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Ask Slashdot: What Is Your Favorite Monitor For Programming?
First time accepted submitter BadassFractal writes "I'm in the market for a new large desktop monitor (or two) which I intend to use almost exclusively for programming and all sorts of software development-related work. I'm trying to keep the cost down reasonable, and I do enjoy as large of a resolution as possible. What do people 'in the know' out there use these days for that purpose? I'm thinking a 1920x1200 24" would be good, unless there's an affordable 2560xFoo option out there. I keep hearing about nameless Korean 27" screens, any thoughts on those?"
Dell U2711 or similar. 2560x1440 for great number of pixels, and if you want to use a higher DPI you still get a decent amount of information on screen.
I've tried 30" monitors and they were just too big, but for me 2x27" is perfect.
Any decent machine language monitor will do.
Bigger tends to be better, but shoot for a 16:10 ratio screen. The 16:9 screens are nice but that extra shortness tends to be really annoying when your code really starts to grow.
And a 1920x1080 Samsung TV that cost me like $250 and there is basically no difference for programming. I think it might make a difference if you're doing graphics work but I can't tell the difference. Or at least to tell the difference, I need to be closer than is comfortable to my eyes.
Unless the TV can handle a high resolution you're not saving any money by getting one in the place of a 'real' monitor.
Perhaps you plan on only getting one of them. I work with two 24" monitors side by side.
My favorite screen for that sort of things is an old 15 LCD 4:3 panel from an old (2001) DELL laptop. It outputs 1600x1200px. Anything lower than 1200y sucks and 1200y on wide screens means half the surface goes to trash. So 15" UXGA monitors, many of them.
I assume such spare parts dating more than a decade can be bought over ebay for a couple dozens of bucks.
Why do you feel the need to indulge in silly opinionated responses? What else are you supposed to be adviseds on? boxers or briefs!
pick something and move on it not rocket science.
Personally I find dual 19" monitors to be both cheaper, and more usable than a single large screen. Work is usually divided between 1 primary monitor where I have my actual code, and 1 monitor that is being used to display information, references, email, IMs, etc. Combined with some software like Winsplit (No affiliation, just an awesome free product that I've used on every computer I've touched in the past 8 years) you can organize a large number of windows in ways that make sense very quickly. Obviously you can do the same thing with one large screen, but I find having 2 breaks thing up in a way that separates work from the distractions.
Plus, you get to feel like an evil villain in his lair... so that's cool.
I like to print my code.
Use tons of different monitors - sometimes a 42 inch HDTV I hooked up to my computer at home via HDMI, sometimes a 20 inch or 24 inch monitor, sometimes I even use my iPad to view code. The code lives in MySQL, php, and perl scripts anyway, how I look at it depends on what's around. Or if it's sunny.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Nice colors, pretty docile, good motivator. Can't complain about this monitor!
See for yourself http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengal_Monitor
Oh! You mean like, a monitor monitor, the hardware kind? Um... Lemme get back to you. I think it's an HP from the days of old...
"Quote me as saying I was mis-quoted." -Groucho Marx
I hate letterbox monitors. And 5:4 and 4:3 monitors are much of the way towards extinction.
I also use a tablet that is 4:3 (though not for programming). Fortunately Apple uses 4:3 with the result that cheap Android ripoffs often do as well.
27" iMac + 27" cinema display = 5120x1440
Plenty of room for lots of MacVim windows and multiple iTerms.
I've been using an HP zr24w for over a year, and it's pretty great. It's also got a great stand that lets me pivot the display 90 degrees if I want to. Another good thing about it is it's a standard gamut display, so any web design I do on it won't look weird on regular computers. I had a wide gamut display for a while, and often the colors I'd choose based on that display didn't exist on regular displays, and thus looked very different. The important points, though are: IPS display, and matte coating.
Whilst shopping for screens you might like to consider one that rotates and allowa you to do 1200x1920 (for example.)
Having two of those side by side can be very productive, or even one vertical and one horizontal.
The 27" Korean's are nice screens. For the most part they are the A- grade of the same ones going in to monitors that are twice to 3 times as much. You might have to live with a dead pixel or two, but I doubt you'll be disappointed.
560Z if you want details. 800x600 pixels, 100x37 with 16x8 characters -- perfect ssh client. Main machine has a 19" for opening GUI stuff when really necessary.
I'm really happy with my two Samsung SA450s. I paid under AU$300 each for them, and they rotate, so it's a pair of 1920x1200 screens, one sideways for code. With a decent graphics card (I splurged and got one that costs about the same as one of the monitors so I could have two separate DVI links) it's a nice programming rig. The sideways one gets over 100 lines of code on screen at a readable resolution.
I prefer a juvenile komodo dragon in my lap while I program. Just make sure he's well fed. And watch for tongue flicking on the keys as that may introduce errors.
That was the turning point of my life--I went from negative zero to positive zero.
When they finally bought me a second monitor at work it was a widescreen format. That didn't work all that well with the existing 4x5 aspect ratio. So I took my new monitor and turned it 90 deg. Thankfully the mount supported this. So now I have my original monitor for general web/mail and my new monitor is where the coding gets done. Having a monitor that has 50% more vertical real estate is awesome for working on code and documents.
The size isn't as important as the orientation (queue the jokes). Two wide screen monitors, one setup as landscape, and one as portrait. It's actually a great setup for anything that involves reading or writing.
