Curved vs Flat Monitor Performance| In Depth Analysis

hey guys how's it going there's definitely a lot of information about curved displays and advertisers are pretty good at telling you about how it reduces eye strain or how immersive it is but they rarely go into more detail beyond that so i did what any same person would and get three different monitors with three different curvatures just to test them out myself i purchased this all with my own money to get the same experience you would welcome back to reviews for life here we go first let's take a look at some definitions curve monitors are measured in millimeters radius so a 1000 r means a monitor with a thousand millimeters radius given a picture like this it's pretty easy to assume that the monitor is uniformly curved in reality though the displays are really only curved in the middle with the sides being more flat this is quite obvious when we take a straight edge towards the monitor there should be a gap regardless of where i place the straight edge but in this case the gap only exists in the middle while the sides are flat the issue isn't too noticeable on shallower curves but on aggressive ones like the samsung g7 it gives this really weird fisheye effect perhaps the best way to illustrate this is to slightly bend a piece of paper and try reading from left to right even after two months i'm still not used to the 1000r but i gotta give credit where it's due and the 1000r does provide a superior immersive experience the curve allows you to sit a little closer which allows your surroundings to be covered by the display something that flat panels will never achieve 2d games like hades really benefits from this and is very enjoyable however 3d games and especially first person shooters don't benefit as much now this may seem counterintuitive but hear me out in 3d games developers use something called rected linear projection which is a way of taking 3d scenes and projecting it onto a 2d surface the key advantage here is that straight lines stay straight as opposed to a fisheye lens which makes straight lines curved the downside is that when field of view increases it causes a skewed effect seen around the edges this is perfectly fine for flat displays since it helps with immersion but the curve displays already have this effect and is amplified by what's in game it's tolerable on the 1500r but on the 1000r this results in a very distorted image the only way to reduce this is to lower the field of view but in first person shooters that puts you at a disadvantage when playing call of duty i experienced some motion sickness because of fast rotations games that aren't as twitchy like horizon 4 are perfectly fine and is actually more enjoyable on the curve than on the flat for productivity it's generally thought that curved displays should be avoided because straight lines would look bent and that's true especially around the edges looking straight onto a flat panel everything looks straight personally i found the 1500 arp to perform equally as good as flat however 1000 arm monitors have a lot more distortion so it doesn't work quite as well curved monitors do have the advantage of a more uniform picture quality because ideally the edges have the same angles as the center of the display so let's find those angles and see how much of a difference it really makes we'll start with the 27 inch flat panel as an example here we find the width of the monitor to be 23.5 inches my rule of thumb for sitting distance is to use is this retina and take the result retina is a term introduced by apple back in 2012 and can be used to describe different viewing distances for different pixel densities in our case for a sitting distance of 32 inches the angle at the edges is about 70 degrees we'll do the same with the 1000r 27 inch curved except this time the math is a bit more involved for simplicity we'll just eyeball the angle to be about 86.16 degrees compared to our flat panel the difference is 16 degrees and honestly that's not enough to see any visual differences but one thing i did notice was moving the monitors off center and as the curved one is rotated the viewing angles suffer since we have to move out of the ideal focal point this is a huge disadvantage because it limits your seating position to directly in front now as i was rotating another thing i noticed is that the pixels along the curve panels disappear along the edges a lot earlier than the flat i'm not completely sure why this happens so if anyone knows more about it leave a comment finally let's take a look at some general ergonomics for glare the curve monitor is a double-edged sword this paper from berkeley summarizes it well the probability of experiencing glare and or veiling glare is reduced by curving the screen thereby improving the viewer's experience this effect is somewhat offset by the fact that reflections off a curved screen are magnified relative to those off a flat screen what does all this mean well it's saying that the curved screen concentrates glare onto a single focal point just like a satellite dish we can test this by doing some experiments here we're seated in front of the focal point while moving the light source the glare gets really bad when the light source is directly in front because it lights up the whole screen as we move the light source around the glare improves quite a bit changing our position off center we achieve the same effect as moving the glare but as we saw earlier this setup causes the colors to look washed out when displaying content and sitting at the focal point it's not as bad but it's still quite distracting with flat panels there's no focal point but instead there will just be a constant ball of glare no matter where you sit so between curved and flat displays there's no real winner here for eyestrain and iach vusana quotes a paper from harvard medical school saying that eye strain and iac are 60 more common on flat monitors than on curve monitors digging a bit deeper we see that this data is cherry picked because from the same chart overall fatigue is worse on the curve by almost the same amount of course eyestrain and fatigue are pretty subjective and personally i get eye strain on both displays so take that with a grain of salt on the surface advertisers are really good at promoting their products almost like they do it for a living now one topic i haven't covered is ultrawides because i haven't used one yet in general curve monitors have improved immersion at the cost of reduced viewing angles if you're coming from a flat display they are pretty easy to adapt to after just a few days for a single display setup i would choose a flat monitor or a curved one with at least 1 500r this gives the flexibility down the line for adding additional monitors i wouldn't recommend getting a 1000r unless you have some specific use case that takes advantage of that curve for a multi-monitor setup i get either two flat displays or two curved displays because it's easier to jump between them when they're the same for flat monitors i'm currently using an lg 27gl 850 and is a pretty good all-rounder for curved well i have yet to find one that i really like alright that's it from me consider liking and subscribing and stay classy

