Humongous is here:'Eyes-on' with three 29-inch displays

When you’re multitasking like mad, one monitor doesn’t provide enough real estate to display every open window without many of them overlapping and obscuring each other. For this reason alone, most PCWorld editors and designers use more than one display. Constantly rearranging multiple browser, text editor, chat, and photo-editing windows as you search for the one you need saps productivity and invites frustration.

But using multiple displays isn’t a panacea, either. First, you need a graphics card that can support two displays. That isn’t an unusual feature for a desktop PC, but it’s hard to find on older notebooks. Second, multiple video and power cables add clutter to your work environment. Third—and most important—a gap between the displays is inevitable, no matter how carefully you arrange them. Even the narrowest bezel will create a blind spot as your mouse pointer crosses from screen to screen.

So the new 29-inch, ultrawide displays featured here—each delivering a resolution of 2560 by 1080 pixels on a single screen—are a welcome addition to the market. They’re just the ticket for productivity apps, and they’re not bad for gaming, either. When we ran BioShock Infinite’s built-in benchmark at these displays’ native resolution (using settings of Very High) on a PC outfitted with a midrange AMD Radeon HD 7790 video card, we experienced a very playable frame rate of 41.1 frames per second.

Three such models recently passed through the PCWorld Lab: the Dell UltraSharp U2913WM, the AOC Q2963PM, and the LG 29EA93P UltraWide IPS Monitor. Each of these monitors measures 29 inches diagonally, with an aspect ratio of 21:9. That’s much, much wider than the 16:9 and 16:10 aspect ratios you’ll find on more-conventional monitors (or the 4:3 aspect ratio that old-school displays deliver).

Each of the models I reviewed incorporates a high-quality IPS (In-Plane Switching) LCD panel that delivers a very wide off-axis viewing angle (an especially important feature when you’re dealing with an ultrawide display). And each screen uses environmentally friendly LED backlighting, which reduces warm-up time, lowers energy costs, and reduces the amount of damaging chemicals that eventually find their way into landfills at the end of a product’s useful life.

I liked all three displays, but one delivered more features and performed better than the other two.

The AOC is one of the most full-featured displays in the group, providing DVI, HDMI, MHL, VGA, and DisplayPort. MHL (Mobile High-Definition Link, in case you’re not familiar with the standard), provides a means of mirroring the display on your Android tablet or smartphone (in some instances, the cable can charge the device at the same time). AOC provides the necessary cable, which has a micro USB connector for the device and an HDMI connector for the Q2963PM.We found that the technology worked as advertised.

AOC's Q2963PM is loaded with features, but its display wasn't as accurate as its rival screens.

The AOC monitor also supports DisplayPort 1.2 multistreaming, which allows you to chain several monitors together. Not every video card supports this feature, but I successfully tested it with an MSI GX60 gaming laptop. Daisy-chaining is easy: Connect a DisplayPort cable from a video card to the monitor’s DisplayPort In. Run a second DisplayPort cable from the first monitor’s DisplayPort Out to a second monitor’s DisplayPort In, and repeat until you run out of monitors or bandwidth.

The AOC supports both ‘Picture by Picture’ and ‘Picture in Picture’ modes and includes the company’s own Screen+ software, which lets you divide your screen into multiple zones. Windows snap to a grid when dragged into a given zone, and you can split the screen in half horizontally, vertically, or both, to make four rectangular zones for email, chats, browsers, and more.

The Q2963PM has stereo speakers, but they’re poorly located on the left and right sides of the base, behind the center of the display. They don’t sound terrible, but they fire out parallel to your ears instead of toward them. You’ll be happier using even the most modest set of desktop speakers. The AOC’s stand permits little in the way of ergonomic adjustment: There’s no height adjustment, pivot, or swivel—just a few degrees of tilt.

The panel delivered crisp, clean text, and games and movies played smoothly; but it rendered stark whites with just a hint of yellow. You won’t want to use this display for mission-critical tasks such as photo editing.

Score: 3.5

Pros:

Supports DisplayPort 1.2 with multistreaming

Supports MHL

Very good off-axis viewing

Cons:

Whites have a yellowish tinge

Ergonomically limited stand

Subpar speakers

Dell’s UltraSharp U2913WM offers the greatest degree of ergonomic flexibility in this group, with several inches of height adjustment and a stand that both tilts and swivels. It also supports DisplayPort 1.2’s daisy-chaining capabilities, and I had no problem getting that feature to work.

