New Monitor Setup Advice

[Wildfire]

I mainly work from home (2-3 days a week) and obviously in lock down have been doing full time and have been considering a new monitor set up as it’s the piece of kit I interact with the most.

Currently I have a 2019 9730 Dell XPS (personal) or Latitude (clients) going into a Dell WD15 USBC dock that is connected to an old Dell 31” monitor (2560 x 1200) and a smaller 22” Acer monitor.

There is nothing mechanical wrong with any of the kit, but my last job had some nice 34” curved screens that did make my set up seem old.

Anyhow, I have been looking at a 34” screen and seen the Display Port / HDMI ones for around £350 all the way up to the Thunderbolt 3 ones that are £700+.

Is it worth going for Thunderbolt 3? Given that I have the dock, or would a TB3 monitor and USB ports allow me to get rid of the dock?

Probably worth saying that my XPS is TB 3 capable.

My work is mainly MS Office based stuff. I don’t really game either.

I do connect a cheap Inspiron desktop to the bigger monitor, but usually manually switch to that when I need to.

Thanks

[WhiskyDisco]

I've used Acer 29 inch ultra wide monitors for the past 5 years and recommend them. 2560 x 1080 pixels.

You can easily view two windows side by side, and can rig the monitors up as a pair, if you want to (up to 4 if your workstation supports it). They support daisy chaining using DisplayPort. The latest model is about £225. HDMI only support 1920 x 1080 pixels though, so if you only use HDMI you can't get the full resolution.

I've also got a pair of Acer 24 inch in another room, which were about half the price each. I prefer the one screen, as it gives the same experience, but takes up less space.

[thebraketester]

I just a benq 32” 4K monitor. Really nice monitor and has some nice features built in to reduce eye strain. It’s display port, hdmi and usbc

[Bodo]

Wildfire said:

Is it worth going for Thunderbolt 3? Given that I have the dock, or would a TB3 monitor and USB ports allow me to get rid of the dock?

I've been looking at this as well with the background of eliminating docking stations. There's several options around the USB-C connector at the monitor:

• power delivery; ie. charging a laptop
• data transfer - USB or Thunderbolt for a USB hub
• display signal - DisplayPort I think

My observation is that it does not have to be TB3 to have all of this, but it is not well standardised. In best case, the connection

• charges with up to 100W,
• transfers data with 40gbps and provides
• provides DisplayPort 1.4 for 5k

In reality, these connections usually don't do everything at once; for example, power delivery goes down to 10W, once you're using high speed data transfer, and the laptop stops charging below a certain threshold. Other examples include the USB hub stopping to work when the monitor goes to sleep, and not reconnecting automatically when woken up.

It's not easy to find out about these limitations prior to buying a monitor. You may find hints in user reviews or forums, but the data sheets give no information or make promises about the real life capabilities.

[Wildfire]

Bodo said:

I've been looking at this as well with the background of eliminating docking stations. There's several options around the USB-C connector at the monitor:

• power delivery; ie. charging a laptop
• data transfer - USB or Thunderbolt for a USB hub
• display signal - DisplayPort I think

My observation is that it does not have to be TB3 to have all of this, but it is not well standardised. In best case, the connection

• charges with up to 100W,
• transfers data with 40gbps and provides
• provides DisplayPort 1.4 for 5k

In reality, these connections usually don't do everything at once; for example, power delivery goes down to 10W, once you're using high speed data transfer, and the laptop stops charging below a certain threshold. Other examples include the USB hub stopping to work when the monitor goes to sleep, and not reconnecting automatically when woken up.

It's not easy to find out about these limitations prior to buying a monitor. You may find hints in user reviews or forums, but the data sheets give no information or make promises about the real life capabilities.

Hmmmm... interesting. It does seem that if you buy a TB3 capable monitor you are essentially buying the panel and an inbuilt dock. So I could save 30-40% on the panel by not going for TB3 and just sticking with my docking station; which just means more cables and a PSU.

That's a fair saving...

[mikef]

Or get a Dell widescreen monitor (I use a 39”) with USB-C power passthru and get rid of that awful dock? Unless you need Ethernet and even then a USB dongle plugged into a monitor port will do the job

Edited by mikef on Thursday 7th May 17:53

[Wildfire]

That’s what I was asking?

TB 3 and USB C are the same connector, just wondering whether it is worth the extra cash for the pass through?

I don’t mind the dock, but I’d want TB 3 for the greater bandwidth, of I would just be losing the dock for the sake of it.

Aside from aesthetics, is it a massive difference?

[Bodo]

Looking at user reviews of TB3 docks, I'm not sure if they are more capable of handling everything at once. If you intend to daisy chain two (4k) monitors, charge the laptop with -say- 60W, and use 20gpbs TB3 data transfer with an external hard drive connected to the monitor hub at the same time, you might want to confirm if that is demonstrated capability before purchase.

£300 premium for TB3 interface over a basic monitor w/o USB-C power delivery is steep when it's not capable to do everything simultaneously.

Normally, I expect a monitor to last for two generations of laptop hardware, while I change laptops every three to four years. Daisy-chaining 4k monitors will be common when I get the next laptop.

When you don't need 20/40gbps data transfer to the monitor's hub and daisy-chaining monitors, you might be happy with a USB-C power delivery/(4k-)display connection port already - which are 'only' ~£100 premium to a monitor w/o power delivery. Yet still, I'd check if they are capable of doing both simultaneously.