WAY OT: 4k Vertical Monitor

[MrHiggins]

Hi Gang -- I know nothing about computers. Maybe someone here can point me in the right direction.

I'm looking for a 4k computer monitor that I can rotate 90 degrees so that the display is vertical. I'd be hooking it up to my laptop (P52ThinkPad with a 4k screen) through my docking station. I already have a horizontal (normal) 4k monitor, but I read so many documents that I think a vertical side monitor would be really handy. My budget is $500, preferably less. Can anyone help? I spoke with Best Buy and the salesperson said they only had "regular" monitors. I also chatted with Lenovo, who said "we do not currently have vertical monitors". A quick Amazon search revealed THIS ONE. Would that work?
Anyway, thanks to all that can help this poor Luddite.

 

[esoo]

You’re looking for a monitor with pivot.

Canadian link but Dell has a lot. Lenovo has a few.
https://www.dell.com/en-ca/shop/mon.../4009/pivot-rotation?appliedRefinements=45566

 

[MrHiggins]

You’re looking for a monitor with pivot.

Canadian link but Dell has a lot. Lenovo has a few.
https://www.dell.com/en-ca/shop/mon.../4009/pivot-rotation?appliedRefinements=45566

"Pivot" Thanks! Just knowing the right vocabulary will probably get me three quarters of the way there.

 

[Duukt]

 

[Jovidah]

Just about any monitor will work in vertical orientation as long as it has a pivot mount - which a lot of monitors do - but:
-I'd higly recommend getting an IPS panel due to viewing angles constraints, so avoid TN / VA
-For the same reason I'd highly recommend a flat panel, not a curved one.

I would at least consider getting a proper VESA arm and mounting it on that. While many monitors have a pivot mount, with a lot of them the monitor ends up sitting fairly low when it's turned, which may not always play too well with the rest of your desk.

Like others said, there aren't so much 'vertical monitors' as there are 'vertical mounts / pivotable stands'.
There is only one truly 'vertical monitor' that I know of, and that's the LG Dualup. But that's probably really overkill.

 

[MarcelNL]

I'm using two screens, the laptop screen for email and navigating and a 27"for reading docs, powerpoint excel etc, it never left me wanting for a pivot screen. screen size matters. (and indeed , get an IPS panel, they are really affordable these days, 4K is only of interest when doing artwork etc IMO)

 

[M1k3]

Vesa mount with pivot.

Change display settings for vertical on that monitor.

 

[Jovidah]

I'm using two screens, the laptop screen for email and navigating and a 27"for reading docs, powerpoint excel etc, it never left me wanting for a pivot screen. screen size matters. (and indeed , get an IPS panel, they are really affordable these days, 4K is only of interest when doing artwork etc IMO)

Yeah agreed; unless you're particularly hawkeyed 1440p is the sweetspot for 27"... most people will just end up using scaling when they use 4k on a 27". It's only really at 32" that 4k makes sense.

I actually have 1x horizontal 27" + 1x vertical 27" on my desk right now. Pivot screen has its uses. One of the main perks is that you can use 2 big monitors without getting a stupidly wide setup....having both horizontal I'd just end up having to turn my neck all over the place.
The vertical setup is mostly useful when browsing big long websites or documents...but for actual reading it doesn't add that much; it's usuall more convenient to just scroll than to go up and down that entire vertical screen. Majority of the time I just have it split between 2 different windows.

Admittedly I never particularly 'bought' any of my secondar monitors. I've always just demoted my primary into secondary role whenever I buy a new monitor.

 

[rickbern]

The original one you linked to looks fine. The dell with the USB c interface is probably a hundred bucks more. Agree, ips is minimal requirement, USB c future proofs it for you.

