa arm and I plan on mounting it to a AIO updesk

inspiration

After seeing a lot of monitor reviews and setups, I’m interested in getting a 43 inch 4k monitor.

why not the 48 in CX

David Zhang recommended getting a 42-43 inch monitor as the density was better compared to a LGCX 48 inch

Furthermore, I don’t feel it’s worth the hassle of using a tv as a monitor nor the burn in issues (though David has some recommended settings).

what did you look at

This video had reccomendations that I started looking into

lg monitor

I started off by looking at a LG 43 inch monitor.
This was the video that initially caught my attention

I stopped when I read a amazon review, that complained that the weight distribution biased the right side more.

philips

I then looked at philips. The dealbreaker besides price, is that I’ll be playing russian roulette with a discontinued panel.

viewsonic

The next recommendation was viewsonic. The youtube reviews were pretty good, but the dealbreaker was mixxed amazon reviews.

It caught my eye, with Zy’s video on the older model

dell

My previous job had me using 2 24 inch dell monitors. It was a very pleasant experience. The only issue is that it’s $100-200 more than viewsonic, which isn’t a issue, but I don’t want to waste money. Another concern is that the ppi on this monitor isn’t high enough, though it appears to be a issue on mac.

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I purchased the Asus PG43UQ. So far I am quite happy with it. I won’t claim it’s perfect, but it is one of the best monitors I have used over the last 40 years, so there’s that. I use mine for work, gaming, and watching movies and shows. And so far it has performed all of those tasks quite well. A word of warning, running a 4k screen requires some grunty hardware, or performance will suffer badly in games pushing that many pixels.

Here is a video review of the PG43UQ (I think wendell has had experience with it as he referenced it in a recent video, but he has not posted a video for it yet.)

My monitor had zero dead or stuck pixels, which is quite amazing. Either the quality control is very high, or I got supremely lucky. As I have not seen others complaining of dead pixels, I suspect Asus quality control is quite good on this monitor.

The speakers are decent for monitor speakers, but will not compare with a real speaker setup of any sort (get real speakers if you plan on watching movies).

It can be VESA mounted and the brightness is great for working in a well-lit room or even in rooms with sunlight. If you use it in a dark room you will need to turn down the brightness or it could be blindingly bright. I personally use a HumanScale M10 fully articulated Monitor Arm, but those things are hella expensive. I believe there is another company out there that makes a fully articulated monitor arm which can support these large monitors, and their prices are much more affordable than HumanScale. I can’t remember the name off the top of my head though. (I remembered the name! Ergotron - added another reply further down the page in case you already read this post and won’t notice this edit)

It is not an OLED, but I view that as a positive because I do not have to worry about any sort of burn-in from leaving the screen on, or from having static elements, for long periods of time. (If you are using this for work on a PC I strongly suggest avoiding OLED’s for now, see wendell’s and linus’ recent videos about OLED problems for more info on that).

I do not know if it is still available new, but I see quite a few used and renewed ones on amazon. (correction, I DO see new ones on Amazon for a decent price, as it is over a year old now, the pricing on it seems to be reduced? I paid around 1600$ for mine about halfway through 2020. Currently looks to be around 1k in price.)

I have not had any problems with mine, but I did read some comments that dealing with ASUS customer service can be difficult, so take that into account if you think you may run into problems.

I have not had any personal experience with the DELL versions but every time i have dealt with DELL as a company for support, i have always had poor experiences. DELL sucks really bad for customer service imo. But perhaps your experiences will vary.

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might help you out

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Some Samsung TVs are great monitors.
I’m not a fan of OLED, so i’d probably go the QLED route instead, if i needed a large monitor.

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I remembered the name for that monitor arm company! Ergotron. They make quite beefy articulated arms for VESA mounting large screens, and their prices are a heck of a lot better than HumanScale. Make sure the weight capacity of whatever arm you get will actually support one of these large screens, they are heavy!

https://www.ergotron.com/en-us/products/mounts/desk-mounts

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Dell for the simple fact that their customer care for advanced warranty is the best. You buy high-end Dell and they by and large take care of you with little hassle.

Only better deal would be buying direct from micro center or Best Buy and getting their warranty.

