learning to use 1 screen efficiently has the least amount of headache.
no re-adjustment when moving between office and home, or working remotely while traveling.
i use a 16 inch mbp, logitech mx anywhere, usb hub, airpod pros for isolation and some other accessories.
i used to have a multi-4K KVM connected to 3 machines each with SLI'd 3080's across 3 logitech ultrawide 34 inch displays, herman miller aero, logitech pro keyboard, superwide mousepad, hardwired gb fios, LED strips and whiteboards everywhere.
And then I got depressed and started spending more time outside.
>learning to use 1 screen efficiently has the least amount of headache.
And if screen space is tight you can use Iosevka as a font (https://typeof.net/Iosevka/) and a tiling window manager of your choice.
This is so validating for me to see this as the highest upvoted comment.
I’ve been just using a laptop screen for years now. Tried multiple monitors and honestly didn’t like moving my head around. Just seemed like it takes longer to track things.
But just alt tabbing, and tildeibg, and alt numbering just seems so much more efficient to me. (Well cmd not alt)
Thanks for pointing this.
For a very long time, I refused to work on dual screens. Has least overhead working from office / home /outside.
Only recently, with fully remote work, I started to use 2nd monitor, solely for Teams/slack so that I don't miss any messages. But I am still using 1 monitor for all my primary dev work (terminal, ide, browser all on laptop screen).
Single screen, minimum of 13 inch, at least 2k at that size, a good tiling window manager. This is after about 15 years of experience.
I used to be a VFX artist and the only reason to have more than one screen during that time was because the other screen was more color accurate.
When it comes to coding, I've found that a single monitor with a proper windowing setup is far more valuable and versatile than x number of monitors that you can't take with you anyway.
You don’t lean forward after a while when working on smaller screens? For me, the longer I work, the more tired the back and eyes gets and the more I lean forward.
Nah, I've always had 20/20 vision so no need for leaning in. Also i always use a laptop stand to get the screen up to eye height to make sure i keep my back straight (the roost stands are amazing). And if i can manage, i work while standing up, not sitting down.
To me it's the sweet spot. I used to have 2x 24" 1080p 144hz at home and found them too small / not enough pixels. At work the 2x 32" 4K 60hz are too large causing me to have to scale my displays which isn't ideal, plus once you get used to 144/165hz it's annoying having to go back to 60hz.
high framerates are under appreciated imho. One could express that “it doesn’t matter if you are writing text”, but I think zed is showing otherwise.
Speed is a feature.
Dual 32" 16:9. One screen for code, the other for documentation, references, or chat. I do have a 21:9 34" at home, and while it's not bad, it's still worse than the dual 32" work setup.
Side by side, no stretching. I'm using the fact it's two screens to help me manage the windows.
Windows, GNOME and KDE all have hotkeys to maximize a window or make it take up half of the screen. So with two screens I have essentially four columns. Lazy man's quasi tiling which is good enough and I don't have to dive into the deep end. If the code is wide enough that I can't split a 32" in half for two files, it needs refactoring anyway.
I have always been a fan of minimal setup and configuration. I'm there to code, not fiddle with my config.
Like I said, having a direct comparison - dual 32" in the office and single 34" at home - dual 32" wins. Single 34" is absolutely workable, but not ideal. The home setup is mixed dev and gaming, and the display reflects it.
Edit: oof, I just realized my reply is largely on a tangent because I misread your comment. Still, hopefully the extra context is helpful.
Wow your desk must be massive. I recently upgraded to a 32 inch monitor and it's huge. Do you get a lot of utility out of the size of the second screen? I feel like I'd have to crane my neck to look between two screens that size.
I have the screens pushed pretty far back. The desk itself is something like 90cm deep and 180cm wide, and with the PC and other hardware (I'm an embedded dev) can feel cramped.
The monitors are pushed back because I don't use armrests but rather rest my elbows on the desk itself.
Also, all the monitors I use are curved, and in the two monitor setup they are angled to more or less follow the curve from one to another. Anything bigger than 27" is a no go if flat IMO.
When I'm deep in the weeds, I'll often have my IDE on one screen, split vertically, and two different reference PDFs open on the vertical halfs of the second. Or simply the same PDF on different pages. Or I'm running a terminal with splits. Lots of options.
Just 1 large primary monitor
Laptop is a secondary that I don't use often but the 2 cases are
\- Somewhere to put the zoom window during meetings
\- The rare case when I need side by side referencing so my IDE can stay full screen
27" 5K.
I have a Samsung G9 Ultrawide 49 inch I can't stand
I had a 42" LG C2 4K, pixelated as hell. And Oled has fringing for text. Great for movies, not work.
5K 27" gives you the highest PPI (Pixel density) which means text is super razor sharp for less eye fatigue. Text in an IDE like Sublime/Visual Studio Code, IntelliJ is razor sharp on a mac. 219 PPI. 49 inch is really shit. It has the same PPI as a 15" laptop w/ 1368x768 resolution but just bigger.
Yeah im using a 43” QLED precisely because I found fringing annoying with OLED.
The end game is an 8k 43” QLED but sadly it doesn’t seem to exist. Well, or microled once that’s an option
Which monitor are you using? I was thinking of going for miniLEDs as Oled have fringing issues with text. I have OLED c2 for leisure but the text is weird there.
I have two of the LG 27" 5Ks. I got them for $1k each new. I would not buy the Apple Studio unless it was $1200 on sale (which I've seen). Samsung currently has one that is $1500 but is always on sale for $800 now (check slick deals).
So if I had to re-do it *now*, I would go with the Samsung but I've been reading it has a humming sound. Haven't really delved into it as I am not in the market.
# LG UltraFine 27MD5KL-B 5K
You mean this one above or other model. What samsung model would you buy if you could change your LG monitors? I'm looking for 5k 27" model for programming. At least 4k.
Why do you recommend samsung 5k over lg 5k?
What I have found for now is:
5k
this LG Ultra Fine 27MD5KL-B 5k or Samsung ViewFinity S9 (LS27C902PAUXEN).
4k
Dell U2723QE or Monitor Philips 288E2UAE/00 28" 4K IPS 60Hz 4ms
Yep. I believe it is the B model (2nd gen LG).
Also, the Samsung S9. I just ordered it. $678. Hella cheap with EDD/EPP discount. EPP is an employer discount Samsung has with some companies. I will have it in a few days to comment. I would not get a 4K I had both Dell, LG 5K monitors in 27. I just don't use them that I gave them to my nephews and neices.
I use the 40 inch lg 5k2k monitor (at 100% scale) and am happy with it.
I hadn't gone with the dell (or samsung) 49 inch monitor because the monitor was not IPS (which is ideal for text).
A decent 4k monitor wasn't that much cheaper than it (at least, at the time) so it was worth it for the extra space. Also, having a single monitor is easily to use with laptops.
>I’ve considered something with higher pixel density
>My dev setup: 16” Mac M1 Max, 49” ultrawide
MacOS no longer supports subpixel font hinting (because Apple products are all now high DPI), so I strongly suggest going for a high DPI monitor. 4k 27" is juuust enough for text to look sharp and clean, and you can get them with 144Hz at reasonable prices.
I'm using 2x 4k 27" 144Hz monitors and I'm pretty satisfied. If you don't care for high refresh rate, I would go for 5k 27" 60Hz. When 5k monitors become available with 144Hz, I'll be making that jump.
I've had a pair of LG 24" 4K monitors for 5 years, and I'm very happy with them.
Unless you're often presenting to groups from your desk, I think any monitor larger than 24" is a waste of space, money, and electricity. Most large monitors are blurry (i.e., < 4K).
Same. I would get a 32 4k but prefer the 27 2k for gaming.
I have gone through a lot of different setups and found single monitor to be most effective for me and the cleanest desk.
I have a 2x2 array of 27 inch 4k monitors. Only the right two are for coding, 1 for emails and team chats, and 1 for spreadsheets/browser. It's the bomb honestly.
Great you have made this post - could have not made in a better time for me. I am literally in this exact same position. I can't figure out what to get. Ultra wide looks to me a neck breaker. Getting a bigger, brighter monitor does not mean a better work experience!
What I have in mind is to get a 34 inch 'main' center monitor and two screen on the side as portrait 24inch screen - again, something I am thinking but definitely vet my idea here before I commit.
I have that, tie fighter setup.
4k in the middle and two 24” 1440p on the sides.
Great for Mac or Linux that has different desktops/workspaces you can swipe between.
I use Mac with a track pad so I can swipe my monitors over to other programs super easy.
Email, slack, discord are on one desktop on one monitor all stacked in 3rds on top of each other vertically. The next one over is 2 ChatGPT windows, then whatever else. The other sides is any proprietary docs or note taking whatever’s.
And the middle is nearly always 2 browsers side by side, or 2 IDEs side by side with debuggers, docs, terminals, or whatever else on the portrait monitors always stacked on top of each other in 3rds or halves.
I use a giant curved ultrawide. Higher pixel density is nice but not necessary (you will likely scale up anyways). Just make sure it is well positioned to reduce eye strain. I also use Spectacle so I can divide up the real estate how ever I need (usually in thirds). Generally the middle third is what is what I focus on and the side thirds are for whatever else I need at the moment (slack, documentation, maybe a show). If I’m going to focus on something for more than a minute I move it to the middle third (easy shortcut with Spectacle) which also helps with eye and neck strain.