Channel: Reviews For Life

Views: 690,896

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Id: EXhz_MylkLY

Length: 7min 1sec (421 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 04 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/vergingalactic]

I gotta say, my experience with curved displays has next to nothing in common with this guy's.

I used a CHG70 then used a 55" CX alongside a 32" G7. I found the CHG70 to be next level immersive coming from a 24" flat display and unless I was watching video content from further away, I never found it to detract from my experience. The curve and size made playing FPS games like titanfall 2 super enjoyable. The distortion never really mattered even at stupidly high FOVs.

I've also used both flat and curve ultrawides and I think a curve is absolutely essential for ultrawides. A flat ultrawide kinda just sucks outside of very niche use cases.

I got so used to the curve that I thought the CX would be mildly problematic to use because other flat LCDs had felt weird as if they were convex. I was surprised to find that it wasn't the case at all and I don't see how a curve could meaningfully improve the 55" LG CX. The formfactor of the TV was actually perfect for me and the viewing angles of OLED are completely perfect. I thought the G7's curve was a bit much and detracted from the experience at first glance but I've really gotten used to it and I don't think it's much of an issue at all and on balance, compensates for the drawbacks of VA enough to warrant it's inclusion even at 1000R. The non-uniformity of the curve is not really an issue. I have to use it at monitor distances but that's a perfectly fair limitation for such a product.

If I could, I'd definitely go flat with a large OLED TV but sadly, the low response times made the 120Hz too difficult to go back to after having used 240Hz. The G7 has been a fantastic monitor without any real issues beyond the normal LCD drawbacks. There's no other LCDs on the market that appeal to me in any way after having used the G7. Take the curve or leave it but don't it influence your decision. The G7 is so much better than the alternatives that the curve is simply a non-factor.

[u/[deleted]]

I’ve used a curved monitor for several years now and I always forget it’s curved until I have to move it.

[u/loercase]

I have a 3440x1440p ultrawide curved LG monitor... I wouldn't buy it again. Not only is HDR glitchy as fuck in most games, it affects the max adaptive-sync rate as well. And with a matte finish... it's GLARE CITY any time there is light in the room. Never again.

[u/arashio]

Disclaimer that he's using the most curved option in the market at 1000R...
(excluding not-yet released 800R AUO based monitors.)

[u/Itchy-Complex3377]

Got the BenQ Ex3203R and i think the curved screen is just perfect. it isnt noticeable and during gaming it's more immersive. Still great video tho!!

[u/QuadraKev_]

The non-circular arc the monitor curves follow at the beginning of the video sure is something