Dual screen vs super widescreen monitors for designers

LG have recently announced a 34" 21:9 Ultra wide monitor clearly targeted at designers. The appeal is obvious—a continuous screen with one colour profile and seamless 3440 pixels from edge to edge. When designing monitors for designers, LG has thoughtfully included many beneficial features.

The author's current setup consists of a 27" iMac paired with a second, deliberately poor-quality monitor. Despite the appeal of ultra-wide displays, they have no intention of switching.

A designer using a terrible screen I hear you say? Why?

Two major issues prevent investment in such a monitor.

First issue: Designers work for screens of enormous variety. A design might use subtle grey tones to differentiate content panels, but not all users will perceive this. The author deliberately uses a "terrible monitor" with poor colour reproduction and contrast ratio. When I drag my design from one screen to another I can test how bad it might look for some users and adjust my design accordingly. This ensures designs work across the broadest user base, including on diverse handsets when designing responsively.

Second issue: Application design relies on palettes and toolbars. Photoshop exemplifies this complexity. These elements dock only at screen edges in most applications, creating large travel distances on ultra-wide displays. You'd have to create a plugin that simulated two separate screens or significantly adapt software architecture to position palettes efficiently without expanding documents beyond toolbar boundaries.

Additional concerns: Retina displays represent the future. Investing in an expensive 1x screen seems foolhardy. A retina ultra-wide monitor might exceed Thunderbolt 2 bandwidth limits.

The author loves their vertically-aligned secondary screen, offering 1200px width and 1600px scrolling content, reducing necessary scrolling while matching iMac height. Their current setup remains optimal for professional design work.