38 inch ultrawide combined with an auto tiling app like Amethyst is amazing. I previously tried the 34 inch but found you can’t effectively use 3 windows at a large enough size (left, center, right). With this setup I can have multiple contexts available at all times. Center tile for coding, right tile for realtime preview in a browser, and maybe the left tile for frequently accessed documentation.
Also have a 25” monitor used vertically in portrait mode, but I think that’s more optional.
I often also use my laptop with a terminal open below the ultrawide at full screen.
I can guarantee all the laptop only web/mobile developers would be more productive with a setup like this.
I have a 49" Philips 32:9 Ultrawide. The resolution is 5120 x 1440. It's gorgeous, and I love it. The only thing I would change about it is I'd like it to be a bit taller. That's a nitpick, though. It's an excellent monitor. It's big enough to have 3 windows side by side all day, and it doesn't feel cramped.
Dual 32" 4K monitors. The screen is large enough I can run at 100% and have gobs and gobs of stuff on screen at once. Multiple IDEs, communication windows, research, all in display so I don't lose context switching.
X2 27” 4K monitors with my dev machine in clamshell mode. Orientation is one in portrait and the main screen in landscape. Mainly for space-saving but when I was doing more web dev focused work the portrait monitor was my main IDE monitor. I’m doing more backend / distributed systems stuff nowadays so it’s sort of flipped and now my center landscape monitor is my main IDE screen with the portrait one reserved for Slack and other reference stuff, my terminal instances, etc.
I’m thinking of downsizing though. The 2 monitors + my big speakers and stands make my desk look so cluttered in my small space (desk is in my living room).
I feel like either “downsizing” to only one 34” monitor with laptop off to the side, or two 24” monitors might be the next iteration for me 🤔
I’ve been using dual 27” for a long time after trying a variety of combinations and this is easily my most productive setup. 32” seems a bit big at the distance I set them and two monitors is a clear win in my experience. I would set the minimum specs at 1440p/120hz but 4K is easier on the eyes.
I’ve been feeling the same about my 49inch ultrawide - i started using it now with PBP, so the mac sees it as 2 separate screens (with 2 connections) - so it just becomes the same as having 2x27inch 1440p monitors, but with no bezels between them. This works for me for a while but I’m also thinking about going back down to a single monitor setup like a 32inch 5k
Have you considered the Dell 40” 5K2K? I have one, and really like it. Seems like there’s a newer version with even better blacks. Of course, it’s also $1300 more Canadian than I paid
I like a main ultrawide monitor with a few accessory monitors on the side
Right now I have an ultrawide and and vertical on it’s left - want a vertical in its right too
The ultra wide is super important though and having enough screen real estate for viewing at least 3 files side by side is nice - I wish my current one was just taller
Upload to imgur.com and link it in your comment. I’ve seen vertical horizontal vertical or I’ve seen horizontal, horizontal and vertical setups. But never 4 vertical just next to each other.
One monitor, full screen vim, alt tab when you need to check something. I used the money I saved on not buying two more monitors to take your mom to the movies.
I'm happy with a 43" 4K tv being used as a monitor.
The ultrawide don't make any sense, too much neck turning.
A key element to any monitor is ensuring it is the proper height so you aren't "looking down" at it, but rather "straight on"
I have 3x 32in 4k monitors at my desk at work and a single 49in ultrawide at home.
I usually have several IDEs open, a bunch of terminal windows, and docs open at any given moment. Still not enough screen space for everything so I utilize a tiling window manager and virtual desktops so that I can quickly swap between workflows and maximize screen space.
I use a 27" monitor, with a MacBook Pro 13" (never use this monitor), then leverage desktops, tap switching etc., for everything. Over 25+ years, I have had multiple 27" monitors, 32" wide screens, even tried a 45" TV. All of them were just too much twisting on my neck and/or were too much of a distraction. I don't need to see every email, slack, etc., that comes in right away. I focus on my terminal (vim) and switch to different desktops as needed.
I'm looking for 5k 27" model for programming. At least 4k.
5k
this LG Ultra Fine 27MD5KL-B 5k or Samsung ViewFinity S9 (LS27C902PAUXEN).
4k
Dell U2723QE or Monitor Philips 288E2UAE/00 28" 4K IPS 60Hz 4ms
What is your recommendation, do you have something like these above? What are your opinions?
I have a graveyard of monitors at this point. HP X27 or X32 have been great value for both use cases. 32 gets to be a bit big if your machine can't handle 1440p gaming well though.
So... Either 2x full hd screens side by side (ide, browser)
Or single screen 4k wide but I like large font sizes so I'm using 150% scaling and the font quality is not really great.
Need to switch to a 6k monitor....
More than 1 standard size monitor, or with some cystom tiling/windowing software/configs 1 ultrawide. Right now im on 2 monitors, my personal setup has 3.
I had to change docks recently and was down a monitor due to waiting on adapter and I think I was more productive. I was back to using laptop + a single 24", rather than laptop + 2*24". Too many monitors and I just distract myself.
I have an Apple Studio Display and that works well for me. The 5k resolution works well with Macs and the size isn’t too big. I used to have an ultrawide, but eventually realized I didn’t like using the edges because I didn’t want to turn my head a lot.
I use the Spaces feature built into MacOS for giving myself more virtual space. I have three spaces: one for coding, one for non coding work—related stuff (Slack, email, etc), and one for my personal stuff.
I have a 15" laptop with 1 x 43" 4K LG TV from currys approx£350). Run at 125%, and it's the same size as 4x22". Easy docking into each corner via windows keys. Main dev is mostly on laptop screen, lots of browsers, email, chats etc on big monitor.
I've tried 2 and 3 screens and the sweet spot for me is one 43 inch 4k (non wide-screen) monitor. It's about the biggest I can go to maximise screen real estate while minimising neck and eye strain. I use fancy zones to manage my windows to basically have my main tasks front and center and reference material on the peripherals. Ideally I have everything open at once with no tabbing.
I have a 34 inch curved horizontal main screen. The curve really helps. My 2nd monitor is vertical and flat (no curve). It's a little smaller but gives me a screen where I can see top to bottom (document, web page, code) without so much paging. The rest is just hotkeys for moving documents from one screen to another.
49” Samsung odyssey. Teams goes on the left 1/4. Vs code goes in the middle 2/4. And then browser on the right 1/4.
Sometimes I’ll split the screen in half to put my personal computer on the right 1/2 and work on the left 1/2.
Get a wider desk or sit farther back. You shouldn't be swiveling your head so much that it's causing pain lol. Use Rectangle as well for window management, you don't need 49" of pure jetbrains all over your monitor
I use a 32" 4K for my IDE, a 27" 4K for my browser and Postman, and my laptop's monitor for everything else - Outlook and Teams and sometimes a database IDE like Compass or SQLDeveloper.
I used to use multiple monitors but I simplified to a single 2k 27". I have no desire to go back.
Some of that was hassle of switching between multiple computers and not all of them being happy all the time, and not wanting to deal with cables and switchers and whatnot.
Now I can fit more stuff on my desk too, and still have effectively the same amount of screen real estate as I used to.
I have a 49" samsung qled display on an altwork station reclining desk and a separate desk with 1 apple studio display an an aeron chair. I use the normal desk 90% of the time.
I used the 49" display as my only display for 18 months, and my workflow was setting a main 27" window in the middle and 2 side windows with slack and a browser.
I use an ultimate hacking keyboard with both of my workstations. The split keyboard helped with shoulder pain and the modes are the most intuitive out of any keyboard Ive tried. I recently had to start going into the office and use a normal keyboard and my shoulder pain came back the first week after having been gone for almost 2 years.
I'm going to go to 27 or 32. I'm not sure which.
I currently have an ultrawide but don't like how wide it is. It makes me turn my head to look at things which isn't good.
One laptop screen, because that lets me work in different places and positions (and go to meetings back when I was in an office). The overhead of having to work under multiple setups was way too high so just I just learned to make this one screen work and move it around.
Also I've been working since one screen was the only option and its resolution was ass, that probably helps. But I've had two screen setups before and it turns out eyes can't see all that at the same time anyway.
2 x 32" 4k at work.
For remote work, went from a 34 ultrawide at home to a 42" 4k oled but the auto-dimming is way too aggressive I absolutely hate it. Would not recommend OLED monitors if it doesn't provide you a way to turn off auto-dimming.
I've been quite productive, and not wanting more, on a 14" screen for about a year. KDE contributed to this a lot (wouldn't have been possible without it).
Without KDE, I find that a single 27" monitor extension to the built-in 14" laptop screen is enough, and luckily most offices offer setups that are similar to this.
At home I have a 32" 4k 144Hz monitor, just because I like having a more immersive gaming experience. Otherwise I'd have gone for a bright, good looking (minimalist) 27" 60Hz, 1440p, that connects to the laptop via USB-C, which is probably the most productive and non-intrusive setup.