NEC LCD2490WUXi2-BK 24" ...if you can find one. I bought mine used about six months ago for surprisingly little when my NEC 19 inch tube monitor finally bit the dust. It's color accurate and 1200 pixels tall. (I have a hard time working on "HDTV" monitors. They're too short.) It's a little thicker and heavier than modern flatscreens, but I don't mind at all.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
I have monitor that has the handy feature of being able to rotate it, to put it horizontal or vertical depending on what you want. For programming, I love to see lots of lines of code at a glance in the vertical position. You should try it before saying it's crazy, because it works.
I have a pair of NEC 2940WUXi's (2008) and they are brilliant. 1920x1200x32. They were only AU$1400 each.
Anything over 24" would be impossible to place on my work desk so that my eye level and viewing angle would be optimal.
I'd recommend 2 monitors, and having at least one of them in portrait mode.
Being able to see more at once.. that's the single thing that's made the most difference for me to make it easier to read code and understand what's going on.
I personally have a pair of dell U2412Ms, and the IPS panel (for solid viewing angles) and 1200px height (for portrait width) are both factors that make the portrait orientation work better.
Mine has been trouble free, and it's the best monitor I've ever seen, let alone used. No dead pixels, no problems at all.
There are 30" ones available now :) 2560x1600.
I bought 2 IBM T221s on ebay and have them setup as a dual monitors for my desktop. It's like programming on 2 giant iPad rentias. The new macbook pros can drive of one these monitors.
So we can lay them down like a book in any orientation and not be chained to a desk, running Linux with multi touch of course, come on windows 8 get with the programme
I'm trying to keep the cost down reasonable,
Why? If spending $1,000 makes you 5-10% more productive, then do it. If you can find a cheaper one, great, but don't screw yourself in the name of a false economy.
You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!
My favorite is a 30" 2560x1600. The vertical pixel count is very nice. The Koreans can deliver these at a reasonable price. If you have money you can get them for about 1K in a nice IPS flavor.
I don't like the 27" 2560's because the dot pitch is marginal for my below average eyesight.
And I have yet to find a 1920 x 1200 27".
Right now I am using a cheap pair of 27" 1920 x 1080, but I am definitely going to at least one 30" 2560x1600 in the next couple of months.
I currently use 2x HP ZR2440w at work and 2x Dell 2408WFP at home. I actually prefer the HP's, for what it's worth. I will be replacing the Dell monitors at home with either 2x27" 2560x1440, or possibly 3x. One annoying thing about dual monitors is when you're gaming you have to look at either the left or right one. It's very slight, but it kind of bugs me.
You could also consider doing whats called a "PLP" setup, for portrait/landscape/portrait. Here's an example.
I have one of the Korean 27" screens - they seem to be generally great. I went for a slightly higher end model to get HDMI etc, and I have no dead pixels at all. I can see slight variation in the backlight when it's full white but I've seen it at least that bad on every monitor I've ever owned (costing a lot more than this). Highly recommended (and if you don't want to go the eBay route, monoprice are now rebadging these themselves!).
---- Den ene knappen er powerknapp, den andre er Bender voice knapp "Bite My Shiny Metal Ass"
I have a Samsung S24A450UW (1920x1200) + a legacy secondary screen (an odd 1680x1050).
I like having two screens. The main screen has most of my work stuff, and has multiple virtual-desktops. The secondary screen is static, and shows mostly mail, irc, todo lists, and a secondary firefox window for reference stuff. (I use Gnome 3, but presumably most window managers have that option, although I moved to Gnome 3 after 10 years with FVWM, but it had become too annoying to configure correctly)
I also find it nice to have 1920x1200, and not a 1920x1080, unless you plan using the screen vertically. I even use an extention to hide Gnome's panel, which I found was a waste of space. https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/545/hide-top-bar/
I purchased two of these a few months ago (replacing a couple of 1680x1050 Acer displays), and I couldn't be happier.
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
My setup is probably is a bit different than most. I use a 27" monitor + a 19" one. This setup is good for me since I have a main monitor that I always use and a secondary one that I use when I need the extra screen space when doing programming. The 27" is directly in front of me while the 19" is on the side. I can open the console output, open reference documents or look at the end result of my work in the small one while I have my IDE open in the main monitor. When I don't need the second one, I just turn it off. The second monitor does not take a lot of space, it's cheap but very handy when I need it. I have an analogue VGA cable hanging out of the small monitor as well so I can connect it to my laptop and use it to extend my laptop's screen. It's easy to switch between the digital and analogue inputs of the monitor. All considered, this seems to be a flexible setup which is not very expensive and is not taking a lot of space.
Nice to get a large monitor. But there are a few things to keep in mind.
... or more). If you get a 27" with only, say, 1920 x 1200, it has to be too far away before it will look halfway decent. Maybe farther than the width of your desk. You're paying more money for less functionality.
If you get a 27" monitor, it had better be very high resolution (2560 x
Contrast ratios are touted to be in the many millions to one, these days. Big deal. As long as it's over 100,00 to 1, you probably won't notice the difference.
Usually, it should have a fast response time. 5ms or less. Beware of companies that leave that number out. Having said that, if you're just reading or displaying documents most of the time, that figure is less important.