All that said, have you looked at 38"? I find that any bigger would just be too much personally

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Hmm I’d probably get this one if I could only have 1 setup.

Hmm TV. I could consider it, but I will take a look for setup ideas

I’ll have to take a look

Hmm maybe I’ll take a look and see their offerings

Yep, probably reason why they are $100-200 more expensive

Not really, I originally wanted a 48 inch display, but David Zhang’s 6 month LG CX review recommended 42-43 inches being a sweet spot between 38-48 inch displays. I am currently rocking a Crossover 289K 27 inch 4k monitor and a Acer 27 inch 1080p 144hz. I like the form factor of having 2 vertical 27 inch monitors, which a 43 inch display holds

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So, I heavily recommend not getting an OLED; check out LTTs video on it after using it a while. You essentially kill the monitor in a year or two and that’s not even getting into the issues with multi monitor setups

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Another thing I forgot to mention is this screen uses a VA panel. As such it does not have the ‘ips glow’ that you will be familiar with. I have also found color reproduction to be extremely good, and the sRGB color setting is calibrated at the factory. I personally use a personalized tweak of the ‘Racing’ color setting most of the time. But if you need photo-realistic color reproduction, this monitor can deliver.

I have used this screen for over a year now, and have been extremely happy with it’s performance. I NEVER notice any sort of color smearing, and I play a lot of games. But - when testing it using very specific situations and looking very carefully (with my face right up to the monitor) you can get very minor color smearing with a fast moving dark color image in very dark environments. If you are incredibly sensitive to this sort of thing, you may notice it as I have seen some complaints about this from other peoples reviews.

Youtube videos I have seen to reproduce this problem are not capturing it properly - and instead are only going to show you the limits of youtubes bit-rate and compression - so you will need to see it in person to make a proper judgement. I can personally say that I find it to be impossible to see unless you stick your face right next to the screen and have a very specific set of colors using several shades of black and dark grey and try to reproduce the effect. But you will likely never notice it without specifically testing for it.

I suggest buying it from a company that has free returns and will cover shipping, (like amazon) and test it out to see if you are happy with it. I was very happy with mine, like I said in my other post, this is one of the best monitors i have used in 40 years. (and i’ve been hands-on with a lot of screens).

The display also comes with a remote which will allow you full control over all the options for the monitor (or the options can also be accessed using buttons on the back of the display). I personally love using the remote for accessing display menu options as it is much more convenient and prevents me from wearing out the buttons on the display itself through repeated use.

The display menu is very intuitive and easy to navigate and comes with a large variety of options.

The one downside of this display is that the included cables are not premium quality. And to get a good experience using all the features you will need to buy a cable to go with it.

The quality of your cable can strongly impact the performance of your display when you are using a large very fast screen like this one. Many of the cheap cables you will find will NOT work properly because running a large, fast, 4k panel requires a great quality connection. using a sub-standard cable is like putting a very thin fuel line on a race car, it just won’t have the bandwidth you need to get that engine running right.

I suggest buying a Cable Matters cable. https://www.cablematters.com/ (wendell also tends to prefer this company for buying cables if my memory is accurate). If you are unsure of which cable to buy from them, write them an email for advice. From personal experience they will respond to your email with a response to your questions of which cable they suggest. (be careful to buy from the actual Cable Matters company if you buy their cable through amazon - Cable Matters is a fairly well recognized brand, and there are a lot of scammers out there which will try to sell you a fake Cable Matters cable.)

I bought This cable specifically and it works well https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08637G66P/
If you need a longer cable - This cable will also work https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07DX9CJFY/

I own both of those cables and can say that they both work fine with this display. Neither one is cheap, but you get what you pay for with those cables.

**Just for fun, here is an image of my current setup. I just moved and it is a bit cramped because of a very small desk. I plan on getting a bigger desk when I move again. But this shows the monitor in relation to my other hardware.

IMG_20210907_140358470
IMG_20210907_1403584701920×1440 156 KB

For size comparison, the other monitor is a 24" display.

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I have the LG 43UD79 and I don’t recommend it. There is falloff on the right and left edges. You will lose a character if you fullscreen a terminal or have it right against the edge. The color is also garbage.