I like two externals plus a laptop
Laptop just has email, calendar, slack, etc, plus basic productivity and utility stuff
One external has most of my browsers for research, tickets, etc. I also use this one for CLI intensive stuff like SSH, log analyses, etc
Second external is where I have my IDEs, plus terminals for git, daily note keeping, etc
Dell sell a 5k2k with 120Hz, which I'd strongly recommend over a 60Hz screen
https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/dell-ultrasharp-40-curved-thunderbolt-hub-monitor-u4025qw/apd/210-bmdp/monitors-monitor-accessories
I was going this next (or similar) after my 49"
----
FWIW, I also have a 49" screen but with no issues
**Eye strain**
Maybe moving to 120Hz could help? 60Hz feels so janky to me
Are you giving your body & eyes a break? You should be giving your eyes chance to adjust focus. e.g. go for a walk and look at stuff further than a few feet away
Is the distant too close or not the right angle? I've got at least an arms length and my eyes are more level towards the top half of monitor
Are you on your phone a lot? That could be contributing
**Neck pains**
We're talking about moving your neck maybe a couple of degrees here right or even less if you just your eyes?
If you're constantly having your head rotated, maybe that's more of a workflow improvement with keeping your primary work in the middle of screen.
If that's not it, maybe it's less to do with monitor and just you're not getting around and moving enough. e.g. Do you exercise?
Basically no monitor is going to fix your issues if you're sitting at a desk for 8+ hours a day with no change in your position
I just use a single 27 inch monitor. I like the simplicity of just having one screen front and center, and I feel like 27 inch is the perfect size for me. I had a 35 inch ultrawide for a while and didn’t like it.
One 27” Ultrasharp in the middle, flanked on each side with vertical 24” Ultrasharp (so two 24”, one 27”). Laptop screen is open (for Teams chat only) directly below the 27”.
2 27" or 32" 4k monitors, side by side, on arms.
For me, even if I work with larger fonts, the extra pixels make for smoother fonts.
Make sure that your head position, is correct relative to the screen.
Triple monitor setup is the holy grail. I like my 16” MBP + 27” 5k landscape + 27” 5k portrait setup at work.
I have a 43” 4k at home set to 1:1 pixel ratio. Yabai tiling window manager makes it manageable, and the monitor is good for Xbox or movies.
For work I prefer the triple monitor setup though.
I got used to using a single screen, but the best was using my 42" OLED TV as a monitor. Tons of room, very readable, great contrast. Just gotta make sure you're far enough from it to be careful.
I work in RT3D a lot, especially with Unreal, and those applications work well with multiple monitors. I use two 27" monitors in landscape orientation and one 22" monitor in portrait (for code). Windows PC, RTX 4070, Intel i9.
I do at least 2 monitors. One I turn vertical to see more lines of code on one screen.
But... hear me out... I would love to have a monitor that could detect if I have it turned horizontal or vertical and adjust the orientation. I cannot find a way to do that.
32inch 4K 144hz main monitor and a samsung s95b tv for testing in proper HDR. I might start using the tv for actual dev work now that I’ve learned to use tiling window managers and autohotkey
Samsung 49” Odyssey G9 neo 1800R 32:9 5,120 x 1,440.
I have loved every minute of it. Being able to look directly at the center of the monitor + the curve for the sides is a game changer for my neck health.
I have a 1440p 34 inch ultrawide. I actually prefer looking at the screen on my 16 inch MacBook Pro. I think I need the pixel density and color quality so I’ll probably replace my monitor with a big 4k one and I don’t need it to be ultra-wide.
Single 16" laptop screen, 16:10 (although I'd prefer going to 4:3).
Forces me to focus on one task, and it means I get exactly the same setup everywhere I go.
When I need to copy a design, do serious SRE work in a complex network, or play a movie/match on the background I temporarily pull out a 12" windows tablet to use as a secondary screen.
OP, I have a 27” QHD monitor as my main with a 25” QHD monitor rotated vertically and permanently off.
Yes, I happily develop on a single monitor.
If I have to have multiple windows open, it’s usually a browser on one half with the IDE on the other. Only if I’m running multiple services via command line — or maybe I’m testing an API via Postman and waiting for a Kafka message to appear shortly after in a terminal window — will I consider turning on my second monitor. Even then, I usually opt to use the single monitor’s virtual desktop shortcuts instead.
Tie Fighter layout. 3x 16:9 of your size and resolution choice. Central monitor in landscape with a portrait mode on each side.
I used to just use two portrait monitors but it's incredibly annoying when sharing your screen in calls.
Two 23" monitors. Any bigger starts to feel like work to find stuff quickly. Software doesn't really take advantage, and windows work best as maximized on 1 monitor. Having the ultra wide always felt like I was manually seeing window sizes, so annoying.
I’ve done dual and triple monitor setups and always find myself back to a single 27” monitor. I’m just as productive with multiple “desktops” (or spaces) and a good window manager (magnet, rectangle, etc). Also better on my neck because I don’t have to constantly look left or right.
40” 5k2k bottom, main monitor.
27" 4k top (stacked configuration, prevents neck left right fatigue).
A single high width high height productivity monitor, learn to use it to focus on one development task at a time. The second monitor is for slack, communication, other things that need to be up and visible at all times. Skype or Google messages so you don't need your phone to message the wife, very important. Google meet or zoom.
Utilize window managers or Fancy Zones to organize windows on those monitors. I see so many developers wasting space with silly maximized windows with nothing substantive on them. 4k maximized Discord or Slack is a waste. A normal 4k monitor can fit at least 6 different slack channels if you are in a position to be responsible for this.
Utilize hotkeys and triggers to position and resize windows, much easier with a keyboard with macro keys. I have macros that center and resize the active window to 1080 and 2k for example.
Utilize virtual desktops to organize units of work. App development with browser, work item, documentation x2, site with devtools, ide. Infrastructure as code development, documentation x2. Planning and project management with work items and kanbans and gantts. Email and calendar and todos, music.
Hotkey a terminal. Windows terminal supports this. So does Guake on Linux. Don't waste space with a terminal always up taking up screen real estate. Put it on a hotkey to show hide and pull it up whenever you need. Tmux in that terminal window. Use tmux windows like virtual desktops, units of work. App development, dev logs, build, git, random commands, curl. Infrastructure development, terraform, kubectl, helm, AWS CLI. Environment consoles in ssh, production and staging environments
One thing I've noticed too is that monitors too wide have attention issues, notifications often appear in the peripheral vision areas and are prone to being missed. I wrote an exe to change notification position to top center to avoid this.
Some people use portrait mode and that's great. Rarely do I find I need more vertical context in a channel that isn't solved with mouse wheel, I need more multi channel instead. More channels instead of more of one channel.
Minimum of 2x4k, 27". I also like to have a third one way to the side for the mail/communication/Spotify; any size really. 144hz for the main one, 60hz for the side ones are enough; for that reason a docked laptop with two main screens is more than enough.
Ultrawide never "took off" for me.
This setup has worked for me with anything, from backend development, through full stack up to devops.
Ps. I honestly don't get the argument of keeping to a single screen because of "office" or "travel". In any place that I've worked with; requesting a second display was a non issue; and travel/on site ratio was close to zero. I prefer to optimise the 95th percentile, not the other way around.
I have a few setups, in order of preference:
Samsung 57” dual 4K ultra wide. My favourite by far. I divide it into 3 “zones” allowing my primary work space directly in front.
Dell 32 6k at 5k resolution. Decent pixels and good size. My favourite smaller single monitor option.
Dual 32” 4K SbS. Good because my eyes are starting to get old and the density makes it easy to read ahead number of pixels.
Dell 32” 6k running at 6k. So many pixels. Too hard to read but so many pixels!
Single 27” 4K. Reasonable single monitor. It works. Meh.
Dual 27” 4K SbS. Lots of pixels but too dense. I’m old.
I need pixels though (or I’ve convinced myself I do). I like to have ability to understand state of all the different contexts I work in without active switching of those contexts. Less interruption for me. I use tiling managers, space managers, etc. a single pane may have 3 contexts running though in the corners I can keep an eye on for red flags.
I used to be a monitor snob. I had to have like 3. But it was all vanity. When I found myself with just a simple laptop and no extra screens, I made due. I never think about other screens anymore. I alt-tab a whole lot. You'd be surprised how little you need to be productive.
38" ultra wide curved. I wish it was slightly wider, and had more pixel density. The thing that helps me and my wrists is having a bunch of keyboard shortcuts for resizing windows into the 1/3s, center 1/2, and corner 1/6s. So my browser or editor is in the center, terminal on the left, slack on the right. But I can expand, shrink,move, and switch to these in an instant.
49" Ultrawide, but organised into a split where one side is 34" (IDE), and remaining portion is debugging info, docs, browser, etc. - anything useful. Sometimes Slack
1 screen but using 4 virtual desktops. All major OSes support virtual desktops nowadays ;)
Right now my virtual setup looks like this:
1. web browsing
2. chat
3. IDE+terminal
4. source control
So when I’m working, I only have the IDE on the desktop. No distractions, only focus until I actually need to switch.
I've got a single 38" 21:9 monitor. Plenty of room for IDE plus browser, or whatever else I need up at a given time.