 

[rickbern]

If you’re seriously going to leave it vertical a 23-24 may be a more practical size. The 27” size is going to be 24” tall, I’d worry about neck strain looking at the menu bar. Usually, vertical setups are two (or more) smaller monitors pivoted and located next to each other. They display four screens for trading setups

https://futures.io/tech-support/7451-hardware-lust-trading-pc-6-monitors.html
Edit. This is an old post. Nowadays people would more likely get a dell 43 and use it to setup virtual screens

 

[Jovidah]

Yeah agreed. I have 2x27 simply because my old one was also 27", but it's borderline stupid how tall it is.
Simply going bigger or ultrawide is also an option. The extra height is mostly useful for splitting it in half vertically, and for scanning websites / documents...but for actual reading the height is actually 'too much'. Could imagine it works well for someone doing coding as well.
Also, not all GPUs play well with monitors of different refresh rates, so ideally you have monitors with equal refresh rate.
I'd also consider something like Microsoft PowerToys FancyZones to make throwing around windows easier; normal windows isn't really designed / setup for properl using a vertical monitor.

 

[MrHiggins]

Thanks for everyone's responses. The reason I think I need a 4k monitor is because my laptop is 4k, as is my primary monitor. Wouldn't attaching a lower resolution monitor mess up the displays? Is that true, or could I attach a 1440p and have everything still display correctly?

Second, you're probably right about the size. 24 inches seems better now that I think about it. Thanks for that!

 

[Dan-]

I've been running a 32" 4K LG for a while now, and it's great. I couldn't use anything smaller. I don't need to run it vertically because I can view two documents side by side without squinting, but it does support rotation, and so does the provided mount.

It's this one: https://www.costco.com/lg-32"-class-ultrafine-uhd-ips-monitor-with-ergostand.product.100682248.html

 

[Jovidah]

Thanks for everyone's responses. The reason I think I need a 4k monitor is because my laptop is 4k, as is my primary monitor. Wouldn't attaching a lower resolution monitor mess up the displays? Is that true, or could I attach a 1440p and have everything still display correctly?

Second, you're probably right about the size. 24 inches seems better now that I think about it. Thanks for that!

Having same resolution is mostly useful if you want to use a monitor as a mirror image of your laptop screen; otherwise it'll toss your desktop icons all over the place and stuff like that. But if you're just using it to expand your desktop it doesn't really matter what resolution it is.

But as mentioned before; being able to used in vertical orientation is more a feature of the stand than of the screen..and quite a few stands actually have this feature. It might even be on the monitor you already have, or one you still have laying around / easily available to you so you can just test it to see if the concept is for you.
Like I said, my secondary monitors have always been 'my previous primary monitor'.

 

[Delat]

Thanks for everyone's responses. The reason I think I need a 4k monitor is because my laptop is 4k, as is my primary monitor. Wouldn't attaching a lower resolution monitor mess up the displays? Is that true, or could I attach a 1440p and have everything still display correctly?

Second, you're probably right about the size. 24 inches seems better now that I think about it. Thanks for that!

Nah, any modern laptop supports multiple monitors at different resolutions from each other and also different from the laptop screen.

One thing to consider is your age and eyes, and how it relates to pixels per inch or ppi, and whether or not you need/want to run in native resolution. 4k native at 27” is 163 ppi, which is pretty tiny. Step up to a 34” and ppi becomes 137, which is usable for someone with 20/20 vision (corrected or natural) and young enough to not need reading glasses yet (e.g. under 45 or so). It’s very unlikely you’re running native 4k on a 16” laptop screen - more likely it’s scaled down.

For me personally, since I use reading glasses I like ppi closer to 110, so I bought a 38” ultrawide 3840 x 1600 a few years back, which is about 115 ppi. I run it at native resolution and zoom in with app functionality when needed. As an exercise, take your current monitor (or laptop), check the dimensions and displayed (vs native) resolution, decide if you like how readable text is, and run it through a ppi calculator. That’ll help inform what size and resolution screen you want so you don’t end up disappointed.

Anyway, all this is to point out that at 24” and 27”, if your focus is on text you likely don’t need or want 4k resolution. And if you did get 4k, the scaling might end up looking weirder on text than just getting something like native 2160 x 1600, for example (I just made that up as an example). Or once you scale you might end up at lower displayed resolution than a non-4k resolution to begin with, defeating the whole purpose. There’s whole articles and calculators on 4k scaling out there if you want to read up on the topic to see how it would work on 24 or 27” monitors.