Here's another thought: you can often get two mid-size monitors for less than the price of one big one. If you only have a single DVI or HDMI output, you can put your best monitor on that, and then get a USB display interface for a second, cheaper monitor that will normally be used to display semi-static stuff, like documents, terminal windows, etc. The USB interfaces are available pretty cheaply, at decent resolutions, but bog down when asked to display things like video.
I've got a monitor similar to this one http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2668386 which has worked really well for me.
The U2412M is a competetively priced 24" 1920x1200 IPS screen with moderate anti-glare. (Less aggressive than U2711/U2410.) I have the older brother of this screen (U2407WFP) and have been coding on it for ages.
The 27" 2560x1440 monitors all have advantages and disadvantages, but the ViewSonic VP2770 seems like the best of the lot overall. It has no PWM in the backlight, has good uniformity, good quality panel, decent inputs, antiglare isn't too aggressive, no crosshatching or image retention (the main flaws of the U2713). The main downside is the price since it doesn't really go on sale like some of the others.
Take a look at the display forum on hardforum.com if you haven't already.
As for multiple monitors...I find one large monitor better than two smaller ones.
Monoprice.com is going to start stocking house-branded 27" ($400) and 30"($600-$700) IPS panels for a DEEP discount in March. Same LG panels as used in Apple Cinema Display. Monoprice is a great company and wouldn't call what they are offering nameless Korean screens. Here is a link http://www.monoprice.com/products/search.asp?keyword=ips
Good-bye
27 Inch iMac.
The built-in monitor is large and wonderful, and you get to run Mac OS X. The last bit is sometimes good and sometimes bad. :)
At work they bought us each two of the HP LA2405x, which is 1920x1200. Looks like they're currently going for about $260 on Newegg. It's not bad, they get the job done and the resolution is definitely a plus. However, my fiance and I each bought ourselves an Asus PA248Q right after Christmas, and it is by far my favorite monitor. I think we paid just under $300, there was a good sale on them at Fry's. I really love the IPS even if it is just e-IPS, and the stand itself is very sturdy and easy to manipulate as well. I'll definitely be grabbing a second one when it's in the budget.
Read the reviews about PWM LED systems and take it into consideration.
http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/articles/pulse_width_modulation.htm
Go for top end Dell, the ~$1000 Eizo range.
Any Australian tech forum has a post on the Korean IPS options:
"27/30" Korean Monitor Guide/Help Pt2"
http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies.cfm?t=2023067
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
I had a nice 24" Dell - no complaints, especially since the company provided it - but I bought a 24" Apple LED Cinema Display for personal use. It's a few years old so it doesn't have the latest ports, but I'm on this just about all day and love it. When I ran a day-to-day business for computer support, I often recommended Acer monitors: they were nice, and not all that expensive, but it's been a few years since I've worked with them.
I write which has the same issue. Most monitors even name brands do a poor job of displaying text sharply. I always go to Fries Electronics and go down the row scanning for sharp text and solid blacks. The best monitor for the money I used in the past was discontinued. I hate to use the "A" word but Apple monitors are solid if a bit pricey. In the non Apple world I like the Dells, once again pricey. Apple's I don't like the color balance so much and they tend towards the gray side, Retina displays are very sweet and have rich blacks. The Dells tend towards the dark side but you can tweak the settings. I haven't looked in years but the last time I checked my old favorites Viewsonic sucked for sharp text and Samsungs were pretty fuzzy. Since only a hand full of companies produce the screens it's not so much the name brand so bargains can be found but I suggest looking. A glance will tell you if an hour on the screen will be giving you a headache.
Worth every one of the $800 I plunked down on it. In the beginning I didn't know what to do with all the real estate, but these days I cannot live without the massive scrreen area.
I have three 27" monitors all running 1920x1200. I'm very happy with them. If I had the desk space, I would have gone with 4...
Working on systems with 2 or less is annoying now.
My setup finally looks like the Movies :p
I just recently upgraded to this monitor, and I love it. Adjustable height, can be rotated to portrait mode, LED backlit.
I love having 1920x1200 - those extra vertical pixels are worth the extra price vs. the ubiquitous 1920x1080 screens.
Oh, no! You have walked into the slavering fangs of a lurking grue!
It is a very bright, and I think it looks quite amazing. It is especially amazing at its sub-$350 price point. I'm pretty jealous of it, but my laptop lacks the dual link DVI port required for driving one of these displays. I would really like to upgrade from my pair of 1080p monitors to a pair of these! He wrote about his 27" 2560x1440 monitor on his blog.
I've long wanted a large reflective display for coding. While I typically set a dark background in whatever editor I'm using, staring at a backlit display all day can be harsh. As reflective LCD technology improves, I continue to hold out hope that someone will make a desktop monitor with the technology (it would be a great second display for coders or anyone doing basic text entry, and doesn't need to have especially fast pixel response time, etc.).
Stupid question. Any recent monitor will do great. Of course, more resolution is better, but the typical 1080p monitor is perfect.
... was, and always will be, "CALL -151" :-)
Buy two of their 27" screens (about the same price) and enjoy all the extra pixels.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824254093&Tpk=hanns%20g%20monitor
I have 2 of these, and I love them for both gaming and programming.
