Business case for dual monitors

[Sean Brierley]

I prefer CRTs over LCDs for quality and their ability to display movies
better and the fact that they display well regardless of desktop size
(errr ... "resolution") -- but LCDs are good enough that I prefer their
size. I'm using cost-driven Viewsonic 19-inch and Dell 17-inch LCDs,
each providing a desktop of 1280x1024 pixels. I've been using dual
monitors now for mostly 12 years, so I am used to it.

I much prefer traditional screen sizes because a lot of what I do is for
print. Even if a little of what I do were for print, I would appreciate
the extra vertical pixels.

If I just used my computer monitor for watchin movies, the, yeah, the
new widescreens would be okay. But I watch movies mostly on my TV,
occasionally on my laptop, and do actual work on my PC.

Cheers.



-----Original Message-----
From: techwr-l-bounces+sbrierley=accu-time.com at lists.techwr-l.com
[mailto:techwr-l-bounces+sbrierley=accu-time.com at lists.techwr-l.com] On
Behalf Of McLauchlan, Kevin
Sent: Friday, May 02, 2008 3:50 PM
To: Greg Holmes; TECHWR-L
Subject: RE: Business case for dual monitors


Greg Holmes objected:

> I guess it's just matter of preference.  Big monitor, yes. Wide 
> monitor, definitely.  LCD, absolutely.
> 
> But I tried dual monitors for a bit and it was just ... annoying to 
> me. Even when everything worked perfectly[1], I really didn't feel 
> there was any benefit. They were both wide, so they really couldn't 
> both be "in front" of me.  I had to have a primary monitor and one 
> "off to the side". It was more annoying and time consuming to be 
> turning my head then it was to just flick ALT+TAB and keep my gaze 
> forward. Three sides of my primary screen were a bumper for my mouse
> like normal, but one side was an abyss where the mouse
> cursor kept falling off ;)
> 
> [1] Which it didn't. Example: oh, I must have dragged an email off to 
> the side monitor once, so *clearly* that means I want *all* new emails

> to open over there from now on. Not.
> 
> 
> Anyway, I understand why dual monitors are better in theory, but for 
> me personally experience didn't bear that out.

Well, if it matters - and it does to me - my dual monitors are a pair of
20.1-inch "old"-format (4x3, not wide-format) DELL 2007FPBs with
1600x1200. <snip>