The 10 Best 34 Inch Monitors

Editor's Notes

October 29, 2020:

Just about all 34-inch monitors are 21:9 ultrawides, and there has been a considerable amount of progress in terms of ultrawide displays lately. That's definitely good thing, partially because it's driven prices down to affordable levels, and partially because the newest high-end graphics cards will be able to take full advantage of all these pixels.

If you're purely interested in the absolute best, the Acer Predator X35 might be it. It outperforms almost anything else on the market, but it's prohibitively expensive for many users, although it's not actually the most expensive one out there. The Alienware AW3420DW and LG Ultragear GP83A are both considerably cheaper, but still look very good in just about all settings. In their same price range comes the LG UltraFine BK95U, which is highly respected among Mac users, and was actually released specifically as a solution for users of both MacBooks and iMacs.

Coming down from the stratosphere, the Acer Nitro XV340CK is an all-around high performer, as is the Philips 346B1C, although the Philips has a significantly lower refresh rate. If you're really interested in an affordable gaming display, we recommend considering the AOC G2X, but if you're using an Nvidia GPU, you might want to wait a bit and see if the latest drivers can't clear up some of teh flickering issues that a few users have reported. The Viotek GN Series, meanwhile, reportedly works great with both AMD and Nvidia cards, and while we wouldn't always recommend monitors from relatively unknown manufacturers, this one's actually made with some of the same components as models from more expensive brands.

October 31, 2019:

This year's most exciting ultrawide monitors are dominated by those from LG for multiple reasons. The company produces the vast majority of high-resolution display panels for the US market, and also they offer a huge variety of their own products with varying levels of performance. The LG WK650 is about as entry-level as 21:9 monitors come, though it doesn't have the richest colors, and the LG GL750 is a quality upgrade if you're willing to cope with its less-than-perfect resolution. On the other end of the spectrum, the LG WL850 and LG UltraFine are two of the most advanced, with ultra-high resolutions and a bevy of connectivity options. The LG Ultragear GK950F is possibly the ideal ultrawide gaming monitor, and the LG WK95C is an all-around beast of a peripheral.

And there are still plenty of other worthwhile options to consider. For those who prefer a flat screen that doesn't cost a ton there's the Samsung SJ55W, while gamers will like the advanced technology used by the brand-new MSI Optix. The Acer XR342CK is a good mid-range option that doesn't sacrifice much, if any picture quality, and of course no rundown would be complete without a showing from the Dell Ultrasharp, which is year-in and year-out one of the best displays on the market.

Also keep in mind that most ultrawide monitors use curved panels, because when a screen is this wide and you're sitting at a desk's length away from it, the edges tend to be distorted or washed out. And not every game is easy to get running at 21:9 aspect ratios, and if you're into high resolutions as well as high frame rates you may want to consider a traditional gaming monitor.