I've been using two 20.1" Samsung 204B 1600x1200 (4:3) LCD panels for several years now. IMO, this setup remains a superior platform for code development or similar tasks. Good real estate, dirt cheap, and usable even with traditional desktop environments and window managers. Too bad 4:3 disappeared after HDTV formats and LCD panels found each other in the entertainment space.
The problem with large format displays -- of which the current crop of 16:10 24" variants probably offer the best real estate value proposition -- is that current window managers and UI conventions aren't well designed to support them. Consider the maximize window function. Still useful in a dual 4:3 setup, but pretty much vestigial on large format displays. I see most people using large format displays spending too much time moving and sizing windows, and yet much of the screen real estate is often unused by any active window. Having played a bit with tiling window managers, it's clear to me that we need to make more progress in windows placement behavior to maximize the use and productivity of the large format display.
Jeff Atwood did an article on this very topic a while back: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2007/08/the-large-display-paradox.html
You can have them when you pry them from my cold, dead hands. Fuck you and your "round" circles, 1280x1024 FTW.
16:10 is almost an acceptable substitute.
2001FP. The old ones, before the resolution on monitors went to shit. Four 1600x1200 20" LCD. So I have 6400x1200.
I bought the last two most recently. They were like $40 each. Much cheaper than the $700 each I paid for my first two.
One full HD screen, 1920x1080, 24" monitor. More than that, you'll have to turn your head from one side to another, and you'll quickly get tired on the neck. Actually, you can get tired even with a 24", some colleagues of mine just use a single 17", 1440x900, to write code.
24" 1920x1200 IPS
I don't program with them but I can give some feedback.
Mine are from Auria bought from MicroCenter. They are 27inches and have a glossy finish which you may not like on your screen if you have things that could reflect behind you. Neither one had a single dead pixle and after about 2months of use I really like them. The stands did NOT allow for pivoting but I'm using a dual stand off of Amazon anyway so I could pivot if I needed to. You MUST use the included DVI cables as they're apparently some new version of the cable, when I used my old duplicate looking DVI cables I got no video. Controls are sparse and I hate that they have a damned bootup screen - I turn monitors OFF when not being used. The off switch is a hassle, it's under the front edge vs a button on the front but no biggie. I drive mine with a GTX 680 at 2560X1440 refreshed at 59hz, 32bit color depth. Oh, they are a little bright so expect to turn them down and fiddle colors. I see a little light leakage but overall I like these monitors and would most certainly buy again. For the cost of both of these I might have been able to buy ONE high end monitor from a known company - screw that!
Hope that helps. I know there are a bunch of others on eBay and even sites dedicated to reviewing them but popularity has driven costs up and these were at a store near me where I could return if needed. I saw a few open box in the store, I couldn't help but wonder if perhaps they were find and were plugged into cards that couldn't drive them or with wrong cables :-)
Build it, Drive it, Improve it! Hybridz.org
My Panasonic 32" HDTV has an option to turn off the overscan so I can use it perfectly as a monitor. It even has an older dsub/vga input so I can hookup older PCs.
The difference is the pixels are less squarish because of a cheaper filter technology (more expensive TVs come with a better filter and result in monitor-like pixels) and the colors are slightly over-saturated. Despite this I am happy with it because I can sit 1 foot further away from the TV, and since I have it mounted into the wall above my desk, I now have a lot more usable desk space. Both of these upsides translate into more productivity and less squinting.
most of the time, but I personally find widescreens to be mostly useless for large text displays unless stood in portrait mode (IDE's like visual studio do make use of the side area, I guess)
maybe I dont have 1037 nested if's in a billion line widget, but its sort of rare for me to go much over 80 columns
If it is something with an IDE like Java, of something running on websites, two large monitors(1080p+) are great. If it is something like C++ with the gcc tool chain, I am more interested in high contrast and monitors just wide enough to fit four or six 80 character width terminals with bold text ( for me, 1280x1024 is fine).
while(1) attack(People.Sandy);
Programming tends to be tall pages of text.....
So, Look for a side by side pair... if you are a serious programmer.
If you are a serious web content programmer you need a mix. Too much web content appears to be developed on monster gaming systems not more modest displays that real people have.
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't. Mark Twain.
i use a 17 inch CRT set at 1024x 768 resolution. yes, my computer is old. then again, i usually write simple programs that run under dos and windows 3.1 and 9x. i thought i saw a 15 inch or 17 inch lcd screen for $75 somewhere.
For programming I'll take an addon keyboard and external monitor over a straight laptop. You can certainly use a laptop with a docking station.
I said for programming, but the more I think about it I mean for everything other than travel. I don't mind being tied to a desk when I am trying to be productive.
Jeff Atwood had good things to say on his blog about some of the no-name monitors you're talking about.
Invest in the tools that will allow you to work most effectively. Your monitors are your tools. You would question a carpenter who uses a hand-saw all day instead of a power saw to finish a job in half the time. Tradesmen of all sorts, mechanics, welders, plumbers, electricians, even landscapers, know that their tools are an investment. They allow them to work efficiently and do jobs they otherwise couldn't. I'm not going to tell you that a 2560x1600 is necessarily worth the extra money vs a 1920x1080. I'm telling you that you should decide what tool is best for the job, and THEN consider if it is a worthwhile investment. After all, you are going to stare at that thing 8+ hours a day. Most people spend a lot of money on "luxury" options for their car, which they may drive an hour or less per day. Leather chairs, upgraded radio, navigation system, tinted windows, larger engine, special wheels, you name it. These things cost far more than a nice PC and monitors, and you use them far less! $0.02.
