Switching from a paltry 24-inch monitor to a giant 32-inch slab of screen was like getting a bigger TV. Everything is bigger and better.
MOAR please.
But because the screen is so big and I'm sitting about three feet away from it, my eyes tended to focus on certain parts of the screen at a time rather than the whole thing. I had to actually move my neck to look at something in the top corner.
A friend who plays StarCraft said he didn't like the bigger screen because he had a greater distance to look when looking at areas around the screen's edge.
It's the same thing with my first-person-shooter (FPS) and third-person-shooter games, as I noticed more difficulty looking around to spot opponents than with a smaller screen. It was especially noticeable when looking towards the top corners.
And watching YouTube videos on a dramatically bigger screen is better, too. It was almost strange at first, but in a good way.
Factor in that the many larger screens bigger than 28 or so inches come with 4K resolution, which makes games look incredible. You just need to make sure you have a PC powerful enough to run games in 4K.
The height of the particular ultra-wide monitor I was testing is about the same as my old 24-inch monitor. But it adds some extra horizontal width, which gives me extra "computer" on either side.
It was easier to scan my eyes horizontally than with the big screen, which tested the limits of my eyeball rotation.
That's probably because the ultra-wide monitor I was using had a slight curve to it, which looks fantastic.
Ultra-wide monitors come in varying resolutions, like 1080p, 1440p, and 4K. Make sure your PC is powerful enough to run games at the monitor's resolution.
A normal 1080p 16:9 monitor has 1920 x 1080 pixels. But a 1080p 21:9 monitor has 2560 x 1080 pixels due to the extra width, which means your graphics card needs to work harder to push a game's graphics to more pixels than you're used to on a 16:9 monitor.
Unfortunately, though, it doesn't look great when you're watching videos that don't support 21:9, as you get those black bars on either side.
It does looks great if the video you're watching DOES support 21:9. More video is being supported in 21:9, and there's software out there that can tweak video to fill an ultra-wide screen.
Just note that consoles like the Xbox One and PS4 don't support 21:9, only 16:9. That means you shouldn't really use ultra-wide screens with consoles, on PCs.
So which is it?
The big screen gives me a little bit more of both height and width compared to than my old 24-inch monitor, whereas the ultra-wide only gives me a bunch extra width.
But when I switched back from an ultra-wide 21:9 monitor to a regular 16:9 monitor, I found that I missed the extra width from the ultra-wide monitor.
I've been playing a third-person-shooter game called "DayZ" a lot these days, where I'm constantly scanning the screen for an opponent. The extra width from an ultra-wide monitor was perfect for this.
At the same time, I also love how games look on the big screen, and videos fill the whole screen without the black bars you'd normally see while watching videos on the ultra-wide screen.
With all the pros and cons considered I went for...
It's the ultra-wide.
The ultra-wide gives games and compatible videos a whole new look, and it's very, very nice.
I'd switch to the big screen and be wowed by its overall size, but whenever I switched back to the ultra-wide I noticed how much I liked having the extra screen screen width on games.
It's like getting enhanced vision. Ultra-wide lets you see more of your games that you never knew you had because you've been stuck in the confines of 16:9. You might say that it can give you an advantage as you have a wider field-of-view than any opponent with a 16:9 monitor, but it's somewhat minimal.
Don't get me wrong, the big screen is also fantastic, but it's only making everything look bigger rather than giving me extra, like the ultra-wide.
Going ultra-wide also seems like a more natural progression than a bigger 16:9 monitor. You might remember just a few years ago when the standard aspect ratio for monitor was 4:3, which was almost like a square. Then, the wider 16:9 aspect ratio became the new standard. Now 21:9 is becoming more and more popular, and it looks absolutely stunning.