I would also avoid that Dell. It is a very old model which, as far as I can tell, has kept its price for the better part of a decade.

I can recommend the M8 monitor arm for these heavier monitors. I also have an ergotron which is good, but the M8 is a little beefier. Same basic design though.

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I had an M8 and had to upgrade to the M10 to support the PG43UQ that I currently use. The M8 humanscale could barely hold it without sagging at it’s tightest setting (granted my M8 arm was very old and could have had weak springs after many years of use)

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Oof, that’s a pricey one.

Yeah, my M8 is a little wobbly if you jostle the desk at all, but it has held it’s position for about 4 years now. The tilt is the hardest thing to dial in, the top likes to lean forward. Really had to crank those hex screws down. I might have even added some washers…

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yeah =/ it was painful to buy the Humanscale M10. I paid 400$ just for the monitor arm (was able to get a 20% discount off the list price). still very painful, after paying 1600$ for the monitor, another 60$ in cables, and then another 400$ for the arm… the total cost of running my current display was over 2000$ >.< i’m hoping to get 10 years of use out of the monitor, and the monitor arm should last much longer. But oof! that price!

(and that was mid 2020 pricing!)

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The problem with the M8 I think is the ball-joint they used at the end. take a look at the final joint on the M10 where it mates to the monitor, see how it doesn’t use a ball? It uses a double joint there instead with one for left/right rotational, and a separate joint for up/down.

m10_hero_w
m10_hero_w800×800 42.2 KB

This arm from Ergotron has the same articulation as the M10, advertises it can support up to 42 pounds, and it’s a lot cheaper. That’s why I suggested taking a look at the Ergotron arms. HX Desk Mount Monitor Arm | Ergotron
45-475-224-a-560x500

Honestly, I wish I had known about ergotron before dropping for the M10, likely would have bought that instead.

The M10 is more polished and fancy looking, and can support up to 48 pounds… . but the Ergotron is much less expensive and is still quite solid at a 42 pound rating.

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I pulled the trigger on the Dell, there was a “sale” that made the price $899. The shipping was going to be faster than Amazon and not shipped and sold by a third party. Also my work had some bonus points for purchasing with their link.

$300-400 is a little too much for me and for a work monitor. If it was my only monitor I probably would have splurged.

I ended up getting the ergotech freedom hd, I had a ergotech freedom arm for my 27 inch monitor. The monitor is 29.9 lbs, so it’s on the heavier side. If it doesn’t work out, I will return the ergotech arm and buy a ergotron arm.

I might get this. I already have a couple hdmi and displayport, so if those don’t work, I will pick one up

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Likely you will be fine with the base cable on the Dell as it is only a 60Hz display. I very nearly bought the Dell monitor myself when I was comparing the 43 inch monitors, but ended up going with the PG43UQ instead because I planned on using it for gaming and I wanted the higher refresh rates above 60Hz. Also the Dell monitor does not seem to support FreeSync or G-Sync, but again if you don’t plan on gaming with it, that shouldn’t be an issue.

Since you did not really list gaming as a priority, I wouldn’t worry about that much. =) Good luck with your new display!

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This was great timing on Wendell’s part. This video goes a bit into why the cable you choose makes a difference on high-end displays.

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Yeah also Linus too

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yep! Also, I think I was mistaken on who suggested the cable matters cables, likely I got that from Gamers Nexus Steve. But i thought it was pretty neat that Wendell actually shows the Club3d cable that is in the second link I put in for the longer display port cable suggestion =)

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I’m using a Sony X90J TV and it is terrific. The burn-in thing is specific to OLED displays, so avoid those; get MicroLED instead.

It is true; 43 inches is the same pixel density as four 21.5 inch 1080p displays. Perfect.

However, I also wanted good HDR, which requires full array local dimming. I could only find that on 50 inch or larger TVs. The Sony I chose is kind of mid-range among their TV lineup, and text is nice and sharp when I set it to Graphics Mode (which is not the default). (I got a 50 inch X90J).

In other words, a larger display might be fine, but you will want to be choosy about which specific device you go with. Whereas any old 43 inch display will probably be fine for text.

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