While it's nice to have a large resolution monitor, or maybe even two, I find it equally useful to have my 15" widescreen laptop next to my main machine (1600x1200 -- yes, an old CRT.)
I use low-overhead tools like gvim for editing, not IDEs with their umpteen panels. All I use Eclipse or VisualStudio for is debugging, not authoring code. As a result, I can get a good chunk of work done even on the 1280x1024 monitors that used to be the norm at my last job, while co-workers were constantly complaining that "the screen is too small."
The screen isn't too small. I grew up with 80x24 character terminals. Your work habits are too big!
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Who needs a display. I still use punched cards. ;-)
I have the Dell 3011 myself, but a dual-monitor configuration of 90-degree-rotated Dell 2007WFPs is really great as well: a single rotated 2007WFP is perfect for coding, because most code is vertical like that. So you have one for your main editor, and one for whatever web browser/etc you want to use to view output (or email).
And yes, that is the 2007 model, and it's still well-regarded. 1600x1200, killer viewing angle. If anyone knows a monitor that's better for rotating it's not me.
I have my main pc hooked up to my Samsung 42" LED TV. Whether it's hooked up through VGA or HDMI the picture quality at 1920 is better than any monitor I've ever used, the sounds is superb, and I can sit on the couch with my wireless keyboard and my Microsoft Trackball Explorer (Seriously why did Microsoft Stop making those I'm gonna weep when it finally dies)
From a distance it's fabulous. Up close i.e. a few cms from the screen it's amazing.
Yeah Ok it wasn't cheap. UK £450. Pretty damn expensive compared to Just a monitor.
I've got a cheap 26" LED that I also use.. it's absolutely garbage at anything beyond about 1380x. So whilst I'd recommend a TV over a monitor just for the versatility aspect, not all TVs are great at all resolutions.
But seriously.. how l33t would you look inviting your geek buddies over to admire your 42" computer monitor.
I guess it is true what all those women say about bigger being better!
3- 24" 1920X1200 monitors. It is getting HARD to find 4:3 monitors nowdays with the useless Widescreen trend. Works fantastic, I can have multiple Xterms open as well as multiple VM's Makes it all a breeze.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I use 2 28" 1920x1200 HANS-G LCDs and a single 42" LED TV in the middle for gaming.
http://shawnblanc.net/2013/02/27-inch-ips-lcd-displays/
It all started last summer when my cousin sent me a link to this article by Jeff Atwood concerning his discovery of the gray-market of inexpensive 27-inch IPS LCDs on eBay... I decided to get one of the same, cheap displays as Atwood had. Same as Atwood, I ordered the FSM-270YG. You can still find them on eBay...
Just recently, Monoprice began selling their version of the FSM-270YG. It's called the CrystalPro. The CrystalPro looks exactly like the FSM-270YG monitor I have in front of me right now, except their's has a Monoproce logo slapped on the front... Not only does Monoprice check each monitor they sell to make sure it works, they also offer a one-year warranty which means they'll replace the display if there are more than 5 dead pixels.
I recommend reading the whole piece -- he's got more info about features, connectors, etc.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
I'm really happy with this. The three new monitors were $100 shipped each. The three graphics cards (GT430) totalled about $100 all together. Here it is rght after I finished buidling the risers for the top row. I run Xubuntu most of the time these days, but Win7 Pro works too.
https://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/406251_2722707021020_1618114136_n.jpg
Any cheap 1080p display is fine for coding. You don't need good color accuracy, high contrast or low response time for coding. If you need more pixels just get two of them.
I got a "debranded" one ("famous maker") on sale recently. two actually, one and a spare, $80 ea. 23" 1080. they only weigh a few pounds, light enough to safely set on top of my closed laptop when i get home. Plug in ext cabled and go. No need for a tower.
They're probably a good deal cheaper nowadays. I bet you can find one like it for more like $60-65 nowadays.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
I use two Samsung SyncMaster 2443s. Great monitors. I highly recommend them.
3x 24" 1920x1200. My personal choice are the Dell U2412M, but you have to watch for them to get in the 260-270 price range. Don't pay more than that.
I like my Sanyo PLV-Z700. No more squinting. Wasn't cheap though. And I'm told that Sanyo don't exist anymore.
I have a (now obsolete, but top-line in 2008 when I got it) dual head nVidia 8800GT display adapter that I purchased for my workstation. With it, I run dual Dell 24" 1920x1200 displays, and they work just great! At work, I have dual HP 1920x1080 HD displays - I prefer the Dells that I have at home for programming, but the HP's are quite nice. Anything bigger than 24" is fine, but they take up quite a bit more desk space. FWIW, I can run simultaneous full-screen HD videos on each display with this rig, with no stutter. Naturally I don't normally do that, but it was a good test of the graphics hardware! :-)
FWIW, I run a version of RHEL 6.3 - Scientific Linux - on this rig - dual quad-core Intel E5450 3GHz Penryn processors, 8GB RAM, and tonnes of storage. It was a custom-built system to my exact specs (Intel mobo, registered fully-buffered ECC ram, 350GB hot-swap system drive w/ backup, 2TB internal array for data, dual DVD burners, 750W power supply, etc). It is now 5 years old, and getting something that can work better would be hard, even at the price I paid for it. For system programming, it is awesome. The only think I would do would be to get more RAM, and I have only used 1/2 of the available memory slots, so that isn't out of the question. The only time I really need more RAM is when I am running more than one virtual machine at the same time. There are plenty of cores to handle the load, but if I run XP and Solaris, and QNX each with 2GB of RAM allocated, the base OS starts to get a bit sluggish when it hits the swapper.
