Best Budget Ultrawide Monitor

[SunsetZed]

Hi,

I'm looking to upgrade to a budget ultrawide monitor. It will be for work and won't require advanced graphics however one question I have is whether or not if I was using say WebEx / Skype / Teams I can only share half the monitor or whether I have to share the whole thing?

If it's the latter that's a deal breaker and I'll have to look at get 2 separate screens.

If it's the former does anyoen have any recommendations? So far I've been looking at the 2 below:
https://www.ebuyer.com/901655-lg-29-inch-ultrawide...

https://www.ebuyer.com/861761-samsung-34-ultra-wid...

[Mr E]

Any decent conferencing system lets you only share the applications you want. You can continue to surf porn while in meetings.

[SunsetZed]

Mr E said:

Any decent conferencing system lets you only share the applications you want. You can continue to surf porn while in meetings.

Haha, it's actually not that.

Having multiple clients I will often start a meeting where several files need to be said and if you share a PowerPoint and then open an embedded non-.PPT file most of those tools won't share hence it's often easier to share screen rather than app but I would want a second screen (real or virtual split) open separately.

[Baldchap]

I've owned the LG you linked (or a very, very similar one) for about three years. A year later I bought another for the mrs' desk. Does exactly what it says on the tin and the accompanying software allows you to split it into two 'virtual monitors', which is really handy for work.

I've played some games on it and it seems absolutely fine for that too.

Edit: I should add, for transparency, that I've never tried to share one of the virtual monitors in a video call.

[SunsetZed]

Baldchap said:

I've owned the LG you linked (or a very, very similar one) for about three years. A year later I bought another for the mrs' desk. Does exactly what it says on the tin and the accompanying software allows you to split it into two 'virtual monitors', which is really handy for work.

I've played some games on it and it seems absolutely fine for that too.

Edit: I should add, for transparency, that I've never tried to share one of the virtual monitors in a video call.

Thanks, subject to confirmation that the video call split works I may well be ordering one of these, hopefully someone can confirm.

[Wildfire]

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/msi-optix-mag341cq-...

I just picked up an LG 34”. I’ll update when it arrives.

[anonymous-user]

SunsetZed said:

Thanks, subject to confirmation that the video call split works I may well be ordering one of these, hopefully someone can confirm.

As mentioned before in this thread, there is unlikely to be any monitor on the market that only shows part of its screen if sharing content via video. The monitor only displays what it is told to display by whatever is sending it the signal.

What you are trying to achieve is done by most of the top video conferencing applications, whereby when you choose to share your screen you can choose to share either the full screen or a specific application.

[sjg]

I’ve been looking for ages to find something that will spoof windows apps into thinking a single display is multiple physical monitors, nothing does in a way that works for things like SfB and Teams. The “virtual monitor” stuff usually just helps with window management, although windows 10 does it pretty well natively now.

Biggest pain for me is PowerPoint, presenter mode with the separate controls and notes only works with multiple displays.

I use a 40” 4K display - for work stuff my laptop is driving it and I just flip it open for that or anything that needs a full desktop share rather than a particular app. At least it’s a regular shape so I knock it down to 1920x1080 for sharing. If you’ve got an iPad it’s worth trying Duet that will turn it into an extra screen.

Ultimately if a lot of your work is around screen sharing and presenting then a pair of 1080p monitors will probably work better for you.

[Mr_Yogi]

I use a 34" ultrawide at work, it's a Samsung and was at the affordable end of the spectrum without a curved screen, cost about £360 some time last year from Amazon.

We have very old PC's (Intel Sandy Bridge iGPU) which can't render 3440x1440. However the monitor can accept 2 inputs and split the screen in 2 down the middle. So I have 2 monitor cables (DVI + Display Port) running from the PC to the monitor. Each screen is set to a custom res of 1720x1440. This is done in the standard Intel driver. The PC treats the monitor like any normal multi monitor setup, in fact you can use the Windows "snap" to place up to 4 windows across the screen rather than just 2. Looking at the screen the image is perfect and there is no "mess" down the middle of the screen. The only give away is that the start bar only runs along half the screen as our (all?) version/s of Windows 7 doesn't duplicate the taskbar accross all monitors like Windows 10 does.

So you could share either the left or right "screen" for video calling.

[SunsetZed]

Thanks all for the feedback, sounds like I need to do some more thinking around what setup is going to work best for me.