Dreamy Monitor...

[Renegade]

I need a new monitor as my portrait one died. I've decided on a Samsung BX2440, but then I saw this:

http://www.samsung.com/au/consumer/pc-peripherals/monitor/business-monitor/LS23MURHB/XP/index.idx?pagetype=prd_detail&returnurl=





Oh god oh god oh god oh god~! I want 1. Errr... Make that 2! Give me 180 degree monitors~!     

It doesn't have portrait mode, but I'd forgive that small omission.

But at $4k... Ummm... I'll go with the BX2440 for now.

[Deozaan]

I just got a nice 25.5" 1920x1200 monitor for Christmas and I have to say that I'm so happy with it that that giant screen isn't even desirable to me at this time. (But it sure looks cool!)

Though another one of these 25.5" monitors would be awesome for my dual screen setup.

[nudone]

now that i've got the monitor arrangement below, i've found myself hardly ever using the top monitor. it just seems too high up and uncomfortable to look at. too annoying to move the mouse up there too. maybe i need to sit higher up, or just make more of an effort.

so, for me, multi-monitor setups tend to look cool but aren't really that practical. i think a good setup would be something like two 1920 x 1200 (24") screens. maybe ones that you can flip to portrait.

[timns]

I have 3 monitors. I'm with nudone about that 4th one... it's just not ergonomic to keep looking up.

At the moment I have 19" - 25" - 19" and I reckon the best layout for me would be 19" - 25" - 22"

Having said that, I did have an optimus prime keyboard for a while and I loved the monitor-like possibilities on the keyboard itself.

Unfortunately the OP is HOPELESS as a keyboard, so it's just dumped in the corner getting dusty - more on that one day. I have been threatening to set fire to it or something

So I think one extra thingy that would be nice - a tiny touch screen on the left of the keyboard with dynamic function 'buttons'

Luckily I am left-handed but use my mouse on the right side, so the touch screen could nestle right up against the keyboard. Are there such things? I vaguely remember a thread about that on DC somewhere but can't find it offhand.

[Renegade]

now that i've got the monitor arrangement below, i've found myself hardly ever using the top monitor. it just seems too high up and uncomfortable to look at. too annoying to move the mouse up there too. maybe i need to sit higher up, or just make more of an effort.

so, for me, multi-monitor setups tend to look cool but aren't really that practical. i think a good setup would be something like two 1920 x 1200 (24") screens. maybe ones that you can flip to portrait.


(see attachment in previous post)

Nice setup~!

I like to play movies or TV shows on one monitor while I work. It's just nice to have some noise.

The 4th top one would be perfect for that.

My current setup is 22" - 15" - 24". The 22" died -- going to try to revive it -- but I'm not expecting any miracles. It's getting replaced tomorrow with a 24" Samsung BX2440 -- it has portrait mode, which is important. I'm kind of hoping that I can procrastinate reviving the 22", get the 24", then revive the 22", and get rid of the 15". However, with the iMac on the desk as well, that's a bit crowded.

I want the dreamy 6-panel monitor~! ;(

[nudone]

whilst we are discussing multi-monitor setups, again (there's another thread somehwere) i'd like to add a couple more observations that annoy me.

1) lots of monitors equates to lots of light in your face. obvious really. but i never thought about it until my eyes starting aching. so, main monitor is now "normal" brightness and the other three are set to be quite dark. if your room is well illuminated then i doubt the monitor brightness will be an issue; i'm sat in a dark room, so having four "normal" bright monitors is similar to staring into a light bulb all day, i.e. not very clever.

2) you may think it's "economically viable" to buy a multi-monitor setup these days. I bought a Samsung 24" monitor a few days ago for about £200 (about $300). A good price but you get what you pay for. This is a decent monitor but the viewing angles aren't brilliant. if you had several of these you'd have to fix your head just in the right place to get the best viewing angle from each screen.

my top monitor is similar; cheap, poor viewing angles. i've had to angle this top monitor at quite an extreme angle so it isn't annoying to view. if it were angled perfectly vertical then looking at it from below would make it appear quite dark with terrible contrast.

on the other hand my Ezio 24" monitor has the best viewing angles i've ever seen, but that cost over £1000 (over $1500). you could place this at any height or angle and it would look perfect. i'm sure such a monitor would cost less nowadays; it just demonstrates there is still a difference between the budget and high end screens.

no surprise really, but you can be assured that multi-monitor setups in professional use (medical, whatever) are going to have the best monitors with unlimited budgets to play with. and that makes perfect sense when you see the terrible viewing angles that come with the cheaper screens.

[Josh]

[nudone]

people with money to burn on screens and then have the cheapest mouse and keyboard - and mouse mat.

no doubt it impresses the neighbours when they visit. nothing more important than that.

[Renegade]

Good points nudone.

I used to buy mid-range CRTs well into the LCD revolution because they had better color then. Now, I don't do any graphic work that needs any real degree of precision, so if it displays well enough for text, it's good enough. Eye-strain is my only concern. But I've fixed that with my desk facing a window and the monitors fairly far back.