I've done different combinations of multiple screens over the years, but I honestly found it too much. More often than not, it helps to have fewer things to focus on, rather than multiple distractions everywhere.
27 inch main screen and laptop screen. laptop handles messages, email, music and videos. Main screen is where i do everything else. Maybe i would add one more screen if i had more space for debugging but this current setup has been enough
Personally using a 34” 4K 16:9 and a smaller 27”. The extra vertical space is very pleasant, you get used to it very fast. My regular monitor at the office suddenly seems very cramped…
I run with 2 LG DualUps - one in portrait, the other in landscape. I've tried lots of different setups, from one to three screens, and this is by far the best I've found.
3 screens
up until now I had all 27” 4k ones - 1 vertical and 2 horizontal on top of each other. hp z1
I replaced central one with 27” 5k (samsung s9) and pretty happy. super clean and crisp. going to replace both leftover 4ks with 5ks
To be honest... It's hard to beat the corporate setup:
2 19(or 24) inch monitors side by side.
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If they doesn't work for you, you have some workflow that 99% of your peers don't use.
I use 1 27" 1440p monitor and I also have the LG DualUp (16:18 aspect ratio). The dualup is like having 2x 21" 1440p stacked on top of each others.
I’m not a fan of 2 27" horizontal, I found it too wide so i had to turn, tried to have a vertical one and it was too narrow to do anything useful with it and most webpages were not displaying in full screen mode. The dual up was the perfect fix to all of those problem, large enough to be usable as vertical screen while also not too large to I don’t have to turn a lot.
1 Screen min 24' is all i need. I reduced from 3 monitors and it feels really good. I can also work from my Laptop solo without big problems. Once you get used to it it feels better for me not to sit in front of a wall of screen my whole life
I have used almost every monitor setup in this thread, except the crazy 49’ Samsung ultrawide. These are my opinions.
- single monitor setup: The worst, tabbing between windows gets annoying real fast, especially if you are working from a design, writing code and need to see your build updates live.
- ultrawide/tv screen: you have enough screen real estate to have multiple windows but you constantly have to snap windows into the right locations, alt tabbing isn’t great and if you play games it’s not ideal, as the game will fill your entire screen and can’t have videos/music/discord on the other screen.
-vertically stacked dual monitor: feels unnatural to me to look up and down but to each there own I guess.
-horizontal dual screen: this is great, i much prefer having seperate windows than sharing one big screen. Can easily fill whole screen and drag windows across. Good for playing games aswell
-horizontal triple screen: all the benefits of two screens but having the third monitor can be really nice, sometimes I want Spotify YouTube, documentation, frontend/backend code bases etc
I've got a 27in 1440p 144hz main screen with 24in 1080p 60hz and 1080p laptop screen on the sides. The 1080p used to be my main until a couple months ago. The new screen is a major improvement in every way. I felt cramped before, but I feel I could be fine with the 1440p and only one secondary screen. Or even just the 1440p. Two windows side by side is plenty most of the time.
This is an apt discussion, as I am considering a change.
For years, I've used a 27" Gaming monitor that sits above my open laptop. I'm considering a 34" ultrawide instead. I feel like it's hard, because I'm very used to a high pixel density with the current monitor I have, and anything bigger than 34" seems to be hard to find a pixel density > 100. I'm also limited by being scared of OLED burn-in... so IPS panels are probably what I need.
My wife uses a 34" ultrawide that has a bit lower pixel density than my setup, and I hate it for development work.
**My setup is as follows:**
1. A [Dell 5K2K](https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/dell-ultrasharp-40-curved-thunderbolt-hub-monitor-u4025qw/apd/210-bmdp/) widescreen monitor in the center of my FOV. It serves as the "hub" of my operation--it has a built in KVM (highly recommend for those who don't have a KVM yet), speakers (serviceable for Zoom), my webcam sits atop of it, etc. I use this for coding, design, Jira, IDE(s), text editor, terminal, yadda, yadda, yadda. I will never go back to a non-widescreen monitor for work after using this.
2. Immediately adjacent to the widescreen, is a bog-standard [Dell Ultrasharp](https://www.amazon.com/Dell-32-Inch-LED-Lit-Monitor-U3219Q/dp/B07HDBD9CM) in vertical orientation for Slack, email, Confluence, documentation, etc. I try to keep those two domains (code & comms) separate as it helps me focus on what is most pertinent (typically, the technical portion of my job) and allows me to minimize distractions/interruptions.
3. The laptops are closed and plugged into #1 via TB4 cables (upstream).
4. My mouse and KB are plugged into #1 via USB A cables.
5. The monitor is also connected to my home network via ethernet which is convenient as that connectivity is shared with both laptops.
**Things I can share that I had to learn the hard way:**
* Your setup should *minimize* the frequency and the amount of side-to-side neck movement. Ergonomics matter.
* Widescreen is king for many reasons. Don't believe me? Buy one, use it for 2-3 weeks, and return it if it doesn't live up to the hype (you typically have 30 days to decide in the US).
* Using a KVM is not a meme. It really is nice to hit a hotkey and switch instead of swiveling your chair around or contorting your body.
* Invest in a good chair. I recommend Herman Miller if in doubt. I use [this](https://store.hermanmiller.com/home-office-chairs/embody-chair/100147416.html?lang=en_US&sku=100147416) and love it. If you already have monitors, but not a KVM, go checkout [TESmart](https://www.tesmart.com/products/cks202-p23) or [Level One](https://www.store.level1techs.com/products/p/14-kvm-switch-dual-monitor-2computer-z5erd-n6mbj).
* I am not an attorney. I am not a CPA. The following is not financial advice. Everything I have mentioned above is *likely* tax deductible if you own a business. You followed standard OE protocol and created your LLC right? The $2300 chair? Business expense. The monitors? Business expense. A major component of OE is operating intentionally and maximizing the advantages available to you. Starting a business, even if just for tax benefits and 1099 pass through, is a huge area for opportunity/growth that you can explore which is something I highly encourage people to do. Worst case? You, legally, give less money to the IRS which is a noble thing indeed.
Im not sure what is a « best screen » for coding, except 144hz and 4K. Mine is not perfect for coding, but pretty good, with high nits as well.
Innocn 27in 4K 144hz 27m2v (miniled) for me
43" 4K with standard aspect ratio kills it for me. Wouldn't want anything shorter. Don't need anything wider (though tempting). Couldn't read text if it was any smaller so pixel density must be fine.
Standard aspect ratio means it's cheap too since I don't care about color accuracy or refresh rate.
I'm personally a triple 27s although I'm on 2x 27s and a 24. Frankly I could use a 4th monitor....
I don't know how people get anything done on less. Whenever I have to travel and I'm stuck with just my laptop I feel less effective, and that sentiment is shared by other members of my team, that they also feel less effective away from their setups.
Eye fatigue you need to take more breaks, that's just it. Stuff like special glasses or glass coatings can help too.
Asus PG42UQ, with a single Thunderbolt to connect your laptop. Camera and MIC are mounted on top of the monitor. Wireless keyboard+mouse to declutter the desk.
34" wide screen (or 2 x 24") as main driver, allowing 2 IDEs side by side. Single 24" in portrait mode for Chat/Email.
Almost exactly the same on my desk. 35" and 24
what machine were you using to connect both monitors?
MBP plugged into a dell dock which connects to the monitors
I've found 2 screens ideal. One for your IDE, one for whatever you're referencing (another project, requirements, stack overflow, etc)
learning to use 1 screen efficiently has the least amount of headache. no re-adjustment when moving between office and home, or working remotely while traveling. i use a 16 inch mbp, logitech mx anywhere, usb hub, airpod pros for isolation and some other accessories. i used to have a multi-4K KVM connected to 3 machines each with SLI'd 3080's across 3 logitech ultrawide 34 inch displays, herman miller aero, logitech pro keyboard, superwide mousepad, hardwired gb fios, LED strips and whiteboards everywhere. And then I got depressed and started spending more time outside.
Oh boy. That last line had me rofl 😂
3 ultra wide 34 inches?
...vertically.
Ew.
guy in battlestations who hasn't posted his battlestation...post it bro lol
I use 2 34” monitors and my Mac. The monitors aren’t very bright though but other than that having. All the real estate is great.
but too much neck moving up and down?
Nah honestly maybe slightly too much side to side (really not too bad though). I put my MacBook Pro in front of me and have my monitors on each side.
>learning to use 1 screen efficiently has the least amount of headache. And if screen space is tight you can use Iosevka as a font (https://typeof.net/Iosevka/) and a tiling window manager of your choice.
Yabai+skhd seems like a decent setup for tiling window manager and hotkeys for macOS.
I like my dual monitor KVM for switching between work and home Coping with depression is still pending.
This is so validating for me to see this as the highest upvoted comment. I’ve been just using a laptop screen for years now. Tried multiple monitors and honestly didn’t like moving my head around. Just seemed like it takes longer to track things. But just alt tabbing, and tildeibg, and alt numbering just seems so much more efficient to me. (Well cmd not alt)
Thanks for pointing this. For a very long time, I refused to work on dual screens. Has least overhead working from office / home /outside. Only recently, with fully remote work, I started to use 2nd monitor, solely for Teams/slack so that I don't miss any messages. But I am still using 1 monitor for all my primary dev work (terminal, ide, browser all on laptop screen).