Dell wins this competition by a wide margin, thanks to the U2913M's excellent performance, full feature set, and competitive pricing.

The monitor has all of the inputs you might need: Mini DisplayPort, DisplayPort In, DisplayPort Out, Dual Link DVI, VGA, and HDMI. You’ll also find a handy USB 3.0 hub for connecting peripherals such as mice, keyboards, and external hard drives. Dell provides a Mini-to-Standard DisplayPort cable and a USB 3.0 cable in the box.

The U2913WM’s IPS panel afforded great off-axis viewing, with very little color shift when my eyes moved left or right from the center of the screen. Colors were saturated and pleasing, once I figured out how to turn off the annoying Autocolor feature that tries to optimize the screen settings according to the application being used.

I found Autocolor to be a little freaky, to be honest. After looking at a test photo, I would click a browser window—and the whole screen would turn a pinkish color. Tap back to Photoshop, and the colors would return to their prior values. On a display designed for multitaskers, having automatic color shifting turned on by default seems distinctly odd. On the positive side, text was easy to read, even at small type sizes, and movies and games played back smoothly.

When I ran DisplayMate’s black-screen, stuck-pixel test, I encountered two stuck subpixels: one blue and one red. They weren’t in the same area of the screen, and I could detect them only when running the test screen. These should be covered by Dell’s warranty (you can read the details at Dell’s site).

Dell’s Display Manager application, like AOC’s Screen+, lets you select zones that windows snap and expand to as you drag them. The apps work pretty well, but they take some getting used to. PCWorld recently rounded up a number of third-party window managers that you might find to be a little more full-featured (see “Crisp up your desktop with a window manager utility”).

Score: 4 stars

Pros:

Supports DisplayPort 1.2 multistreaming 

Excellent off-axis viewing

Very flexible stand

Cons:

Does not support MHL

No audio speakers

The 29EA92P has the most stylish design of the three ultrawide displays I evaluated. Though its thin black bezel looks similar to those on the AOC and Dell models from the front, the back of the case is white plastic and its edges and stand are chromelike. The stand is attractive enough, but it possesses a very limited range of motion, with just a few degrees of tilt. You can’t adjust its height, and it doesn’t swivel or pivot.

The speakers integrated beneath the front edge of the screen sound considerably better than the AOC’s built-in speakers. But as I mentioned in my AOC review, you’ll be happier with even modest desktop speakers.

LG's 29EA93P is pretty enough, but the absence of support for DisplayPort 1.2 multistreaming holds it back.

The 29EA93P provides multiple connection options, including dual-link DVI, two HDMI ports (one of which supports MHL mirroring of an Android device), VGA, and full-size DisplayPort. Unlike AOC and Dell, LG doesn’t support DisplayPort 1.2 multistreaming on this model. The company provides dual-link DVI, MHL, and USB 3.0 cables in the box.

Being an IPS panel, the 29EA93P provides generous off-axis viewing angles, exhibiting very little in the way of color shift or loss of contrast when your eyes leftward or rightward from the center of the screen. Video and games played well, colors were well saturated and pleasing, and text was easy to read, even at small point sizes.

All of these displays performed well, with wide viewing angles, good text legibility, and windows management features for taking advantage of the extrawide screens. For folks who want to use their extrawide screens to handle multimedia, the LG with its MHL support and decent built-in speakers would be the best choice. The Dell would be better for users who want to daisy-chain monitors or adjust the height and position of their displays without using risers. The AOC is a fine monitor, but its colors are a little lackluster in comparison to those on the other displays, and its speakers are just crappy.

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Reviewed: Three touchscreen displays that bring Windows 8 to life

You don't necessarily need a touchscreen monitor to use Windows 8, but swiping your finger to invoke the Charms bar is a lot more fun than holding down the Windows key and pressing C. I'll admit that initially I had to force myself to use the new touch gestures, but after a short time with the OS I found myself reaching out to touch even my MacBook Pro's screen.