A friend of mine has an SGI monitor that works beautifully. It's something like 10 years old or so now, but it's crystal clear. He does FOREX on it.

I threw out 5 CRTs when I moved from Korea, but only 3 were really any good. 1 of them was a very good flat panel CRT. But now, looking around, there basically are no CRTs available anymore. Nobody makes them. Makes me feel a tad old... But I'm not. NOT, I say! NOT~!

I still want that lovely 6-panel...

[cranioscopical]

These days I use 2 side-by-side 27" (1920 x 1200) monitors. That's a physical run of 4 feet by 16 inches.
That gives me somewhat over four US-letter-size pages, portrait, at actual size, which is important to me as I still work with physical documents
I can see all of what I want without any significant head movement (except for nodding off occasionally).

[nudone]

(except for nodding off occasionally).

hahaha.

[tomos]

my top monitor is similar; cheap, poor viewing angles. i've had to angle this top monitor at quite an extreme angle so it isn't annoying to view. if it were angled perfectly vertical then looking at it from below would make it appear quite dark with terrible contrast.

on the other hand my Ezio 24" monitor has the best viewing angles i've ever seen, but that cost over £1000 (over $1500). you could place this at any height or angle and it would look perfect. i'm sure such a monitor would cost less nowadays; it just demonstrates there is still a difference between the budget and high end screens.

veering slightly off-topic: Dell have a very good & cheap series of IPS monitors (recommended by Prad.de here)
http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/topics/topic.aspx/global/products/landing/de/emea/ultrasharpmonitor?c=de&l=de&s=gen

For some reason the 23" one is available for as little as 230 euro - seems a crazy price to me for an IPS panel.
I bought the matte 22" 2209WA exactly a year ago (for around e300) - it has almost perfect RGB out of the box. It's great for the price (lighting at the sides is slightly uneven but only noticeable it when screen is an even grey

(sorry, dont have any english links)

[Renegade]

Just put the old monitor out on the balcony and setup the new Samsung BX2440. Looks good. Tilt, swivel and pivot. It'll do for what I need.

But couldn't get the old one working at all. Dead. The picture will dully flicker on for a half second then it goes black again. The color test "lost signal" rectangle looks faded as well. But the 15" TGIC Amadas from 2003 is still cranking out the pixels.

[40hz]

These days I use 2 side-by-side 27" (1920 x 1200) monitors. That's a physical run of 4 feet by 16 inches.
That gives me somewhat over four US-letter-size pages, portrait, at actual size, which is important to me as I still work with physical documents
I can see all of what I want without any significant head movement (except for nodding off occasionally).

That sounds perfect to me too. What brand/model monitors are you using?

[cranioscopical]

What brand/model monitors are you using?

These are Samsung 275Tplus. It's increasingly hard to find monitors with 1200 vertical res these days — at least I find it so.

I've found Samsung, the company, totally unpleasant to deal with, incompetent, careless of their customers, and slipshod. I'd avoid them and their products if I could. Unfortunately, when I bought these, one of a pair of previous Samsung 1600x1200s had failed and they could produce only an unsatisfactory replacement under guarantee. Needless to say, that didn't match the remaining functional monitor. So, I needed a matched pair of reasonably large screens in a hurry and these were the best of what my local supplier could deliver the following day. (I gave the remaining monitor from the previous pair to my wife and she's happy with it, and it's still going strong.)

The downside with multiple screens is that when one of them fails it's often necessary to buy another set of screens because the current models don't match the previous ones. As you know, models change very fast and a screen more than a year old will probably be difficult to replace with an exact counterpart. I don't like working with mismatched screens.

The up side of equipment failure is that one can use it as an excuse to upgrade.

I'm quite pleased with these screens, precise colour matching isn't crucial to me, so I can afford to be less fussy than some. As I said previously, they provide quite a lot of real estate, almost all of which I can see at a glance.


<Edit for typo>

[Ath]

What brand/model monitors are you using?

I'd like to add that Iiyama has a 26" model that has the 1920x1200 resolution, so I choose over the 27" model because that only has 1080 pixels vertically, and it has good brightness etc. (at least when connected with DVI, there's also a model that adds hdmi). I'm aiming for 2 of those at work to replace my 22" 1680x1050 and 19" 1280x1024, and already have one at home that I'm really fond of.
I selected it for both resolution and pixel size (0,285 mm), (age comes with imperfect eyes).

[Perry Mowbray]

1) lots of monitors equates to lots of light in your face. obvious really. but i never thought about it until my eyes starting aching. so, main monitor is now "normal" brightness and the other three are set to be quite dark. if your room is well illuminated then i doubt the monitor brightness will be an issue; i'm sat in a dark room, so having four "normal" bright monitors is similar to staring into a light bulb all day, i.e. not very clever.

There must be a way to script something like that... monitor with active window is brighter?

although that wouldn't work when you work on one and read on another...

