Widescreen or dual monitors?

[iamaelephant]

In two weeks I will be upgrading my monitors. I'm currently running a couple of old but reliable CRTs in dual monitor mode (see sig) and I have begrudgingly decided to "upgrade" to LCD. I'm having a hard time deciding what I should do - dual monitors or widescreen? I absolutely love my current dual monitor setup and I couldn't imagine working (or rather playing) without my dual monitor setup. However many people think that widescreen is just as good, although I doubt it. Still, widescreens are (supposedly) much better for gaming and movies.

I don't watch many movies on my PC but I play games a fair bit and I watch a lot of TV episodes. Playing on standard aspect ratios has never bothered me at all, and I've had plenty of game time on my brother's 19" widescreen Acer to know what it's like (don't believe the hype, it's overrated). On the other hand, a lot of people here seem to swear by widescreen monitors. For the record when I play games I only run the game on one screen, and usually have either a webpage, MSN Messenger or diagnostic tools on the other monitor, depending on how well Alt-Tab is supported.

The monitors I'm looking at are the Samsung 203B 20" for dual setup or the Samsung 215TW 21" widescreen. I'm open to suggestions for other monitors, and any input from people who own the monitors I'm looking at also.

 

[sisq0kidd]

Get two widescreen lcds. Problem solved. But it will burn a hole in your wallet

I switched from dual 17" 4:3 lcds to this 24" widescreen lcd.

Widescreen is no substitute for dual monitors. Period.

Just buy two Samsung 215TW's.

 

[iamaelephant]

Dual widescreens are unnecessarily wide. One of the reasons for the switch to LCD is saving desk space - dual widescreens negates that. Plus there's no way in hell I can afford 2 215TWs, even two 203Bs is stretching my budget.

 

[shrumpage]

Keep your dual screens. period.

Try some 19" wide screens, they aren't terrialbly expensive, and not huge.

 

[Dribble]

Depends on what you want to do - if you game then with dual monitors you'll only use one of them to game (because with both it doesn't really work having a large split down the centre and the res is too high for a graphics card to manage anyway). However you get the most screen space (2500*1000 appox).
With one widescreen then you can use the whole thing for gaming which looks nicer, however total screen area will be much smaller (say 1680*1050 for a medium sized wide LCD).

 

[Lonyo]

Triple monitors
Two 17" LCD's, with a 20" widescreen sandwiched in the middle.

 

[dug777]

dual>*

Once you use dual, you'll never go back.

 

[iamaelephant]

I have decided I will almost certainly go dual. My car actually sold for more than I anticipated so even the Dell 2407FPW is within my price range, but I decided against that (admittedly amazing) monitor because my 7600GT most certainly couldnt play games at native res and because I have found that even a very big WS monitor is still no substitute for two monitors. I will most likely go for 2x Dell 1907FP's (which will come out significantly cheaper that a single 2407) unless someone can show me a good reason to go for another 19/20" brand at a similar price. Thanks for your input so far folks.

 

[FrustratedUser]

Originally posted by: dug777
dual>*

Once you use dual, you'll never go back.

So fucking true.

2001FP + 17" CRT here.

 

[dug777]

Originally posted by: FrustratedUser

Originally posted by: dug777
dual>*

Once you use dual, you'll never go back.

So ****** true.

2001FP + 17" CRT here.

I used to have two 17" CRTs, went on a buying & selling spree & i've ended up with a beautiful 21" CRT and a 15" LCD Works for me.

 

[postmortemIA]

Dual girlfirends rule.

 

[josh6079]

Two monitors will be the better investment depending on what you want to do and if you are wanting to stay away from SLI or Crossfire. Personally, I play games and run overclocking utilities on my main monitor (20WMGX2) and keep track of temps and display all of my overclocking information like ATI Tool frequencies and temps, CPU temps, etc. on my secondary monitor (VX2025WM). That and web browsing is more enjoyable since you can watch a movie on one screen while surfing the net on the other. Not to mention faster since you can run two different fullscreens on two different montiors. Two is nicer IMO.

 

[ProfJohn]

I just bought the the Samsung 203b 20" LCD you speak of for $297 at Samsclub. Really nice monitor for the price, plus I can return it if there is a major drop in the prices of other 20" LCDs.

I may go dual, but I lack the desk space right now. Plus I am more interested in going Dual after buying a new iMac, so I want to wait and match the monitor with the Mac.

 

[iamaelephant]

Bah I'm having such a hard time deciding. Right now it's between three options - 1x Dell 1907FP and 1x Dell 2007FPW (best of both worlds), 2x 1907FP or 1x Dell 2407FPW

How the hell do I decide? They all have pros and cons. Arg. My head hurts.

 

[josh6079]

You can always flip a coin?.............