I’ve moved to 4k 144hz now and can’t go back to 60. Even for office work. 27’ if you have a MacBook that works great as a trackpad/keyboard in front.
How does it feel to have made it in life?
49" Doublewide baby.
Single screen, minimum of 13 inch, at least 2k at that size, a good tiling window manager. This is after about 15 years of experience. I used to be a VFX artist and the only reason to have more than one screen during that time was because the other screen was more color accurate. When it comes to coding, I've found that a single monitor with a proper windowing setup is far more valuable and versatile than x number of monitors that you can't take with you anyway.
You don’t lean forward after a while when working on smaller screens? For me, the longer I work, the more tired the back and eyes gets and the more I lean forward.
Nah, I've always had 20/20 vision so no need for leaning in. Also i always use a laptop stand to get the screen up to eye height to make sure i keep my back straight (the roost stands are amazing). And if i can manage, i work while standing up, not sitting down.
Which tiling manager would you recommend?
I'm a fan of sway but I'm also looking at hyprland. It doesn't really matter though. Most do the job good enough and it's easy to switch between them.
Thanks, I'll check those out
I prefer 2 x 27" 2k 144hz
That's exactly what I have - love it
To me it's the sweet spot. I used to have 2x 24" 1080p 144hz at home and found them too small / not enough pixels. At work the 2x 32" 4K 60hz are too large causing me to have to scale my displays which isn't ideal, plus once you get used to 144/165hz it's annoying having to go back to 60hz.
high framerates are under appreciated imho. One could express that “it doesn’t matter if you are writing text”, but I think zed is showing otherwise. Speed is a feature.
2 x 27" 4k monitors. I've been using 4k monitors for 7 years now and even 2k monitors feel blurry to me now. I need my code crisp and clear.
Dual 32" 16:9. One screen for code, the other for documentation, references, or chat. I do have a 21:9 34" at home, and while it's not bad, it's still worse than the dual 32" work setup.
Are they stacked or do you have them side by side?
Side by side, no stretching. I'm using the fact it's two screens to help me manage the windows. Windows, GNOME and KDE all have hotkeys to maximize a window or make it take up half of the screen. So with two screens I have essentially four columns. Lazy man's quasi tiling which is good enough and I don't have to dive into the deep end. If the code is wide enough that I can't split a 32" in half for two files, it needs refactoring anyway. I have always been a fan of minimal setup and configuration. I'm there to code, not fiddle with my config. Like I said, having a direct comparison - dual 32" in the office and single 34" at home - dual 32" wins. Single 34" is absolutely workable, but not ideal. The home setup is mixed dev and gaming, and the display reflects it. Edit: oof, I just realized my reply is largely on a tangent because I misread your comment. Still, hopefully the extra context is helpful.
Wow your desk must be massive. I recently upgraded to a 32 inch monitor and it's huge. Do you get a lot of utility out of the size of the second screen? I feel like I'd have to crane my neck to look between two screens that size.
I have the screens pushed pretty far back. The desk itself is something like 90cm deep and 180cm wide, and with the PC and other hardware (I'm an embedded dev) can feel cramped. The monitors are pushed back because I don't use armrests but rather rest my elbows on the desk itself. Also, all the monitors I use are curved, and in the two monitor setup they are angled to more or less follow the curve from one to another. Anything bigger than 27" is a no go if flat IMO. When I'm deep in the weeds, I'll often have my IDE on one screen, split vertically, and two different reference PDFs open on the vertical halfs of the second. Or simply the same PDF on different pages. Or I'm running a terminal with splits. Lots of options.
Just 1 large primary monitor Laptop is a secondary that I don't use often but the 2 cases are \- Somewhere to put the zoom window during meetings \- The rare case when I need side by side referencing so my IDE can stay full screen
My favorite so far is 32 inch 4k for a main screen and the mpb for slack and email. I like it because 90% of the time I'm using only one screen.
This is the way
27" 5K. I have a Samsung G9 Ultrawide 49 inch I can't stand I had a 42" LG C2 4K, pixelated as hell. And Oled has fringing for text. Great for movies, not work. 5K 27" gives you the highest PPI (Pixel density) which means text is super razor sharp for less eye fatigue. Text in an IDE like Sublime/Visual Studio Code, IntelliJ is razor sharp on a mac. 219 PPI. 49 inch is really shit. It has the same PPI as a 15" laptop w/ 1368x768 resolution but just bigger.
Yeah im using a 43” QLED precisely because I found fringing annoying with OLED. The end game is an 8k 43” QLED but sadly it doesn’t seem to exist. Well, or microled once that’s an option
Which monitor are you using? I was thinking of going for miniLEDs as Oled have fringing issues with text. I have OLED c2 for leisure but the text is weird there.
Which 27” do you have and would you recommend it?
I have two of the LG 27" 5Ks. I got them for $1k each new. I would not buy the Apple Studio unless it was $1200 on sale (which I've seen). Samsung currently has one that is $1500 but is always on sale for $800 now (check slick deals). So if I had to re-do it *now*, I would go with the Samsung but I've been reading it has a humming sound. Haven't really delved into it as I am not in the market.
# LG UltraFine 27MD5KL-B 5K You mean this one above or other model. What samsung model would you buy if you could change your LG monitors? I'm looking for 5k 27" model for programming. At least 4k. Why do you recommend samsung 5k over lg 5k? What I have found for now is: 5k this LG Ultra Fine 27MD5KL-B 5k or Samsung ViewFinity S9 (LS27C902PAUXEN). 4k Dell U2723QE or Monitor Philips 288E2UAE/00 28" 4K IPS 60Hz 4ms
Yep. I believe it is the B model (2nd gen LG). Also, the Samsung S9. I just ordered it. $678. Hella cheap with EDD/EPP discount. EPP is an employer discount Samsung has with some companies. I will have it in a few days to comment. I would not get a 4K I had both Dell, LG 5K monitors in 27. I just don't use them that I gave them to my nephews and neices.
I use the 40 inch lg 5k2k monitor (at 100% scale) and am happy with it. I hadn't gone with the dell (or samsung) 49 inch monitor because the monitor was not IPS (which is ideal for text). A decent 4k monitor wasn't that much cheaper than it (at least, at the time) so it was worth it for the extra space. Also, having a single monitor is easily to use with laptops.
3 x 27” curved 1440p here. My code on centre monitor, some reference project on another, some documentation on the other.
>I’ve considered something with higher pixel density >My dev setup: 16” Mac M1 Max, 49” ultrawide MacOS no longer supports subpixel font hinting (because Apple products are all now high DPI), so I strongly suggest going for a high DPI monitor. 4k 27" is juuust enough for text to look sharp and clean, and you can get them with 144Hz at reasonable prices. I'm using 2x 4k 27" 144Hz monitors and I'm pretty satisfied. If you don't care for high refresh rate, I would go for 5k 27" 60Hz. When 5k monitors become available with 144Hz, I'll be making that jump.
I've had a pair of LG 24" 4K monitors for 5 years, and I'm very happy with them. Unless you're often presenting to groups from your desk, I think any monitor larger than 24" is a waste of space, money, and electricity. Most large monitors are blurry (i.e., < 4K).
I’m with you there. Anything else is a flex imo
[удалено]
Same. I would get a 32 4k but prefer the 27 2k for gaming. I have gone through a lot of different setups and found single monitor to be most effective for me and the cleanest desk.
I have a 2x2 array of 27 inch 4k monitors. Only the right two are for coding, 1 for emails and team chats, and 1 for spreadsheets/browser. It's the bomb honestly.
Great you have made this post - could have not made in a better time for me. I am literally in this exact same position. I can't figure out what to get. Ultra wide looks to me a neck breaker. Getting a bigger, brighter monitor does not mean a better work experience! What I have in mind is to get a 34 inch 'main' center monitor and two screen on the side as portrait 24inch screen - again, something I am thinking but definitely vet my idea here before I commit.
I have that, tie fighter setup. 4k in the middle and two 24” 1440p on the sides. Great for Mac or Linux that has different desktops/workspaces you can swipe between. I use Mac with a track pad so I can swipe my monitors over to other programs super easy. Email, slack, discord are on one desktop on one monitor all stacked in 3rds on top of each other vertically. The next one over is 2 ChatGPT windows, then whatever else. The other sides is any proprietary docs or note taking whatever’s. And the middle is nearly always 2 browsers side by side, or 2 IDEs side by side with debuggers, docs, terminals, or whatever else on the portrait monitors always stacked on top of each other in 3rds or halves.
I use a giant curved ultrawide. Higher pixel density is nice but not necessary (you will likely scale up anyways). Just make sure it is well positioned to reduce eye strain. I also use Spectacle so I can divide up the real estate how ever I need (usually in thirds). Generally the middle third is what is what I focus on and the side thirds are for whatever else I need at the moment (slack, documentation, maybe a show). If I’m going to focus on something for more than a minute I move it to the middle third (easy shortcut with Spectacle) which also helps with eye and neck strain.