And ergonomically... aren't you meant to have your eyes level with the centre of your monitor?

[nudone]

Perry, it was something i did consider posting a coding snack request about. i decided not to because of the drawback you mentioned, i.e. what defines the "working" monitor.

as for ergonomics - i ignore the rules completely. my posture is terrible (curved spine) so just setting up a comfortable environment for one monitor is troubling enough. which really means i should have known not to place a secondary monitor above the main one - but sometimes you just have to, stubbornly, try things.

[Perry Mowbray]

Perry, it was something i did consider posting a coding snack request about. i decided not to because of the drawback you mentioned, i.e. what defines the "working" monitor.

A hotkey for sticky window highlight? 

[Renegade]

Perry, it was something i did consider posting a coding snack request about. i decided not to because of the drawback you mentioned, i.e. what defines the "working" monitor.

as for ergonomics - i ignore the rules completely. my posture is terrible (curved spine) so just setting up a comfortable environment for one monitor is troubling enough. which really means i should have known not to place a secondary monitor above the main one - but sometimes you just have to, stubbornly, try things.

It sounds to me like enumerating the monitors is step 1. Next, keep the monitor with the mouse bright and dull the rest. Next (or in between), give the user a very small graphical UI that lets them "toggle" monitors brighter or darker permanently. It would be ideal in the taskbar notification area.

Off-hand, I don't know how to dim or lighten monitors, but I'll look into it. My wife is still in Vietnam for a friend's wedding, so my new years will be full of computing joy~! (Y'know... Always look on the bright side of life~! Dee doo, dee doo,  dee doo dee doo, dee doo~!)

@nudone -- I sit relatively low because my desk is pretty low and I don't want to spend the money on a higher desk since we will likely move from Australia in a couple years. However, a good chair is a must. I didn't go out and grab a Herman Miller, but the one I have is still quite good. It reclines and that puts my line of sight well above what it would be if I were sitting straight up. Monitors should be at eye level or lower, but reclining changes "eye-level" to an arc that lets you more easily view higher monitors. Not sure if you've tried that or not, so just throwing it out there.

[Perry Mowbray]

It sounds to me like enumerating the monitors is step 1. Next, keep the monitor with the mouse bright and dull the rest. Next (or in between), give the user a very small graphical UI that lets them "toggle" monitors brighter or darker permanently. It would be ideal in the taskbar notification area.

That would work... I also think having windows "remembered" by class / title / text options would be handy. I tend to not keep the same windows on the same monitors and adjust my working environment (which monitor is the read and which is the work).

... I must invest in a better chair....

[Renegade]

It sounds to me like enumerating the monitors is step 1. Next, keep the monitor with the mouse bright and dull the rest. Next (or in between), give the user a very small graphical UI that lets them "toggle" monitors brighter or darker permanently. It would be ideal in the taskbar notification area.

That would work... I also think having windows "remembered" by class / title / text options would be handy. I tend to not keep the same windows on the same monitors and adjust my working environment (which monitor is the read and which is the work).

... I must invest in a better chair....

Well, I've found out how to adjust the brightness for ALL monitors... But that doesn't help too much... I'll keep looking into it, but it's going to be a tad hairy as I'm not really sure where I'm going on this one...

For chairs -- yeah --- definitely worth the investment. This one was only about $350 or $380, but it's good enough.

Your chair affects your entire being, and is really worth it to keep yourself comfortable. You can be much more productive that way. Same with shoes when you walk a lot. I'm a firm believer in spending on those things.

[Perry Mowbray]

Well, I've found out how to adjust the brightness for ALL monitors... But that doesn't help too much... I'll keep looking into it, but it's going to be a tad hairy as I'm not really sure where I'm going on this one...

This one supports multiple monitors: http://quickgamma.de/indexen.html

[nudone]

i think the "working" monitor brightness is going to require quite a bit of thought.

we could have "working" defined as, screen with:

1) active window

2) mouse cursor location

3) user set screen, i.e. a specific monitor is always the "working" screen.

4) keyboard shortcut temporarily defines "working" monitor.

5) probably other methods too

I gave up on wanting brightness levels to be triggered by an event as I realised that the "working" monitor would simply be the one I'm staring at, i.e. the computer has no idea what my eyeballs are doing.

Don't get me wrong, it would be great to still have some kind of quick toggle that changed secondary monitor brightness. I just don't think it would work as well as we all hope.

@Renegade, I think my office chair is an "okay" one. I got it free but I believe it was expensive (if that is an indication of ergonomic quality). I do have to slump a bit in any chair to feel comfortable - which means my eye to screen level is not quite orthadox. I've tried several positions and cushions and all that, I just try to be comfortable - it just means the top monitor is too high up and that's with quite a low desk.

[Perry Mowbray]

I gave up on wanting brightness levels to be triggered by an event as I realised that the "working" monitor would simply be the one I'm staring at, i.e. the computer has no idea what my eyeballs are doing.

It'd be neat if you could use a webcam to do that