Working from home - need suggestion on a better 2nd monitor

[steelo]

Hi everyone,

 

Like many others, I've been working from home the past month or so. Currently I have a 2 monitor set up which is vital for my work as I typically have spreadsheets/reference materials on the secondary monitor while working from the primary. I'm quickly discovering though that my second monitor (which I believe is a 19" 1280x1024 from like 2005) is completely aggravating to display spreadsheets. I'm often having to shrink the spreadsheets down to 70-80% to view all of the columns, straining my eyes and ultimately giving me a headache by the end of the day...

 

Unfortunately, my desk does not have a lot of room on it and this 19" monitor just barely fits sitting next to a 26" display. I may be able to fit a 21" 1080 resolution monitor but would this be worth it? I'm not sure how much additional viewing real estate a 1080p x 1920 monitor will provide vs a 1280x1024...I'd also like to keep this around $100 usd. I don't need a monitor that can display 144hz, has vsync or anything fancy since I game on the primary monitor...I'm just looking for something with a nice, crisp display that makes text more pleasant to read while I'm working.

 

Edit: I've also just realized that it must also have a vga input because my work laptop only has 1 DP (being used by main monitor) and 1 VGA display output...

 

Thanks!

 

 

[IAmAndre]

If you're only looking for a way to display spreadsheet and do office work, any 1080p monitor among the best sales on Amazon would be enough. However if you don't have a lot of room I would recommend investing on a 21/9 29" or even 34" monitor instead of a dual monitor setup.

[steelo]

47 minutes ago, IAmAndre said:

If you're only looking for a way to display spreadsheet and do office work, any 1080p monitor among the best sales on Amazon would be enough. However if you don't have a lot of room I would recommend investing on a 21/9 29" or even 34" monitor instead of a dual monitor setup.

Thanks, I just purchased the 26" monitor so I'd really like to still use that...Im curious though how much more a 1080 monitor is able to display versus what Im using if they are both 19"...

[Dravinianv2]

You could get an arm for your desk as well, get a double and mount both monitors.

 

I did that because my desk real estate was coming under increasing pressure and the ridiculously large base mounts for the monitors was taking up a good 10-15% of my desk space not just the support but the round base and getting anything around them was a pain.

 

Now I get 100% of the desk space back but get to keep 27" monitors as I can raise the monitors up and place items under them (like focusrite interace, usb musical keyboard etc.)

[IAmAndre]

2 hours ago, steelo said:

Thanks, I just purchased the 26" monitor so I'd really like to still use that...Im curious though how much more a 1080 monitor is able to display versus what Im using if they are both 19"...

Resolution and sizes are different aspects but in any case a bigger screen with a higher resolution would definitely display more information at once.

[steelo]

Thanks everyone, I ordered an acer 24" 1080 led monitor that was on sale at bb for $99.99. I've had good luck with acer products in general...the second monitor Im currently using is an acer that is 15 years old and works great, other than the dated resolution.

 

The sad part is, this new monitor has a higher refresh rate (75hz vs 60hz)  than my main 26" monitor and has freesync...

 

Thanks for the arm suggestion. This is definitely an option and also makes cleaning dust from the desk much easier!

 

 

 

 

[IAmAndre]

If you want to invest in an arm, I would recommend getting the same monitor twice. It looks a lot cleaner that way. You also might want to get a monitor with thin bezels for a better immersion.