Congratulations. You have a shiny new MacBook Pro, and a few extra bucks to spend on an external monitor for it. I spent the past few months in those very painful, complicated shoes.

The task of finding a monitor for a Mac was a lot easier about a decade ago. There were two choices:

Spend a bunch of money on an Ap­ple display. It would look amazing. Spend significantly less money on a third party display. This was a gamble.

As we stand today, the 27” hole in Apple’s lineup is creating some conundrums for notebook users. Running a string of dongles into an old Apple display gets less and less viable with every laptop generation, and the Apple Thunderbolt Display’s resolution doesn’t stand up as a primary monitor for interface design, working with images or (in my case) video editing.

I needed to find a monitor for my 15” MacBook Pro. After a lot of research and soul searching, I wound up with a massive notes document that contained ridiculous diagrams like this:

Working out USB-C I/O and price differences between two potential setups

I landed on these conclusions for a MacBook Pro display:

A USB hub was a must

A USB-C or Thunderbolt 3 monitor would be ideal

Power delivery must not monopolize one of the four USB-C ports on the computer

There was also a long list of potential monitors, including an inexpensive 28” 4K Samsung display that went on sale for Prime Day. It was purchased and promptly returned. The VESA mount was awkwardly placed, the colors were bad, and the bezel was creaky. I had forgotten what the world of third party displays was like.

Not okay, Samsung.

At the most expensive end of my list was Apple’s official third-party recommendation: the 5K LG UltraFine Thunderbolt 3 display. This monitor had caused me some technical problems during its initial manufacturing run and had been bought and returned twice during Apple’s USB-C sale from earlier in the year. I was hesitant to buy it a third time, especially at full price.

My interest in finding an ultrawide display peaked when I was shooting an interview with Zedd. His home studio had a striking HP ultrawide sitting front and center on his desk. The monitor wasn’t on at the time, but Zedd reccommended it strongly for timeline-based work. Though it’s hard to trust a musician on image quality, it’s safe to say that he knows how to wrangle timelines and wide user interfaces.

After a couple days of research and waffling, I wound up buying the 34” HP ENVY 21:9 display, and proudly posting my setup on a subreddit dedicated to ultrawide displays.