I’ve been combining one monitor in portrait mode alongside one monitor in landscape mode for about a year. It’s a great setup for software developers. I often open code and logs on the portrait monitor. Everything else on the one in landscape. With Rectangles.app I can place two separate applications on either monitor with a key combination. I place one window in the vertical top half and one in the vertical bottom half on my portrait monitor, for example. Or one window in the horizontal left half and one in the right half on the landscape monitor. There’s lots of possibilities and great flexibility. I’d recommend it.
How to pick a good monitor for software development
31–40 of 184 posts
Re: How to pick a good monitor for software development
#32I went from 2 wide screens to a single ultra wide, and I'm never going back. It's like you have two screens (well, more like 1.5), but they are optimally positioned, and there's no bevel in the middle. It's worth mentioning that I use i3, which helps a lot organising all that screen real state. I can see how obnoxious it could be to use it with other desktop environments. Bonus: It's awesome for gaming. Most games su…
It depends on the game. I much prefer 24" 240Hz+ monitors for competitive reaction-based games. But yes, ultra-wide monitors are incredible for productive tasks.
> ultra-wide monitors are incredible for productive tasks
But they always seem really short? The wider they get the shorter they seem to get. Not sure why that is. Doesn't work for viewing code or text does it?
Re: How to pick a good monitor for software development
#33I recently got a 27" 4k monitor that I use at 2x scaling, and I'm never going back to fewer pixels per inch. When I now have to look at monitors with a lower PPIU it hurts my eyes. I can see the individual pixels very clearly and letters are blurry. Much less eyestrain on 4k, can recommend!
I have one like that, and having a MBP retina driving it below it, I can't not notice the pixels on the 4k monitor. I wish we could have more options either 24@4K or 27@5K. Having a retina display next to it makes the differences quite apparent.
Re: How to pick a good monitor for software development
#34I wish that 4:3 monitors would come back, my personal dev setup uses a 23" 16:9 monitor in the middle with one 17" 4:3 on each side for a total of three. Three 16:9 monitors are too wide for me to work comfortably (have to turn both my body and my head) and two 16:9s have the bezel in the middle and require me to have my head skewed constantly when working. I've tried using vertically oriented 16:9 monitors on the side, but I find I need to move my head up and down too much for my tastes.
Re: How to pick a good monitor for software development
#35I've recently switched from using a 15 or 17 inch laptop along with a 27 inch curved screen to a 13 inch laptop with a pair of 28 inch 4k flat screens, and am really liking it. I run Linux, and have various gnome extensions to allow for quick placement - main browser, second browser window for Comms stuff, slack, terminal, ide, etc. Combined with a dual monitor stand allowing me to grab a screen and move it closer for particular tasks, or further away for calls, and USB webcam and microphone for calls so people aren't looking at the side of my head while I'm watching them on a bigger screen, and it's a really productive setup.
Re: How to pick a good monitor for software development
#36I recently got a 27" 4k monitor that I use at 2x scaling, and I'm never going back to fewer pixels per inch. When I now have to look at monitors with a lower PPIU it hurts my eyes. I can see the individual pixels very clearly and letters are blurry. Much less eyestrain on 4k, can recommend!
Funny, I'm the opposite. I don't think the price increase for 4k is worth the PPI gain. I 'upgraded' to [0] and I would have stuck with 2k but my laptop was 4k (also not worth it IMO) and having a thunderbolt connection in the monitor is quite useful.
[0] https://www.samsung.com/uk/monitors/high-resolution/tu87f-32...
Re: How to pick a good monitor for software development
#37I upgraded to a 1440p 27" monitor on my work PC and do love it. Kinda tempted to upgrade my personal PC (which has dual 24" 1080p monitors) but honestly have a hard time justifying it when both monitors still work just fine after 7 years of owning them.
Why not do it? I have a gallery of three unused displays. They’re my backup now if anything goes wrong. I recently had to use one of them too, until I could repair my (also old now) 27″ display.
Re: How to pick a good monitor for software development
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
Funny I have a 27" 4k and it's low resolution compared to for example a basic MacBook Pro laptop screen.
The lack of options for 27 inch 5K monitors is disappointing. There is nothing cheaper than the old Ultrafine 5K.
There used to be more options in that market segment but lack of interest kinda made them extinct.
Re: How to pick a good monitor for software development
#39I wish that 4:3 monitors would come back, my personal dev setup uses a 23" 16:9 monitor in the middle with one 17" 4:3 on each side for a total of three. Three 16:9 monitors are too wide for me to work comfortably (have to turn both my body and my head) and two 16:9s have the bezel in the middle and require me to have my head skewed constantly when working. I've tried using vertically oriented 16:9 monitors on the si…
It's not quite 4:3 but LG has a new 16:18 monitor coming out soon:
https://www.extremetech.com/computing/329996-lg-announces-mo...
Re: How to pick a good monitor for software development
#40All I really want is a 96x2 PPI monitor because I'm mainly on Windows and that's what widgets look their best at. 24", 3840x2560 (for 96 x 2 PPI, 3:2 aspect ratio), 120Hz, 10 bits per color, topping out bandwidth at exactly two lanes of UHBR 20 of DisplayPort 2.0 would be my holy grail.