Since the debut of Microsoft's latest operating system, monitor manufacturers have been working to bring touchscreen support to desktop users. At first it was near impossible to find a display that responded to all the gestures in Windows 8, but now we're able to review three 23-inch models with 10-point multitouch support (meaning the monitors recognize all 10 fingers on both your hands). 

We put the three monitors through a gauntlet of tests to find which one offers the best value, quality and feature set to win a spot in your workstation.

Acer's T232HL is a 23-inch, 10-point touchscreen LCD monitor with a resolution of 1920 by 1080. It uses environmentally friendly LED backlighting and a high-quality IPS panel for wide viewing angles.

The T232HL offers VGA, HDMI, and DVI inputs. Acer thoughtfully includes cables for each connection type in the shipping box, but we still found the initial setup to be a bit tricky. The T232HL’s stand uses a hinged design that lies flat against the display for shipping. It took a lot of force (and courage) to open the stand, but eventually we were able to pull it into position. A note in the setup guide would go a long way to alleviate fears of snapping the base off your newly purchased monitor. The stand doesn’t allow for height adjustment, pivot, or swivel, but it does tilt back to a 45-degree angle very easily, once you’ve set it up.

Acer's T232HL touchscreen display has the edgiest design aesthetic of the three models we reviewed.

We connected the display via HDMI, and our test PC recognized it automatically as a Windows touchscreen device, booting directly into its native resolution without issue. The T232HL delivered impressive performance as we ran the display through our battery of test images. On our solid-color screens, we found no stuck or dead pixels, and color and brightness were uniform across the screen. Its viewing angle was top notch, losing contrast only at extreme angles. Its glossy surface, which can be problematic in terms of glare, helps to enhance the appearance of photographs. Even gray tones appeared neutral at its default color settings.

While no one would confuse the T232HL with a Retina display, text was legible even at small point sizes. We also watched test clips of HD video, and the action played smoothly without any obvious artifacts. The built-in speakers are okay, if a little tinny. The speakers are located in the back of the display, and they sound like it.

As for touchscreen performance, the T232HL was responsive and accurate. We didn’t have any issues using the gestures, closing open windows, or selecting menu items. The stand’s ability to lean back to a 45-degree angle made the touch features—especially the on-screen keyboard—easier to use for extended periods of time.

Despite a little trouble in our initial setup, the Acer T232HL is a nice display that uses high-quality components. It performed admirably in our text, motion, color, and uniformity tests, and it would definitely be worth considering even without its 10-point touch capabilities.

Acer T232HL, $549 (street price)

Pros:

10-point touchscreenWide viewing angleAccurate colorsSmooth gradients

Cons:

Stand is difficult to set up and offers no height adjustment

Bottom line:

This is a terrific display, but we do wish it allowed height adjustments.

4 stars

LG Flatron 23ET83V-W

The LG Flatron 23ET83V-W is based on a high-quality IPS panel with 1920 by 1080 resolution and an LED backlight. Sporting a white plastic case with a thin black bezel, this glossy-screened monitor connects to your PC via HDMI or VGA.

LGLG's Flatron 23ET83V-W doesn't offer the great off-axis viewing experience we've come to expect from IPS displays.

A red light illuminates a thin, translucent, crescent-shaped plastic tab on the bottom edge of the screen that reflects off the desktop. The tab is not a button, but it sits just below the buttonless touch power control. Although the absence of physical buttons might make for a cleaner, simpler-looking design, we prefer the tactile response of a button. Maybe we’d get used to the menu system over time, but we found ourselves frequently hitting the wrong buttons and having to exit and reenter the menus.

Aside from a few degrees of tilt, the LG display’s stand offers little ergonomic flexibility. You can’t adjust the height, pivot it into portrait mode, or swivel the screen from left to right. Other touchscreen monitors we’ve looked at can lean back farther, making it easier to use touch gestures without having shoulder fatigue setting in immediately.

A quick note about the setup: When attached to an AMD graphics card, the display would boot up underscanned, with about an inch of black space around the screen. The LG’s on-screen menus have an Overscan setting, but turning that from its default off position to on did not fully correct the problem. We had to turn off overscanning on the display and then go to the AMD Catalyst Control panel’s advanced settings and move the overscanning slider to zero. In addition to the unwanted space, the screen was blurry in this underscanned mode, and that affected calibration. When we attached the monitor to a system with an Nvidia-based graphics card, the proper resolution came up automatically and the image filled the screen as expected.

