Ultrawide monitors are booming in popularity, both for gamers and the office. But which are the very best ultrawide monitor options available? Our team of experts have tested numerous monitors to find out.
Ultrawide monitors are displays that are noticeably longer horizontally than they are vertically, with unusual aspect ratios such as 21:9 and 32:9. Such screen formats won’t be supported by most videos online, resulting in chunky black bars on either side. But several games are supported, such as Cyberpunk 2077 and Forza Horizon 5, allowing for incredibly immersive experiences that wrap around your peripheral vision.
Extra wide monitors can also be handy for productivity, allowing to open up multiple windows simultaneously without becoming cramped on screen. It’s essentially like having two monitors sat side by side, but running off a single PC.
If you’re sold on the idea of an ultrawide monitor, but you’re not sure which to go for, we’re here to help by listing our top recommendations below. We’ve only included ultrawide monitors that have received at least a 4-star rating out of 5, as our experts have used professional equipment to test the likes of brightness, contrast, colour coverage and more.
We also evaluate the design, software and features of each monitor. That way, you can be confident you’re spending your money on a top quality display.
We’ll be updating this list as soon as we review more ultrawide monitors. Keep an eye out for the Samsung Odyssey G9 OLED (2023) and Asus ROG Swift OLED PG49WCD which we hope to review before the end of 2023.
If you’ve decided that ultrawide monitors are too expensive and so you’d like to look at alternative options, then we suggest checking out our best monitor and best gaming monitor lists instead.
Best ultrawide monitor at a glance
How we test
We use every monitor we test for at least a week. During that time, we’ll check its design, features and how easy it is to set up.
We check its colours and image quality with a colorimeter to test its coverage and the display’s quality. We will also play numerous games to determine its performance.
Samsung Odyssey Neo G9
Best overall ultrawide monitor
Pros
- Show-stopping HDR and SDR ability
- Bold, accurate and vibrant colours
- Excellent refresh rate ability
- Immersive curved widescreen design
Cons
- Wallet-busting price
- 32:9 aspect ratio won’t suit everyone
- Requires a powerful graphics card
- Connectivity could be improved
The Samsung Odyssey Neo G9 is our favourite overall ultrawide monitor.
It’s quite the looker, with a sleek outer frame that’s matched by slim bezels around the display, and a glossy white plastic rear. As a 49-inch monitor though, this is the largest on our list by far, and a panel you’ll need an awful lot of desk space to accommodate.
That being said, it’s packed with plenty of features, including a 240Hz refresh rate that, during testing, ensured the Neo G9 delivered wonderfully smooth motion. In addition, the 1ms response time provided a responsive gaming experience. Given such an impressive spec sheet, the G9 does require an awful lot of power to get your money’s worth, and therefore, you will need a top-of-the-line gaming PC to get the best out of it.
We also found its image quality to be incredible, with both real-world use and a colorimeter in hand. The 49-inch screen uses Mini LED technology, which we measured to have a max brightness of over 2300 nits with Dynamic HDR enabled. This led to colours popping especially nicely, alongside good accuracy – 99.5% sRGB and 91.5% DCI-P3 to be exact. With numbers this good, it’s not only a great choice for immersive gaming, but also for any more colour-sensitive work involved with more creative roles.
Reviewer: Mike Jennings
Full review: Samsung Odyssey Neo G9 Review
MSI MPG Artymis 343CQR
Best value ultrawide monitor
Pros
- An immersive, curved design
- Great core image quality
- Loads of gaming features
- Superb build quality
Cons
- Not suitable for esports
- Not the best option for certain workloads
- Expensive
For an excellent value ultrawide monitor, look no further than the MSI MPG Artymis 343CQR.
This is also one of the best 1440p monitors we’ve tested, and we found its image quality to be rather good indeed. With a practically perfect colour temperature of 6518K, and a contrast ratio triple that of an average IPS panel, we found games in SDR to look especially punchy. Adding HDR into the mix offered more vibrancy and a near perfect black level of 0.03 nits, as well as a peak brightness of 578 nits. This comes hand in hand with a pixel density of 109ppi, which ensured crisp imagery on this 34-inch panel.
As well as offering great image quality, the 343CQR is also packed with solid gaming comforts, such as a 165Hz refresh rate. This proved decent for more competitive eSports titles, as well as for general single player gaming too. In addition, there’s support for VRR with AMD FreeSync, which will maximise smoothness thanks to its means of eliminating any screen juddering and tearing. Even without support for G-Sync, this monitor should also work just fine with Nvidia GPUs, too.
We also found the Artymis 343CQR to look excellent, with a sprinkling of RGB lighting and wide legs, as well as a 1000R curved design for a great level of immersion. A weight of 9.2kg also means it’s got plenty of heft and reflects the fact it’s well built.
Reviewer: Mike Jennings
Full review: MSI MPG Artymis 343CQR review
HP S430c Curved Ultrawide Monitor
Best productivity ultrawide monitor
Pros
- Impressive screen-sharing options
- Great connectivity
- Solid mainstream image quality
- Robust build quality
Cons
- Not good enough for colour-sensitive work
- Higher resolutions available elsewhere
- No DCI-P3 or Adobe RGB ability
If you don’t need an ultrawide monitor for gaming, and instead just for standard office work, then the HP S430c may be the monitor for you.
It offers superb build quality and a sleek design, complete with slim bezels and a minimalist stand featuring modern flourishes. The stand here offers a good amount of adjustability with swivel, tilt and height adjustment on offer, as well as 100mm VESA mounting options for convenience. This is also a large monitor though, as backed up by its 16kg weight and 1057mm width, which means you’ll need quite a large space to fit it on.
There’s also a lot to like when it comes to features. Not only is this a large 43.4-inch display, but it also comes with a 3840×1200 resolution, offering the same number of horizontal pixels as a more conventional 4K monitor. We also found the port selection here to be good, with four full-sized USB 3.1 ports and USB-Cs with 65W power delivery, as well as single HDMI and DisplayPort inputs alongside an audio jack and a security lock-slot.
The image quality on offer was decent, thanks to a VA panel with 8-bit colour. While it doesn’t match up against IPS displays with 10-bit colour and HDR, this panel type will be perfectly fine for office tasks. Digging a little deeper, with our colorimeter in hand, we measured the brightness here to be 340 nits, alongside a black level of 0.14 nits, which is more than good enough for general office duties. For mainstream colours, these are covered by the panel’s 98.7% sRGB, but producing just 85% of the DCI-P3 gamut and 77.9% of the Adobe RGB colour space means this isn’t a monitor designed for intense colour work.
Reviewer: Mike Jennings
Full review: HP S430c review
We also considered…
FAQs
This is dependent majorly on the space you’ve got. If you can fit it in, a 49-inch ultrawide will arguably give you the most immersive experience, given its sheer width and size. But for most, 34 inches is likely to be enough.
You certainly can use an ultrawide monitor for office work, and they’ll be especially handy for when you want to fit multiple apps and windows on your screen. For what it’s worth, we’ve picked the HP S430c as a favourite ultrawide for office productivity tasks, which should put you in good stead.
