The best curved monitors

Choosing one of the best curved monitors gives you the luxury of a huge screen without the eye strain thanks to natural angles across your whole field of view. The best curved monitors also retain optimum colour accuracy and a more even and accurate view of what you're working on with no colour casts near the edge.

Although curved screens didn't catch on for TVs, the concept made perfect sense for computer monitors. TVs are often used with different room layouts, but with a desktop monitor, you can normally position the screen to take full advantage of the field of view so that it shows everything at a comfortable angle when you sit in the centre of it.

Curved displays are particularly popular for monitors aimed at creatives because, since every part of the screen is pointing towards your face, they offer a larger screen without distortion. With a large flat screen, many of the pixels point straight past your face, so you're not viewing them straight on for optimal colours and contrast. But a curved monitor points them all towards you, and the stronger the curve, the more natural and comfortable it is to use. When you flick your eyes around a curved wide screen, you can see more clearly because it still faces you even at the edges. A lot of curved monitors take advantage of this to offer ultrawide displays.

Check out our roundup of the best ultrawide monitors overall, as well as the best 4K monitors for more monitor options. For advice on how to choose a curved monitor skip down to the best curved monitors: what to look for. Meanwhile, read on for our guide to the best curved monitors available at the moment.

The best curved monitors available now

This big 4K curved monitor from Asus offers great image quality. Its IPS panel offers a good level of curve for optimum viewing angles and it promises 100% sRGB coverage. A brightness of 300 nits (and lack of HDR compatibility) mean it's not ideal for some video work, but the panel quality and size make it superb for most creative jobs.

An added benefit is a decent built-in sound system from Harmon Kardon and a Qi wireless charger for your phone built into the base. Its well-equipped for connections too, offering DisplayPort 1.2, two HDMI inputs and USB-C, with up to 60W of power over the USB-C port as well as data and video, so it can connect to some laptops over a single cable. There are also two regular USB ports for connecting more devices.

The Philips Brilliance 499P9H curved monitor is an alternative to having dual monitors. Its aspect ratio of 32:9 makes it literally two regular 16:9 monitors side-by-side in one seamless screen. That's a great deal of working space to have around you, and the impressive level of curve makes it comfortable to work with.

It's a 5K display but with the caveat that the height corresponds more to QHD resolution. For colours, it promises 94% of DCI-P3 and 91% of Adobe RGB, with a delta of less than two. Brightness hits around 450 nits. It may not be the first choice for the most demanding designers, but it looks great in practice, and useful features such as a built-in KVM switch and webcam help make it the ultimate desk companion.

It's a colossal beast of a screen, but it takes up less room than two separate monitors and is surprisingly easy on the eyes. It offers some height, tilt and swivel adjustment and comes well equipped for connectivity with 2x HDMI, DisplayPort and USB-C, plus three regular USB ports and even a Gigabit Ethernet port.

The LG UltraGear 38GN950 is a popular curved monitor screen for gaming thanks to its massive screen size, super-fast refresh rate and response time as well as HDR support and G-sync. Its refresh rate can even be overclocked to 160Hz for fast-paced games. While it's a screen with gaming in mind, it can serve for other uses, with the subtle screen curve helping to reduce eye strain when looking towards its edges. Budget buyers might want to look at other options on this list, however, as this monitor doesn't come cheap.

This is another ultra-ultrawide monitor with a 32:9 aspect ratio. The 1800R curve means it fills your vision while the Quantum Dot panel technology offers a wide colour gamut with 125% sRGB gamut coverage and 95% DCI-P3. Throw in 600 nit typical brightness and 1,000 nit peak brightness in HDR, and you have a solid screen for creative work and gaming.

As for connectivity, it's a little more basic than some other options here with one HDMI, two DisplayPort and four USB Type A – there's no USB-C/Thunderbolt 3.