Once we had the screen properly set up, the 23ET83V-W performed well in most of our image tests. We found no stuck or dead pixels, and colors were uniform. Text was legible even at small point sizes, and photographs looked good, although making out details in shadowy areas of the image was hard. In some of the DisplayMate gray-level test patterns, we were unable to see differences in the first few gray-level patches. Switching the display’s Black Level control setting from its default Low to High resolved the issue.

The LG’s viewing angle wasn’t quite as stellar as that of other IPS screens we’ve seen. Color shifts weren’t an issue, but at extreme angles it was harder to see what was on screen. This minor drawback is probably attributable to the touchscreen coating.

Speaking of the touchscreen, the 23ET83V-W performed admirably in that regard. It was responsive and accurate, and we had no problems using Windows 8 touch gestures or closing windows and choosing menu items on the Windows 8 desktop.

The LG Flatron 23ET83V-W is a capable touchscreen display. Its viewing angle isn’t as wide as that of most IPS screens we’ve tested, but is still very good. Its controls were a bit of a hassle to use, and we needed to make adjustments to the black-level settings to help the display look its best. While those are admittedly minor grievances, the monitor’s lack of ergonomic agility could reduce the amount of time you end up using its touch capabilities.

LG Flatron 23ET83V-W, $550 (street price)

Pros:

10-point touchIPS panelLED backlight

Cons:

Limited ergonomic flexibilityBlack levels require adjustment

Bottom line: 

This is a very good display, but its controls are more difficult to use than they should be, and its viewing angles aren't as good as other IPS monitors we've evaluated.

3.5 stars

Viewsonic TD2340

Viewsonic’s TD2340 display is built like a tank, weighing a hefty 20.4 pounds. It features a 23-inch, LED-backlit, IPS panel that delivers a resolution of 1920 by 1080 pixels, and it supports 10 touch points.

The TD2340 has a heavy-duty, dual-hinged base that offers a few inches of height adjustment, the ability to pivot into portrait mode, and even the option to tilt the display down so that it sits completely flat like a tabletop. At a height of 6 inches above the desk, however, the flat orientation seems like an awkward way to work. The best position we found for typing directly on screen using the touch keyboard was tilting the panel back to a 45-degree angle and lifting the bottom-front edge a couple of inches off the desk. This position allowed us to type on the screen without reaching as far, while still being able to keep our physical keyboard and mouse in front of us.

ViewSonicYou'd never guess by the ViewSonic's TD2340 Frankenstein feet just how limber this display can be.

You can connect the TD2340 to your computer via HDMI, DisplayPort, or VGA. To use the touch capabilities, you need a USB connection as well. The on-screen controls are simple and easy to use, which we find refreshing. Button 1 brings up the menus, while button 2 selects with up and down arrows for adjusting color, brightness, contrast, volume from the SRS speakers, the on-screen menu position, and much more.

The TD2340 offers a wide viewing angle, which is helpful if you collaborate with other people around your screen or if you take advantage of the aforementioned flexible stand to position the screen at nonstandard angles. Text was legible even at small point sizes, and colors were uniform across the screen. We found no stuck or dead pixels when testing the display. The glossy screen helps to give photographs more depth, but glare can be an issue. You'll need to consider where, in relation to windows or other fixed light sources, to position a glossy-screen display like the TD2340.

The Viewsonic’s 10-point touch capabilities were impressive. Input was responsive and accurate, and we didn’t have any issues using Windows 8 gestures or maneuvering around the Windows 8 desktop.

Of the Windows 8 touchscreen monitors we’ve evaluated, the Viewsonic TD2340 is the most capable. Its wide viewing angle, its agile yet bulky stand, and numerous little touches such as the SRS speakers, multiple inputs, and easy-to-use menus combine to make the TD2340 a great choice for Windows 8 users. It’s more expensive than some other touchscreen displays, but it earns its price tag.

Viewsonic TD2340, $600 (street price)

Pros:

10-point touchscreenWide viewing anglesVersatile standDisplayPort

Cons:

Not very attractiveBulky and heavy

Bottom line: 

ViewSonic's TD2340 is more expensive than other monitors in its class, but it delivers enough features and value to warrant the difference.

4 stars

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