I've been using the Dell 30" 2560x1600 monitor for the past couple of years. I have one at work and two years ago I bought one for my home too. I did the whole dual monitor thing with twenty-something inch displays for many years. Trouble is, the two monitors eat up a lot of desk space. the 30" is a good size, sometimes I wish it was just a little wider (by a couple of inches - not taller) because when you have coding or an office app up on onside of the screen & your documentation/reference material on the other side, you always wish you just had a little more room. That being said, I've gotten used to it and I've learned to live with the single 30" - I have considered two 30" displays, but that would just be too much swinging your head back and forth. The 30" screens are a lot cheaper than there were back in 2007? when I purchased it - i think it was close to $3000 then, I'm pretty sure I picked up the 2nd screen about 1.5 years ago for about $1400 from dell.com, but I could be mistaken. The older display is showing signs of wear on the LCD - places where icons were left static on the screen, you can kinda see them - oh well.
At home I went from a 19" CRT at 1600x1200 to one and then two Xerox 17" LCDs at 1280x1024. I used those two for about 7 (9 for the older) years. The oldest recently started going bad. I had pondered a 27" Samsung PLS for a long time but went with a 24" IPS (Asus PA248Q) at 1920x1200. It seems like a good comprimise of quality, inputs, price and desk space taken. It had a $20 amazon sale and a $20 refund which helped. This is a home machine so that kind of changes things. For work I do like having another monitor and currently have 3 ghetto 1440x900 monitors.
I'm using two NEC MultiSync LCD 3090WQXi monitors. Absolutely gorgeous, but no where near the budget. But some of the features are amazing. Like dimming or changing or turning off the power light. Also sensor-based white levels et cetera. I bought one new 6 years ago, and the other used 4 years ago. Still perfect. Better, the newer model's easier to type: PA301W.
On the other side, I've also got some I-INC, 28" 1920x1200 screens that cost me $350 4 years ago. They are horrible in every legitimate way -- really slow to turn on, think 15 seconds, or to change resolutions, colour accuracy sucks, pixels are large, but great budget for the size especially 4 years ago.
With two rotated to portrait mode. That is probably the best setup I've had since the late 90's with CRTs (although the LCD's seem to cause less eyestrain in my case).
I've also got a pair of 24" matte 1920x1200 IPS's with one rotated at home. I've considered assorted Korean monitors, but the DPI is only like 5% higher than the 24" monitors, and frankly I think the pixels are already far to large. I would totally replace them with just about anything that is 150DPI or better, but no one makes a PC monitor like that. Same problem with the laptop I have 1920x1200 in 15", and it kicks the crap out of everything but the macbook. Which I would buy, if apple actually made one with upgradable RAM, HD and battery.
I've been considering buying a nexus 10 and trying find a LCD driver that takes DVI to drive the display. It would be pretty slick to get that display on a netbook form factor PC.
And that is what is wrong with the PC industry, the big PC manufactures can blow themselves, I totally need a new laptop but pretty much all the PC laptops are total junk at this point the only real difference is how much you get ripped off for the privilege.
I spend my days coding webapps in vim on a widescreen portrait, the browser in a widescreen landscape, and usually a 3rd monitor to the side with email and chat windows. I can fit over 100 lines of code on the portrait monitor. The future is now, man.
Folks get all exited about having the highest possible resolution, but that is only part of the story. I have 2 x Samsung p2770fh 27" 1920x1080 monitors. They're discontinued now, but 2 years ago I paid $280 each at the local Costco. (I would suggest buying monitors locally so they can be returned if you get dead pixels.)
Anyway, about that resolution. I'm 48 years old and my eyeballs don't work as well as they used to. I have a smokin' work-issued laptop, a Lenovo w520. I love that I can run multiple VMs at once on the thing, but I find myself squinting at it because of the higher pixel density. But at home on the 27's everything is nice and big and easy to read, even if I'm leaned back in my chair.
Otherwise the screens are nice and bright and text is very easy to read. Video looks great. For less than $600 I am a happy camper.
They offer much better vertical space than the current 16x9 monitors, and tons of it. They are also effectively wide enough to offer room for two side by side browser windows etc. I run 2x for coding at work, and it is simply heaven. Expensive though, no denying that.
I have two Samsung 22" monitors with a 1920x1080 (HD) resolution (each). Very nice. I paid about $165 for each a few years ago. No problems, work well. I don't game with them, but I write a lot of software.
One of the most civilized threads I have ever seen on slashdot. Thank you.
my 4 year old desktop smokes my brand new laptop
I'm just going straight to my advice.
You ask about those Korean 2560x1440 monitors. I have three of them that I use to play games in surround mode. They're gorgeous. OMG. Zero dead/stuck pixels. (I paid an extra $20-25/monitor for that guarantee.) After I purchased mine, Microcenter started [occasionally] carrying a similar model for just a little more money. Looks like they're selling Aurias for $400 right now.