If you're looking for one of the best curved monitors with a lower price tag, Samsung has you covered with this 4K screen with a 3840x2160 resolution. At 32 inches, the resolution and size could be overwhelming on a flat screen, but it's much more comfortable with the dramatic 1500R curve on the Samsung U32R590 curved monitor.

It's more limited in colour and brightness stakes, achieving 103% of sRGB, 76% of Adobe RGB and a typical brightness of 250 nits. If you're looking for a lot of workspace without the stretch of an ultrawide, and lots of detail without being fussed about the most perfect colours, this fits the bill. It offers tilt adjustment, but no height or swivel. Connectivity is limited to HDMI and DisplayPort, with no USB hub.

The cheapest monitor on our guide to the best curved monitors is a reasonable 27 inches in size and has a respectable level of curve despite its low price. With a typical brightness of 250 nits and 89% Adobe RGB gamut coverage, it's not the most designer-focused screen, but it offers solid colour accuracy overall. It has a 144Hz refresh rate and AMD FreeSync, as well a generous four USB Type-A ports, along with two HDMI ports and a DisplayPort connection. It also has height, tilt and swivel adjustment to make the screen comfortable for working on.

This package can run over a single USB-C cable, delivering power back to the laptop, which makes it a great choice for Apple laptop users. Colour accuracy is excellent at 99% sRGB and 78% DCI-P3 but lacking for some professional design needs, and the resolution is good for the size of screen, delivering 4K width and better-than-QHD height.

The Dell U3818DW curved monitor is well built, and it allows height, tile and swivel adjustments. It also offers multiple USB ports and HDMI inputs making it an all-round strong choice, if perhaps a little expensive.

The ASUS ProArt PA34VC is part of the company's ProArt range for professional artists. This IPS screen promises full coverage of the sRGB gamut, with an accuracy delta of less than 2 (indistinguishable by the human eye), HDR10 support and a 14-bit LUT. 

It’s well connected too, with two USB-C/Thunderbolt 3 ports for extremely high bandwidth connections, plus two HDMI ports, DisplayPort and three regular USB 3.1 ports, so it should serve you no matter what you need to hook up. Height, tilt and swivel are all adjustable here too allowing you to get the perfect view and comfortable ergonomics.

The best curved monitors: what to look for

The main thing to look out for when choosing a curved monitor is just how curved it is. This is measured by the ‘R’ value, which stands for curve radius. You’ll generally find curved monitors fall between 1000R and 4000R. The lower the number, the more dramatic the curve. 

1000R matches the curvature of the human eye so could be considered the ‘optimal’ curve, but there are few screens that go that far. 1800R is one of the most common curve radiuses used for screens, and that means a still noticeable curve.

The other thing to decide when choosing a curved monitor is how wide a screen you require. Curved monitors allow ultra-ultrawide screens to be seen more clearly, and going ultra-ultrawide gives you more working space?

Beyond that, you should look for the same things as in any other monitor, considering what colour gamut, accuracy, resolutions and connections you need.

One consideration for ultrawide monitors especially is that most will support displaying images from two different inputs at once. With the double-width monitors in particular, this means you can have two entirely different, fully usable desktops side-by-side on one screen.

Are curved monitors better?

Curved is not necessarily better, but it offers advantages for viewing angles on bigger screens, which can be a boon for colour accuracy across a large display. You’re on-axis for every pixel you look at, so you should be getting great uniform colours, and for long sessions of creative work, many people swear that curved screens reduce eye strain.

Uniformity of the backlight is another factor to consider because going curved creates the possibility of more even lighting than a simple flat screen.

However, curved screens are harder to produce than flat screens, so they often cost more, and, broadly speaking, high-end curved monitors offer lower pixel density than a flat-screen equivalent for the same price.

Another thing to consider is that while being curved helps to reduce some kinds of distortion, if you’re working on designs where seeing straight lines as straight is important, a curved screen may be something of a hindrance.

Read more:

• The best monitor calibrator tools for designers
• How to calibrate your monitor
• The best monitor arms in 2020