With my job going full remote, I've come to discover that, for my own sanity, having a dedicated Home Office set up will help keep me from sitting at my same computer all day long. I currently have a decently powerful gaming setup (couple years old but still works), along with a 27inch 1440p and a 34 inch 1080 ultrawide. The 27inch is my gaming monitor (Dell S217DG) so on the gaming front I am more that good (my ultrawide is mostly just there to stack chrome tabs together, or to split between work and a youtube stream during or something). I've been using this for the past two months as I work from home.
I want to take my work laptop (couple years old lenovo thinkpad 20FY0002US) and create a new home office setup in a separate room. That way if I need to take the laptop into an office for meetings I can easily disengaged it from the docking port (multiple USB, couple display port, ethernet, etc) and have an easy travel system. But I could never got back to just a simple laptop or even laptop + second screen set up. I've grown accustomed to screen real estate!
There were 3 options I had in mind: Laptop + Ultrawide, Laptop + 2x non-ultrawide, or after doing some reading online, laptop + 4k TV. I've done some reading, but it's hard to find an article that doesn't just talk about 1 single setup (and why YOU should make the swap) rather than truly comparing the different options.
I thought an ultrawide was the way to go initially, until I realized that ultrawide monitors are bloody expensive (I thought 1 ultrawide would be cheaper than 2 monitors, but I was wrong apparently...especially if you want something of decent quality). But a 4k tv, for the price, seems like a good option as well!
I do web development, so I don't need to worry about color accuracy or graphics. All I'm doing is setting up an IDE, a test page, and then various tabs and monitoring programs (database window, terminal, web pages for reference, web page i'm testing, etc) and then probably slack + email just sitting on the laptop screen off to the side.
Any thoughts or experiences on these various setups? Is a 4k TV the best way to get a ton of screen real estate without breaking the bank? As drool-worthy as a 49" ultrawide is, I don't want to spend $1k (usd) on a work-only monitor. I'm trying to keep the full budget under $500, and the best bang for my buck is the goal.
Thanks in advance!