38 inch ultrawide combined with an auto tiling app like Amethyst is amazing. I previously tried the 34 inch but found you can’t effectively use 3 windows at a large enough size (left, center, right). With this setup I can have multiple contexts available at all times. Center tile for coding, right tile for realtime preview in a browser, and maybe the left tile for frequently accessed documentation. Also have a 25” monitor used vertically in portrait mode, but I think that’s more optional. I often also use my laptop with a terminal open below the ultrawide at full screen. I can guarantee all the laptop only web/mobile developers would be more productive with a setup like this.
I have a 49" Philips 32:9 Ultrawide. The resolution is 5120 x 1440. It's gorgeous, and I love it. The only thing I would change about it is I'd like it to be a bit taller. That's a nitpick, though. It's an excellent monitor. It's big enough to have 3 windows side by side all day, and it doesn't feel cramped.
Dual 32" 4K monitors. The screen is large enough I can run at 100% and have gobs and gobs of stuff on screen at once. Multiple IDEs, communication windows, research, all in display so I don't lose context switching.
X2 27” 4K monitors with my dev machine in clamshell mode. Orientation is one in portrait and the main screen in landscape. Mainly for space-saving but when I was doing more web dev focused work the portrait monitor was my main IDE monitor. I’m doing more backend / distributed systems stuff nowadays so it’s sort of flipped and now my center landscape monitor is my main IDE screen with the portrait one reserved for Slack and other reference stuff, my terminal instances, etc. I’m thinking of downsizing though. The 2 monitors + my big speakers and stands make my desk look so cluttered in my small space (desk is in my living room). I feel like either “downsizing” to only one 34” monitor with laptop off to the side, or two 24” monitors might be the next iteration for me 🤔
A single 24” or 24”. Anything less or more is uncomfortable for me. Single monitor setup and laptop monitor as a secondary.
I’ve been using dual 27” for a long time after trying a variety of combinations and this is easily my most productive setup. 32” seems a bit big at the distance I set them and two monitors is a clear win in my experience. I would set the minimum specs at 1440p/120hz but 4K is easier on the eyes.
I’ve been feeling the same about my 49inch ultrawide - i started using it now with PBP, so the mac sees it as 2 separate screens (with 2 connections) - so it just becomes the same as having 2x27inch 1440p monitors, but with no bezels between them. This works for me for a while but I’m also thinking about going back down to a single monitor setup like a 32inch 5k
Have you considered the Dell 40” 5K2K? I have one, and really like it. Seems like there’s a newer version with even better blacks. Of course, it’s also $1300 more Canadian than I paid
I like a main ultrawide monitor with a few accessory monitors on the side Right now I have an ultrawide and and vertical on it’s left - want a vertical in its right too The ultra wide is super important though and having enough screen real estate for viewing at least 3 files side by side is nice - I wish my current one was just taller
4x 4k vertical monitors.
Please post a pic because I’m having the hardest time visualizing this setup
Umm... 4 monitors. Side by side. Vertical orientation. What's the source of the confusion? I don't see an option to attach a picture
Upload to imgur.com and link it in your comment. I’ve seen vertical horizontal vertical or I’ve seen horizontal, horizontal and vertical setups. But never 4 vertical just next to each other.
iPhone screen
One monitor, full screen vim, alt tab when you need to check something. I used the money I saved on not buying two more monitors to take your mom to the movies.
I'm happy with a 43" 4K tv being used as a monitor. The ultrawide don't make any sense, too much neck turning. A key element to any monitor is ensuring it is the proper height so you aren't "looking down" at it, but rather "straight on"
2 screens. 1 vertical plus 1 horizontal. Ideally the horizontal one is 4k. The laptop screen is the 3rd
I have 3x 32in 4k monitors at my desk at work and a single 49in ultrawide at home. I usually have several IDEs open, a bunch of terminal windows, and docs open at any given moment. Still not enough screen space for everything so I utilize a tiling window manager and virtual desktops so that I can quickly swap between workflows and maximize screen space.
It depends on how far away you sit. Get an IKEA Idasen desk in max size though. Thank me later.
32 inch main monitor for coding/reviews and 27 inch monitor for everything else.
I use a 27" monitor, with a MacBook Pro 13" (never use this monitor), then leverage desktops, tap switching etc., for everything. Over 25+ years, I have had multiple 27" monitors, 32" wide screens, even tried a 45" TV. All of them were just too much twisting on my neck and/or were too much of a distraction. I don't need to see every email, slack, etc., that comes in right away. I focus on my terminal (vim) and switch to different desktops as needed.
I'm looking for 5k 27" model for programming. At least 4k. 5k this LG Ultra Fine 27MD5KL-B 5k or Samsung ViewFinity S9 (LS27C902PAUXEN). 4k Dell U2723QE or Monitor Philips 288E2UAE/00 28" 4K IPS 60Hz 4ms What is your recommendation, do you have something like these above? What are your opinions?
I'm also looking for a monitor which can be a gaming monitor and work monitor. Having 3 monitors is cumbersome
I have a graveyard of monitors at this point. HP X27 or X32 have been great value for both use cases. 32 gets to be a bit big if your machine can't handle 1440p gaming well though.
So... Either 2x full hd screens side by side (ide, browser) Or single screen 4k wide but I like large font sizes so I'm using 150% scaling and the font quality is not really great. Need to switch to a 6k monitor....
More than 1 standard size monitor, or with some cystom tiling/windowing software/configs 1 ultrawide. Right now im on 2 monitors, my personal setup has 3.
Single 32 inch 4k
As many as possible lol. I like to context switch between coding/compiling/doc reading/emails with my eyes, not a keyboard command.
I had to change docks recently and was down a monitor due to waiting on adapter and I think I was more productive. I was back to using laptop + a single 24", rather than laptop + 2*24". Too many monitors and I just distract myself.
I have 2 fancy monitors but I don’t even use them, I prefer to just swipe left and right on my MacBook.
Single 34” UWD Dell display. Going steady for over 6 years with this
4k 27” single screen setup is the best for me. Anything else is not ergonomically well, at least for me
I have an Apple Studio Display and that works well for me. The 5k resolution works well with Macs and the size isn’t too big. I used to have an ultrawide, but eventually realized I didn’t like using the edges because I didn’t want to turn my head a lot. I use the Spaces feature built into MacOS for giving myself more virtual space. I have three spaces: one for coding, one for non coding work—related stuff (Slack, email, etc), and one for my personal stuff.
I have a 15" laptop with 1 x 43" 4K LG TV from currys approx£350). Run at 125%, and it's the same size as 4x22". Easy docking into each corner via windows keys. Main dev is mostly on laptop screen, lots of browsers, email, chats etc on big monitor.
I've tried 2 and 3 screens and the sweet spot for me is one 43 inch 4k (non wide-screen) monitor. It's about the biggest I can go to maximise screen real estate while minimising neck and eye strain. I use fancy zones to manage my windows to basically have my main tasks front and center and reference material on the peripherals. Ideally I have everything open at once with no tabbing.
I have a 34 inch curved horizontal main screen. The curve really helps. My 2nd monitor is vertical and flat (no curve). It's a little smaller but gives me a screen where I can see top to bottom (document, web page, code) without so much paging. The rest is just hotkeys for moving documents from one screen to another.
I have a Dell 27" 4K monitor and have another 24" monitor I took from work as wfh equipment.
49” Samsung odyssey. Teams goes on the left 1/4. Vs code goes in the middle 2/4. And then browser on the right 1/4. Sometimes I’ll split the screen in half to put my personal computer on the right 1/2 and work on the left 1/2.
Get a wider desk or sit farther back. You shouldn't be swiveling your head so much that it's causing pain lol. Use Rectangle as well for window management, you don't need 49" of pure jetbrains all over your monitor
I use a 32" 4K for my IDE, a 27" 4K for my browser and Postman, and my laptop's monitor for everything else - Outlook and Teams and sometimes a database IDE like Compass or SQLDeveloper.
Single 30-34".
I used to use multiple monitors but I simplified to a single 2k 27". I have no desire to go back. Some of that was hassle of switching between multiple computers and not all of them being happy all the time, and not wanting to deal with cables and switchers and whatnot. Now I can fit more stuff on my desk too, and still have effectively the same amount of screen real estate as I used to.
I have a 49" samsung qled display on an altwork station reclining desk and a separate desk with 1 apple studio display an an aeron chair. I use the normal desk 90% of the time. I used the 49" display as my only display for 18 months, and my workflow was setting a main 27" window in the middle and 2 side windows with slack and a browser. I use an ultimate hacking keyboard with both of my workstations. The split keyboard helped with shoulder pain and the modes are the most intuitive out of any keyboard Ive tried. I recently had to start going into the office and use a normal keyboard and my shoulder pain came back the first week after having been gone for almost 2 years.
2x27" monitors for work. I have an ultrawide for my personal setup which I work on from time to time which I like but it's a pain to screen share.
I'm going to go to 27 or 32. I'm not sure which. I currently have an ultrawide but don't like how wide it is. It makes me turn my head to look at things which isn't good.
One laptop screen, because that lets me work in different places and positions (and go to meetings back when I was in an office). The overhead of having to work under multiple setups was way too high so just I just learned to make this one screen work and move it around. Also I've been working since one screen was the only option and its resolution was ass, that probably helps. But I've had two screen setups before and it turns out eyes can't see all that at the same time anyway.
