Favorite Monitor Setup For Programming

[snarkycoder]

Hey guys!

I am moving away from programming in a laptop and building a pc for that.

I wonder what would be best to Having two 23" monitors or a single 27" monitor?

What has been your experience guys? What is your favorite setup?

[minibois]

-snip-

2 32" monitors IMO.

[Casperian]

Hey guys!

I am moving away from programming in a laptop and building a pc for that.

I wonder what would be best to Having two 23" monitors or a single 27" monitor?

What has been your experience guys? What is your favorite setup?

Just a quick bit of background, I have a hate for 23" monitors but 2 can work pretty well.

Two 23's are alright, but from experience I found I'd focus on 1 and end up barely using the other for programming. I'd end up using for documentation or messaging/emails.

 

With one 27", I haven't used for long enough to comment but personally recommend a 21:9. Those 21:9 1440p monitors are wonderful, my mate has one (which he struggles to drive in games... GTX 770 OP) and I think they really great for productivity. This applies even more if you Visual Studio and can spread tabs about lots (You effectively have 2 square monitor with no bezel, which is glorious).

[0x550x42]

You won't need more that one...

[minibois]

You won't need more that one...

You will disagree once you have used multiple

[Minzo]

You will disagree once you have used multiple

 

Tried multiple monitors several times but I always end up using only one. But I'm no programmer so you may not listen to me anyways.

[0x550x42]

You will disagree once you have used multiple

 

Maybe... but it doesn't bite to use a single monitor either...

[minibois]

Tried multiple monitors several times but I always end up using only one. But I'm no programmer so you may not listen to me anyways.

I like 2 monitors for pretty much everything.

Really like it for programming, but also for everything else. 

My 2nd monitor is mostly used for either a fullscreen YouTube video, or an example of what I will design.. Or maybe a music playlist..

[Dzzope]

Maybe... but it doesn't bite to use a single monitor either...

Yes, yes it does if it's 1080 or less.

 

2 screens or 2560x1440(min) is a must for productivity.. Personally I use a 27" and a 23".. 1 is my main screen for whatever it is I'm doing (be it gaming, media consumption, report / document creation, editing or coding.. The second (depending on exactly what I'm doing) has my communications, mail, references, guides and so on.

 

Of the 2 choices, I'd go for 2 1080 screens, you can then either use 1 in portrait for LONG docs / logs etc or side by side for possibly 4 docs / pages / whatever open at the same time (in work I usually have 2 docs / page + mail + comms (skype / hangouts / slack  or whatever)

 

If you can go to 4k, Thats what I would do for pure productivity, not for gaming though.

[lubblig]

Hey guys!

I am moving away from programming in a laptop and building a pc for that.

I wonder what would be best to Having two 23" monitors or a single 27" monitor?

What has been your experience guys? What is your favorite setup?

Definitely two!

 

I currently use three for programming, one for design, one for code and one for other things like music and stuff(this monitor isn't really needed but its nice to have). Therefore I would definitely go with a two monitor setup. You can fit so much more on them and see more things at once.

[Pixalynx]

I use two monitors currently for my Cross platform development. My main monitor is used to house the Coding IDE, whilst the secondary monitor is used either to run osx yosemite on a vm machine to compile for MAC/iOS or I use the secondary monitor to run the final win32/64 application. Also my IDE allows for form design so sometimes I have the Form Designer on the second window and I use the primary window for the Code editor .

Hope that helps !

[colonel_mortis]

I use two at the moment for web development, and wish I had a third (or at least that my 2nd monitor was bigger than 1280x1024) so that on one screen I can do the coding, on one I can preview what I'm doing while still having dev consoles etc open, and on the third screen I'd have documentation etc if I'm working with an API or something more complicated that I've not used before.

[Ciccioo]

i have never enjoyed having 2 monitors. for some time i used 2 monitors at work, but as others say, one ends up being pretty much unused and distracting, making you just less focused and productive

 

i currently only work in linux on a single 16:9 monitor and 4 virtual desktops, and i find them to be hugely more effective and fast than a multi monitor setup, for these reasons:

1. less distraction: you only see one 'monitor' at a time, which makes you more focused on it. you can try and tell me that you're a multitasking guy and you like to play music, read emails and play LoL while you program, but i don't think that's a realistically productive environment for anybody
2. focus, cursor, tab order: if you have 6 applications on 3 monitors, alt-tabbing between then is a nightmare. alt-tabbing is only fast when you have 2 windows: background and foreground. if you have more windows you lose a bunch of time and focus searching the right window, or moving your hand to the mouse to go to the taskbar and click the damn thing. finding the mouse pointer is a hard task itself when you are sorrounded by monitors, and if the pointer is in a monitor which doesn't have the taskbar you have to buy a train ticket to make it travel back to the main monitor. With virtual desktops, i keep usually no more than 2 apps or a fullscreen VM on each desktop. i have handy keyboard shortcuts to move between the desktops, and for every desktop alt-tabbing makes sense and brings me exactly to the window i need. things are clicked and focused exactly where i left them, which isn't the case if you have to click on a window to bring it on top
3. standby jobs: let's say that you're doing your main activity (programming) but you have to interrupt it because you have to do something else (your boss asked to to send him a certain report, your friend asked you to check your facebook, you want to change the song that is playing). if you have 3 monitors with 10 windows, you just add confusion to the confusion. with virtual desktops you can just have a new, clean, dedicated desktop just for that activity. this will allow you to keep productivity and distractions separated, and you will do also those side-jobs effectively, eventually leaving them open when you go back to your main activity just in case you will need to go back to them at some point during the day

i would like to try a 21:9 monitor because you know that's just awesome, but i am really comfortable with my current setup so i can definitely wait, maybe they'll get cheaper too