Would I use them for text-intensive work? No. The text is very small unless you use the "Make text and other items larger or smaller" feature or bump up the font size in your apps. At which point, you're kinda wasting all those extra pixels you paid for. And things tend to look kinda wonky with that feature because not all apps interact with it the same way. You can get a quality 1920x1080 monitor in that size range for half the price or less.
However, I'd go even farther (further?). For about 5 years, I used a 37" 1920x1080 panel as my main monitor. Everything is huge at normal settings. Roughly 60ppi. No eye strain. No squinting. I could lean all the way back in my chair and the text was still crystal clear. With the monitor about 3' from me, I had no "nose blockage" and could clearly see all parts of the screen without turning my head. If I were spending all day working with text, that's the way I'd go. If you've got a small desk, maybe 32".
I used to use a 46" dynex LCD as my monitor at 3 feet away. Make sure you have sun tan lotion because the sucker heats up like a solar flare. 399 best buy on sale. Go big or go home. Honestly two square 20 inchers are best for coding. Dual screens really do help you separate you're thought process. Don't believe these 27 inch wide screen slags. Thats good for porn and gamer lamo week fumers
The one. The only. The original monitor:
] CALL -151
Her sock, of course. Tho' dealing with winsock just makes us all feel realy dirty too.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PK9WBVI8bAo
Just put it on the desk like normal people.
Two on sides in portrait. Middle in landscape. 2560x1440 (or rotated equiv.). The screen real estate is awesome. I can have references, videos, whatever up on the sides while I work in the middle. I can see massive quantities of code at readable font sizes without having to scroll around. Plus, chicks dig it.
You aren't using you're dual monitor output on your laptop's dock? Or at least using a second monitor from a VGA out? What are you just shopping ebay?
I use three 30" (2560x1600) Dell Monitors hooked up to my Mac Pro workstation (it has an ATi graphics card that can drive 3 natively so it's smooth as butter).
In this configuration I can stretch an Emacs window across the left two and split it into 6 vertical segments (with one horizontal split along the bottom for utility functions). On the right monitor I keep a tabbed Terminal taking up half and a tabbed browser taking up half each of those generally has 6+ tabs open at any one time (make sure your Terminal tabs get named by the directory they're in!).
I've been working with three monitors like this for about a year and half now... and I highly effective with it.
The trick to using 6 panes of source code at once? Organization. I have set guidelines about what files get opened where (I work left to right from lowest level library to highest level application)... this lets me always know where to look.
I don't know if I could go back to "just" two 30"ers....
I run three screens, one 19" 1280x1024 for low prio stuff like music player, Skype contacts etc., one 24" 1900x1200 in center for main work and a 20" 1680x1050 (or something) for additional stuff like mail and viewing documentation.
In my opinion a 16:10 screen is better than a 16:9 screen - those few extra pixels gives you a few lines more when coding and that can make a great difference.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
There is no replacement for fanfold paper.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Apple's display is the best I've used and what I code on.
IDell's U2711H or Eizo's FlexScan SX2762W are both good alternatives.
I replaced an old 27" monitor with a 21.5" Samsung, to the dismay of my whole family. It's a huge improvement. Larger screens just become hard to look at after a while.
I liked the Final Cartridge 3 monitor on my C64 a lot back in the days. Hardly use monitors for programming anymore... ;-)
But seriously, the iMac 27" is just fine for me.
I don't believe in multitasking, hence one monitor is enough.
Old 4:3 Screens with around 1280 physical and an 1800+ virtual screen. Never move around any windows, just change your viewpoint.
16:9 or 16:10 sucks, it's just too wide to comfortably have the whole screen in view.
I tried portrait orientation for a month. It was awful. The viewing angle along the long axis was much smaller than the small axis, thus sitting up in the chair made midtones brighter than highlights, and all sorts of crap like that. More importantly, trying to keep my place within 120 lines of text is nearly impossible. The portrait mode only makes sense for white papers where multiple graphics are fixed in position. Nowdays, I stick to one monitor and flick between views with my fingertips. Way faster than moving my eyes across monitors/views. Why does anyone use dual monitor anymore? (p.s. I still have a second monitor, its just displaying crap I haven't looked at in two days)
You forget that the OS will rotate the display.
If it doesn't, then you're right: square remain square and circle is still a circle, but you will need to tilt your head in order read the screen...
If the OS rotates the display on a non-square pixel device, then its ratio has to be taken into account.
Actually it should use the inverse ratio, shouldn't it?
For programming, height and vertical resolution are the single most important parameters for they define how many LOCs you can see at once and thus the maximum context you can work with effectively.
Obviously, you want screen and not frames in your most valuable view area - the center - which means you have to go for a single screen. And you want your screen to fit your field of view, which means landscape mode as our eyes are oriented horizontally.
This pretty much restricts you to a 30" 2560x1600 display - if you can still get one of those.
ignatius
Currently I'm on 2x1920x1080 22". Optimal to me would probably be 3x1920x1080 22" : Eclipse on one, console on second, web browser on third (I'm a JEE developer).
My workstation sports two identical 17" with 1280x1024 for years both at home and work. Its 4:3 so no portrait but i see the value. I love snapping windows to a monitor with a flick of the mouse, Windows 7 got that right. I used Linux before at home before that. I really like how Windows 8 enables me to do the same on one monitor with RT apps.