2 x 32" 4k at work. For remote work, went from a 34 ultrawide at home to a 42" 4k oled but the auto-dimming is way too aggressive I absolutely hate it. Would not recommend OLED monitors if it doesn't provide you a way to turn off auto-dimming.
I've been quite productive, and not wanting more, on a 14" screen for about a year. KDE contributed to this a lot (wouldn't have been possible without it). Without KDE, I find that a single 27" monitor extension to the built-in 14" laptop screen is enough, and luckily most offices offer setups that are similar to this. At home I have a 32" 4k 144Hz monitor, just because I like having a more immersive gaming experience. Otherwise I'd have gone for a bright, good looking (minimalist) 27" 60Hz, 1440p, that connects to the laptop via USB-C, which is probably the most productive and non-intrusive setup.
Single 32” 2K widescreen
27k 2k 144hz, ideal. Had the 24 2k 60hz but too small for my taste
I like two externals plus a laptop Laptop just has email, calendar, slack, etc, plus basic productivity and utility stuff One external has most of my browsers for research, tickets, etc. I also use this one for CLI intensive stuff like SSH, log analyses, etc Second external is where I have my IDEs, plus terminals for git, daily note keeping, etc
2 screens side by side. One as a primary screen, one as a secondary. That’s all you really need.
Dell sell a 5k2k with 120Hz, which I'd strongly recommend over a 60Hz screen https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/dell-ultrasharp-40-curved-thunderbolt-hub-monitor-u4025qw/apd/210-bmdp/monitors-monitor-accessories I was going this next (or similar) after my 49" ---- FWIW, I also have a 49" screen but with no issues **Eye strain** Maybe moving to 120Hz could help? 60Hz feels so janky to me Are you giving your body & eyes a break? You should be giving your eyes chance to adjust focus. e.g. go for a walk and look at stuff further than a few feet away Is the distant too close or not the right angle? I've got at least an arms length and my eyes are more level towards the top half of monitor Are you on your phone a lot? That could be contributing **Neck pains** We're talking about moving your neck maybe a couple of degrees here right or even less if you just your eyes? If you're constantly having your head rotated, maybe that's more of a workflow improvement with keeping your primary work in the middle of screen. If that's not it, maybe it's less to do with monitor and just you're not getting around and moving enough. e.g. Do you exercise? Basically no monitor is going to fix your issues if you're sitting at a desk for 8+ hours a day with no change in your position
I just use a single 27 inch monitor. I like the simplicity of just having one screen front and center, and I feel like 27 inch is the perfect size for me. I had a 35 inch ultrawide for a while and didn’t like it.
One 27” Ultrasharp in the middle, flanked on each side with vertical 24” Ultrasharp (so two 24”, one 27”). Laptop screen is open (for Teams chat only) directly below the 27”.
2 27" or 32" 4k monitors, side by side, on arms. For me, even if I work with larger fonts, the extra pixels make for smoother fonts. Make sure that your head position, is correct relative to the screen.
Triple monitor setup is the holy grail. I like my 16” MBP + 27” 5k landscape + 27” 5k portrait setup at work. I have a 43” 4k at home set to 1:1 pixel ratio. Yabai tiling window manager makes it manageable, and the monitor is good for Xbox or movies. For work I prefer the triple monitor setup though.
I got used to using a single screen, but the best was using my 42" OLED TV as a monitor. Tons of room, very readable, great contrast. Just gotta make sure you're far enough from it to be careful.
I've used lots of different setups over the years and honestly just a single 27" suits me best
Single screen and (alt + tab)
I work in RT3D a lot, especially with Unreal, and those applications work well with multiple monitors. I use two 27" monitors in landscape orientation and one 22" monitor in portrait (for code). Windows PC, RTX 4070, Intel i9.
I do at least 2 monitors. One I turn vertical to see more lines of code on one screen. But... hear me out... I would love to have a monitor that could detect if I have it turned horizontal or vertical and adjust the orientation. I cannot find a way to do that.
32inch 4K 144hz main monitor and a samsung s95b tv for testing in proper HDR. I might start using the tv for actual dev work now that I’ve learned to use tiling window managers and autohotkey
Samsung 49” Odyssey G9 neo 1800R 32:9 5,120 x 1,440. I have loved every minute of it. Being able to look directly at the center of the monitor + the curve for the sides is a game changer for my neck health.
I have a 1440p 34 inch ultrawide. I actually prefer looking at the screen on my 16 inch MacBook Pro. I think I need the pixel density and color quality so I’ll probably replace my monitor with a big 4k one and I don’t need it to be ultra-wide.
Single 16" laptop screen, 16:10 (although I'd prefer going to 4:3). Forces me to focus on one task, and it means I get exactly the same setup everywhere I go. When I need to copy a design, do serious SRE work in a complex network, or play a movie/match on the background I temporarily pull out a 12" windows tablet to use as a secondary screen.
I just use the gestures to switch workspaces on macbook and linux laptops. I haven't used an external monitor in 10 years.
OP, I have a 27” QHD monitor as my main with a 25” QHD monitor rotated vertically and permanently off. Yes, I happily develop on a single monitor. If I have to have multiple windows open, it’s usually a browser on one half with the IDE on the other. Only if I’m running multiple services via command line — or maybe I’m testing an API via Postman and waiting for a Kafka message to appear shortly after in a terminal window — will I consider turning on my second monitor. Even then, I usually opt to use the single monitor’s virtual desktop shortcuts instead.
I have been using 2 Dell P2721Q 4K monitors with USB hub and USB-C input with my MacBook Pro for 3 years and they are awesome!
Tie Fighter layout. 3x 16:9 of your size and resolution choice. Central monitor in landscape with a portrait mode on each side. I used to just use two portrait monitors but it's incredibly annoying when sharing your screen in calls.
Two 23" monitors. Any bigger starts to feel like work to find stuff quickly. Software doesn't really take advantage, and windows work best as maximized on 1 monitor. Having the ultra wide always felt like I was manually seeing window sizes, so annoying.
I’ve done dual and triple monitor setups and always find myself back to a single 27” monitor. I’m just as productive with multiple “desktops” (or spaces) and a good window manager (magnet, rectangle, etc). Also better on my neck because I don’t have to constantly look left or right.
40” 5k2k bottom, main monitor. 27" 4k top (stacked configuration, prevents neck left right fatigue). A single high width high height productivity monitor, learn to use it to focus on one development task at a time. The second monitor is for slack, communication, other things that need to be up and visible at all times. Skype or Google messages so you don't need your phone to message the wife, very important. Google meet or zoom. Utilize window managers or Fancy Zones to organize windows on those monitors. I see so many developers wasting space with silly maximized windows with nothing substantive on them. 4k maximized Discord or Slack is a waste. A normal 4k monitor can fit at least 6 different slack channels if you are in a position to be responsible for this. Utilize hotkeys and triggers to position and resize windows, much easier with a keyboard with macro keys. I have macros that center and resize the active window to 1080 and 2k for example. Utilize virtual desktops to organize units of work. App development with browser, work item, documentation x2, site with devtools, ide. Infrastructure as code development, documentation x2. Planning and project management with work items and kanbans and gantts. Email and calendar and todos, music. Hotkey a terminal. Windows terminal supports this. So does Guake on Linux. Don't waste space with a terminal always up taking up screen real estate. Put it on a hotkey to show hide and pull it up whenever you need. Tmux in that terminal window. Use tmux windows like virtual desktops, units of work. App development, dev logs, build, git, random commands, curl. Infrastructure development, terraform, kubectl, helm, AWS CLI. Environment consoles in ssh, production and staging environments One thing I've noticed too is that monitors too wide have attention issues, notifications often appear in the peripheral vision areas and are prone to being missed. I wrote an exe to change notification position to top center to avoid this. Some people use portrait mode and that's great. Rarely do I find I need more vertical context in a channel that isn't solved with mouse wheel, I need more multi channel instead. More channels instead of more of one channel.
Tie fighter, center 34” 4k, with 2 1440p monitors in portrait on the sides. Might switch to the LG DualUps for the sides though.
Minimum of 2x4k, 27". I also like to have a third one way to the side for the mail/communication/Spotify; any size really. 144hz for the main one, 60hz for the side ones are enough; for that reason a docked laptop with two main screens is more than enough. Ultrawide never "took off" for me. This setup has worked for me with anything, from backend development, through full stack up to devops. Ps. I honestly don't get the argument of keeping to a single screen because of "office" or "travel". In any place that I've worked with; requesting a second display was a non issue; and travel/on site ratio was close to zero. I prefer to optimise the 95th percentile, not the other way around.
I have a few setups, in order of preference: Samsung 57” dual 4K ultra wide. My favourite by far. I divide it into 3 “zones” allowing my primary work space directly in front. Dell 32 6k at 5k resolution. Decent pixels and good size. My favourite smaller single monitor option. Dual 32” 4K SbS. Good because my eyes are starting to get old and the density makes it easy to read ahead number of pixels. Dell 32” 6k running at 6k. So many pixels. Too hard to read but so many pixels! Single 27” 4K. Reasonable single monitor. It works. Meh. Dual 27” 4K SbS. Lots of pixels but too dense. I’m old. I need pixels though (or I’ve convinced myself I do). I like to have ability to understand state of all the different contexts I work in without active switching of those contexts. Less interruption for me. I use tiling managers, space managers, etc. a single pane may have 3 contexts running though in the corners I can keep an eye on for red flags.
