Advice sought on monitors/VDUs

[Senex]

For a good few years my desktop monitor has been a 22" unit with a 1680 x 1050 display. For many purposes it's still fine, but increasingly I'm finding things where it doesn't give me enough screen territory, particularly like editing Word documents when I want two documents open side by side to move things between them, dealing with maps and photographs, and even reading on-line versions of magazines and newspapers, so I wondering whether to splash out on something larger. But how large? Can anyone advise on what the maximum really practicable size for desktop use is? With my present monitor I tend to be sitting about 18 to 20 inches away from the screen, but this could easily become a couple of feet or so. I think 27" would be OK, but would 32" be too big? The chance to learn from others' experience would be very welcome — and many thanks in advance for any suggestions.

 

[nlogax]

Best thing I ever did for home working was invest in an ultrawide monitor. 34" with a slight curve at 3440 x 1440 which is effectively 2K. Gives me all the screen real estate I need for documents, apps and so forth. I sit about 60 - 70 cms from it which seems to be enough distance, Maybe worth looking at one?

 

[Ediswan]

32" 4K proved very popular at work.

 

[Bevan Price]

Can you connect your computer to a TV screen and use that as a monitor for some of your jobs ?

 

[JohnMcL7]

I use a 27in 2560x1440 monitor at home and a 34in 3440x1440 monitor at work which is effectively just a much wider version of the 27in, if I had the space at home I'd change the 27in for the 34in. I like this size and resolution because I think it's a good balance offering a good size without being too large and I can run the resolution natively without any scaling. I'm not keen on going with a higher resolution because you need to rely on scaling to keep the user interface a usable size and while support is getting better for this, I find it can get irritating since some applications don't work with it properly so end up too small, stretched or distorted.

 

[WelshBluebird]

I've just bought a 35 inch 3440x1440 display for home and love it already.
Mainly will be used for WFH for the time being (we did have the option of bringing home monitors from work last year, but I don't drive so it just would have been a right faff - and as I am in software development having the extra real estate is pretty damn useful!) but longer term will be used for gaming and the like when I eventually build a gaming PC!

 

[nlogax]

longer term will be used for gaming and the like when I eventually build a gaming PC!

Can confirm ultrawides work great for gaming. Just be sure to enable G-Sync or FreeSync if the monitor has it.