Ideally i would buy now a 2560x1400 minimum wide on 30" monitor, with touch. Or rather, a tablet that size (YES) with proper pen support and realtime WiDi to my tv.
But i'd rather have higher resolution, 1280x1024 is lower than my medieval Acer laptop.
Hivemind harvest in progress..
If im going to be coding into the night, F.lux is essential for keeping me from getting major headaches from the white screen http://stereopsis.com/flux/ it takes a day or two to get used to the color difference, but its so worth it.
I have a Korean 2560x1440 IPS display I got for $285 from eBay (including shipping). It has 3 missing pixels, but they're very hard to see. Best monitor for the price imho.
Sell your vehicle and buy a 4k projector. Write it off as a business expense.
Surprised to see no mention of 4:3's, I only saw mention of some weirdo turning his primary widescreen sideways :). I use three slightly older yet top of the line 4:3 20" LCD's. I actually "borrowed" these bad boys from AIG former big boss Hank Greenberg's NY office after he was eliminated. I thought 16:10 and 16:9 was for movies, not work.
I have a huge desktop computer, but I found that I do almost all coding on a an eeepc-900.
Keep functions small, and choose good function and variable names, and it's no problem at all. In fact, the amount of code that fits on the screen is huge compared to 25x80 terminals.
(And stay away from object-oriented programming languages. It didn't work for embedded software that actually handles some form of objects, and it creates a huge pile of inefficient code for anything more complicated than that.)
This combo works great for me. I was running 2 in portrait, and one in landscape. ;-(
But it was too much real-estate. Kept losing my mouse
I run 2 nice 30's, but I think 27's might be easier on the eyes and neck.
I have 2 monitors (30" HP ZR30w and 24" Dell 2407WFPb) -- the larger monitor I keep in standard landscape mode and it runs 2560x1600. To the right if it, I run the 24" Dell in portrait mode (rotated upright) and it runs 1200x1920.
I find the 24" flipped upright is perfect for full page reading or a long list of code, while the other screen is good for interface prototyping and having various other windows open for reference -- most fits nicely in the larger resolution window without too much window overlap, so everything I need can be visible without moving windows around on the screens.
http://microcenter.com/product/384780/EQ276W_27_IPS_LED_Monitor
Basically one the Korean WQHD's (2560x1440) but sold at a reliable US based brick and mortar retailer w/ a 30 day return policy. Read the reviews, Its lacking some of the fancy touches of $1,000+ monitors, but the key function (display and resolution) works awesome. I just got on and love it. Cant beat $400 for this display (open box units come available for $340 at times), and microcenter is great about returns.
Do you get hardware acceleration on all of them? Do you have to do something weird like run multiple X servers? I was under the impression that bad things begin happening when you try to connect more monitors than you can drive with a single video card.
I still use a CRT so I can cook my lunch by placing it on the top of the monitor case.
More Twoson than Cupertino
Two 22's is what I use for all my VM and Software Dev Work. 1920x1080. Love them!
Anything that is 16:10 aspect ratio, but most important: PIVOT TYPE. that way, If you want to see large swats of code, you put it in portrait mode. If you want to see code side by side, landscape.
Since the monitor is pivoting, you will need IPS, TN will not do.
Resolution and diagonal up to your taste and budget.
From anecdotal experience, Korean screens are OK. Nonetheless, a recomendation (for koreans or brand names alike) is to buy second hand from your favourite (ebay, craiglist), that way, someone else did the quality control for you (dead pixels, infant mortality, etc), just be clear on the conditions before the transaction is done. Of course, caveat emptor.
*** Suerte a todos y Feliz dia!
I wished the http://www.anandtech.com/show/6741/lg-29ea93-monitor-review-rev-125 would be x1200. but in any case it seems to be a good compromise between a single large monitor and two monitors with the bezel, etc.
Busy helping non technical users of OpenOffice.org - http://plan-b-for-openoffice.org/
Generally I just get the biggest baddest iMac as my main monitor, chain in an assortment of other monitors of different resolutions and quality, and hook my phones, tablets, and laptops to all act as additional monitors. If feeling extra geeky hook up some little screens via Arduino and maybe some projectors.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
I meant to say "This means you get 1/4 as much chromanance resolution"
Man is the animal that laughs.
And occasionally whores for Karma.
Perfect for a written record of all your changes.
Slashdot: Where nerds gather to pool their ignorance
I much prefer to have a wide screen so that I can run at least two terminals side by side (a-la-dwm), it makes it easier for me to handle the context switch between them (emacs -nw in one, bash prompt in the other). Of course, you still want to have some decent amount of vertical pixels, but I wouldn't rotate my 24" 1920x1200.
My favourite monitor is the racehorse goanna. It's not very accurate at writing programs, but by golly, it is fast!!!
Sure enough, the cow costume was hanging up next to the superhero outfit and sailors uniform. (S,Spud)
24" 1920x1600 by IIYAMA (ProLite B2403WS), please someone inform this thread where equivalent monitors can be sourced.
16:9 and 16:10 formats are bad for multi-monitor use.
DPI seems to get poorer and poorer, but I hope some of the developments coming from mobile and tablet formats ends up in the midline and professional end of the desktop LCD market.