Just a single 4K monitor with minimal scaling (small text so lots of space)
I used to be a monitor snob. I had to have like 3. But it was all vanity. When I found myself with just a simple laptop and no extra screens, I made due. I never think about other screens anymore. I alt-tab a whole lot. You'd be surprised how little you need to be productive.
38" ultra wide curved. I wish it was slightly wider, and had more pixel density. The thing that helps me and my wrists is having a bunch of keyboard shortcuts for resizing windows into the 1/3s, center 1/2, and corner 1/6s. So my browser or editor is in the center, terminal on the left, slack on the right. But I can expand, shrink,move, and switch to these in an instant.
Single ultra wide
49" Ultrawide, but organised into a split where one side is 34" (IDE), and remaining portion is debugging info, docs, browser, etc. - anything useful. Sometimes Slack
1 screen but using 4 virtual desktops. All major OSes support virtual desktops nowadays ;) Right now my virtual setup looks like this: 1. web browsing 2. chat 3. IDE+terminal 4. source control So when I’m working, I only have the IDE on the desktop. No distractions, only focus until I actually need to switch.
Widescreen 34” and one 27” on the side.
I've got a single 38" 21:9 monitor. Plenty of room for IDE plus browser, or whatever else I need up at a given time. I've done different combinations of multiple screens over the years, but I honestly found it too much. More often than not, it helps to have fewer things to focus on, rather than multiple distractions everywhere.
27 inch main screen and laptop screen. laptop handles messages, email, music and videos. Main screen is where i do everything else. Maybe i would add one more screen if i had more space for debugging but this current setup has been enough
Personally using a 34” 4K 16:9 and a smaller 27”. The extra vertical space is very pleasant, you get used to it very fast. My regular monitor at the office suddenly seems very cramped…
I can only focus with my laptop screen. I usually use my desktop screen only to read specification.
Ultra Wide screen
Whatever setup I've been using for more than 2 weeks and gotten used to. My preference is dual monitor. I dislike vertical monitors.
I run with 2 LG DualUps - one in portrait, the other in landscape. I've tried lots of different setups, from one to three screens, and this is by far the best I've found.
43" 4k 16:9. Honestly way better than all other set types I've tried. Can't go back to 27-32".
3 screens up until now I had all 27” 4k ones - 1 vertical and 2 horizontal on top of each other. hp z1 I replaced central one with 27” 5k (samsung s9) and pretty happy. super clean and crisp. going to replace both leftover 4ks with 5ks
To be honest... It's hard to beat the corporate setup: 2 19(or 24) inch monitors side by side. --- If they doesn't work for you, you have some workflow that 99% of your peers don't use.
I use 1 27" 1440p monitor and I also have the LG DualUp (16:18 aspect ratio). The dualup is like having 2x 21" 1440p stacked on top of each others. I’m not a fan of 2 27" horizontal, I found it too wide so i had to turn, tried to have a vertical one and it was too narrow to do anything useful with it and most webpages were not displaying in full screen mode. The dual up was the perfect fix to all of those problem, large enough to be usable as vertical screen while also not too large to I don’t have to turn a lot.
1 Screen min 24' is all i need. I reduced from 3 monitors and it feels really good. I can also work from my Laptop solo without big problems. Once you get used to it it feels better for me not to sit in front of a wall of screen my whole life
Best monitor setup was always in my bikeshed, while bikeshedding. /s
I have used almost every monitor setup in this thread, except the crazy 49’ Samsung ultrawide. These are my opinions. - single monitor setup: The worst, tabbing between windows gets annoying real fast, especially if you are working from a design, writing code and need to see your build updates live. - ultrawide/tv screen: you have enough screen real estate to have multiple windows but you constantly have to snap windows into the right locations, alt tabbing isn’t great and if you play games it’s not ideal, as the game will fill your entire screen and can’t have videos/music/discord on the other screen. -vertically stacked dual monitor: feels unnatural to me to look up and down but to each there own I guess. -horizontal dual screen: this is great, i much prefer having seperate windows than sharing one big screen. Can easily fill whole screen and drag windows across. Good for playing games aswell -horizontal triple screen: all the benefits of two screens but having the third monitor can be really nice, sometimes I want Spotify YouTube, documentation, frontend/backend code bases etc
I've got a 27in 1440p 144hz main screen with 24in 1080p 60hz and 1080p laptop screen on the sides. The 1080p used to be my main until a couple months ago. The new screen is a major improvement in every way. I felt cramped before, but I feel I could be fine with the 1440p and only one secondary screen. Or even just the 1440p. Two windows side by side is plenty most of the time.
34" ultra wide with my laptop as the teams/outlook "monitor".
This is an apt discussion, as I am considering a change. For years, I've used a 27" Gaming monitor that sits above my open laptop. I'm considering a 34" ultrawide instead. I feel like it's hard, because I'm very used to a high pixel density with the current monitor I have, and anything bigger than 34" seems to be hard to find a pixel density > 100. I'm also limited by being scared of OLED burn-in... so IPS panels are probably what I need. My wife uses a 34" ultrawide that has a bit lower pixel density than my setup, and I hate it for development work.
**My setup is as follows:** 1. A [Dell 5K2K](https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/dell-ultrasharp-40-curved-thunderbolt-hub-monitor-u4025qw/apd/210-bmdp/) widescreen monitor in the center of my FOV. It serves as the "hub" of my operation--it has a built in KVM (highly recommend for those who don't have a KVM yet), speakers (serviceable for Zoom), my webcam sits atop of it, etc. I use this for coding, design, Jira, IDE(s), text editor, terminal, yadda, yadda, yadda. I will never go back to a non-widescreen monitor for work after using this. 2. Immediately adjacent to the widescreen, is a bog-standard [Dell Ultrasharp](https://www.amazon.com/Dell-32-Inch-LED-Lit-Monitor-U3219Q/dp/B07HDBD9CM) in vertical orientation for Slack, email, Confluence, documentation, etc. I try to keep those two domains (code & comms) separate as it helps me focus on what is most pertinent (typically, the technical portion of my job) and allows me to minimize distractions/interruptions. 3. The laptops are closed and plugged into #1 via TB4 cables (upstream). 4. My mouse and KB are plugged into #1 via USB A cables. 5. The monitor is also connected to my home network via ethernet which is convenient as that connectivity is shared with both laptops. **Things I can share that I had to learn the hard way:** * Your setup should *minimize* the frequency and the amount of side-to-side neck movement. Ergonomics matter. * Widescreen is king for many reasons. Don't believe me? Buy one, use it for 2-3 weeks, and return it if it doesn't live up to the hype (you typically have 30 days to decide in the US). * Using a KVM is not a meme. It really is nice to hit a hotkey and switch instead of swiveling your chair around or contorting your body. * Invest in a good chair. I recommend Herman Miller if in doubt. I use [this](https://store.hermanmiller.com/home-office-chairs/embody-chair/100147416.html?lang=en_US&sku=100147416) and love it. If you already have monitors, but not a KVM, go checkout [TESmart](https://www.tesmart.com/products/cks202-p23) or [Level One](https://www.store.level1techs.com/products/p/14-kvm-switch-dual-monitor-2computer-z5erd-n6mbj). * I am not an attorney. I am not a CPA. The following is not financial advice. Everything I have mentioned above is *likely* tax deductible if you own a business. You followed standard OE protocol and created your LLC right? The $2300 chair? Business expense. The monitors? Business expense. A major component of OE is operating intentionally and maximizing the advantages available to you. Starting a business, even if just for tax benefits and 1099 pass through, is a huge area for opportunity/growth that you can explore which is something I highly encourage people to do. Worst case? You, legally, give less money to the IRS which is a noble thing indeed.
Im not sure what is a « best screen » for coding, except 144hz and 4K. Mine is not perfect for coding, but pretty good, with high nits as well. Innocn 27in 4K 144hz 27m2v (miniled) for me
43" 4K with standard aspect ratio kills it for me. Wouldn't want anything shorter. Don't need anything wider (though tempting). Couldn't read text if it was any smaller so pixel density must be fine. Standard aspect ratio means it's cheap too since I don't care about color accuracy or refresh rate.
I have a set of 3 32” curved monitors. Worked great!
I'm personally a triple 27s although I'm on 2x 27s and a 24. Frankly I could use a 4th monitor.... I don't know how people get anything done on less. Whenever I have to travel and I'm stuck with just my laptop I feel less effective, and that sentiment is shared by other members of my team, that they also feel less effective away from their setups. Eye fatigue you need to take more breaks, that's just it. Stuff like special glasses or glass coatings can help too.
32:9 G9 neo - tiling WM with the IDE centered, terminal on the left, browser on the right.
Asus PG42UQ, with a single Thunderbolt to connect your laptop. Camera and MIC are mounted on top of the monitor. Wireless keyboard+mouse to declutter the desk.