[YellowDragon]

 

i would like to try a 21:9 monitor because you know that's just awesome, but i am really comfortable with my current setup so i can definitely wait, maybe they'll get cheaper too

 

BATTLECRUISER OPERATIONAL

 

They are worth every penny, if you can go for the curved ones, the curve is very slight. I thought it was a marsketing gimmick until I visited  the local Microcenter that has a flat and a curved  side by side. Downright bliss for programming as my old  setup I  had 3 21.5 inch  monitors  and I dont feel constrained in the slightest.

[WiiManic]

I use 2 for programming, and I doubt I could go back to 1.

 

I use Arch for most programming stuff I do, so I have both virtual desktops and multiple monitors, and I find it really helps.

Have vim or whatever open on first monitor with a tab or two and terminal.

Second monitor is usually a browser, with either like the task I'm doing, StackOverflow when I forgot how to do some easy thing, and like random other tabs with content related to what I'm programming. Lets me reference back and forth between my code and task and what not.

Find it very helpful.

 

Also just lets me have any other stuff I use on different desktops, so usually a music player in 1 with like a couple more terminal windows so I can move stuff around and what not if I want to keep my vim terminal instance in the same place, and then usually just another browser instance with more unrelated tabs in. Has both advantages of splitting up my work and also being able to reference multiple things at once, and see more than 1 screen.

 

I'm using 2 23" IPS displays btw on a monitor stand. Both in Landscape, though as I'm using the stand I occasionally move one to portrait for some more vertical stuff, but thats not very often.

[Brenz]

Its really down to personal preference and what works for you.

 

Personally I have two 23" 1080p monitors both at home and at work where 90% of our developers have the same with just a few opting for a larger, higher resolution single monitor.

 

In my opinion 23" is a great size for many IDE's and developer tools and any more than 2 monitors becomes confusing and overwhelming plus it won't do your neck any good in the long run.

[Torand]

Personally, I rock 3 1080p's for webdev.

left    => inspector,center  => webpage,right   => Coda 2 or Sublime (this screen placed vertically)

Find that workflow perfect for me, but it all does come down to personal preference. Have a play around and see what 'fits'.

[as96]

I have 2, but most of the time I use only the main one.

[Art Vandelay]

I personally find two monitors is a huge benefit. I can have CMD/Terminal and Notepad++/NotepadQQ side by size on one and an internet browser or other random tools on the other.

 

If I'm using Visual studio (Visual studio takes up a whole monitor) or I have some kind of large output, its nice to have a third monitor for the tools and web browser.

 

Sadly, my work laptop can only support two monitors at once and I use Visual Studio there.

 

[KRSogaard]

I have been programming for many years and i have tried many setups.

 

It really depends on what type of programming work you do, if you only do simple desktop developments will one monitor do. However if you do Web development is 2 monitors a must. 2 monitors are also good when doing desktop development as it allows you to keep important information, documentation or whatever floats your boat on the second monitor.

I have however found  that 3 monitors tend to be overkill, it will normally go unused or used for such stuff as movies, youtube or other stuff. If you develop on linux or mac can it be nice to have the console there, and is only nice to have.

 

As to the size, when developing do you need height, not width, so forget about the ultra-wide screens, you should never go beyond 100 cols in width any way.  And even a 1920x1200 will do find in the width department.

As to resolution and is 1440p on a 27" king, the text size without any scaling is perfect, and easy to read. as for the second monitors would i also go with a 1440p 27" but a 24" x1200 will do the job just fine as you will use this monitor to keep information on/display webpage.

 

TL:DR:

Budget: 1x27" 1440p and 1x24" x1200

No budget: 2x 27" 1440p 

 

 

My current setup: Currently in the process of moving from Denmark to Vancouver, so everything is sold (except my 15 years old icemat, that is my baby!) now and my new setup will be 2 27" 1440p monitors.

 

 

My old 3 monitor setup: 3x24" 2xBenQ 1080p and 1xDell x1200

[teknodex]

For anyone reads this topic in 2017 - 2018, I want to say a few things;

 

I would recommend to build a setup without spending much because display technologies are evolving faster than before. I was using a 3 x 1080p monitor setup for years and spent so much on wall mounts, desks, monitor arms and etc. Now I want to build a new setup but it is hard to use my older mounting tools and I have to buy new ones for new monitors. So I would definitely recommend to buy a good 4K monitor or two, at least 27". You can visit reddit for different programming setups or read a guide about buying new monitors for programming.

[Princess Luna]

On 5/27/2015 at 5:36 AM, snarkycoder said:

I wonder what would be best to Having two 23" monitors or a single 27" monitor?

Best setup obviously is a 2560x1080p 29 inches ultrawide... but I just realize this was a dead topic revived shouldn't even have posted