 

[supastar1568]

whats soo good about dual monitor setups? just curious

Isnt it annoying with the frame of each monitor breaking your view?

Again, i am very curious about this

 

[JBT]

If dual is useful to you go with dual. While one big one is nice its NOT as good doing productivity type stuff.

 

[theanimala]

Originally posted by: supastar1568
whats soo good about dual monitor setups? just curious

Isnt it annoying with the frame of each monitor breaking your view?

Again, i am very curious about this

I rarely have one image crossing both screens, although it has happened once or twice with a large speadsheet. I love it having email open on one screen, browsers on another. Or photoshop on one side with tool bars on the other. It really is very productive.

If you can swing it, go for dual 20"s. 1600x1200 x 2 is tons of screen space. You can see my setup here: Dual 20"s

 

[dunno99]

If you code, dual monitor setup kicks ass. Wide screen makes it even better, since you can rotate your screen so you get more vertical real estate (at the cost of horizontal...but that isn't so bad with dual monitors, since you plop those utility/library/package/class/method/debug/etc... windows on the other monitor). I would say try going for a 20" 4:3 and a 24" 16:10 for two reasons: 1. the native res of 20" and 24" match up vertically (when you're not coding), and 2. you can get 1080p without all the downsampling.

Personally, I have two Dell 2001FPs. I'm planning on getting either a 30" Dell and making my two 20" vertical, or just get a 2407 for normal side-by-side triple monitor goodness (this way, I don't have a weird crosshair between two monitors when I play games spanned across screens).

Bottom line is, I personally believe that # pixels is more important than aspect ratio...which is why I find the 2005/2007FPWs to be useless.

 

[Ctrackstar126]

Originally posted by: iamaelephant
Bah I'm having such a hard time deciding. Right now it's between three options - 1x Dell 1907FP and 1x Dell 2007FPW (best of both worlds), 2x 1907FP or 1x Dell 2407FPW

How the hell do I decide? They all have pros and cons. Arg. My head hurts.

I was in the same boat as you a while back. I decided on a viewsonic widescreen and it was great. I just recently put my 19 inch crt next to it and its great.
Though I see myself wanting to upgrade to a 24 inch. So my advice is go with 24 inch. Wait til later when lcds are a little cheaper and you got cash and pick up a 19 inch then.

 

[j511180]

Having two monitors has really enhanced my time wasting festivities. I can now watch the news whilst racing my Lister Storm at the same time

 

[Dravic]

dual


19" crt for gaming and 17"lcd for browsing while gaming here

 

[iamaelephant]

I think I'm just going to bite the bullet and go for the 24" Dell monitor. I can always buy an auxilliary 19" later on if I crave the dual monitor goodness and the 24" still allows me to have two applications open simultaneously, aswell as being a sweet gaming/TV monitor. I'll be making the order in 24 hours so if anyone has anything else to add, now is the time!

Also if anyone has any feedback on how the 24" scales games it would be great. I don't think my 7600GT has the grunt to run F.E.A.R. and Day of Defeat Source at full resolution so I'll probably end up turning it down to comething like 1440x900. Will this look like crap? I'd much rather play the game scaled down on full screen than with black bars on all 4 sides.

 

[dawza]

Like others have stated, dual monitors are unbeatable for work/productivity. I work with spreadsheets and do a fair amount of writing, and it is just a huge, huge advantage being able to put documents on one monitor, a spreadsheet on another, and have several PDFs open at the same time.

That said, I think it would be a wise decision to go for the single 24" Dell right now, as you can always pick up a 20" 4:3 monitor for cheap later on- and as a previous poster mentioned, the vertical resolutions will match up. I just moved from a single 2001FP to a 2001FP + 2405FPW, and it has made work much easier and more comfortable.

The 2405 scales very well, IMO. My single 7800GT cannot drive Oblivion at 1920x1200, but runs just fine at 1600x1080, and looks great.

A less expensive but still very practical (work-wise) option would be dual 1600x1200, but if you watch a lot of TV or plan to use the monitor for other multimedia purposes, 24" widescreen is the way to go. IMO, a widescreen 20" is too short for work (others may disagree, but I do have a 2007WFP and have come to this conclusion via first-hand experience), although it is fine for multimedia/gaming.

 

[josh6079]

Originally posted by: iamaelephant
I think I'm just going to bite the bullet and go for the 24" Dell monitor. I can always buy an auxilliary 19" later on if I crave the dual monitor goodness and the 24" still allows me to have two applications open simultaneously, aswell as being a sweet gaming/TV monitor. I'll be making the order in 24 hours so if anyone has anything else to add, now is the time!

Also if anyone has any feedback on how the 24" scales games it would be great. I don't think my 7600GT has the grunt to run F.E.A.R. and Day of Defeat Source at full resolution so I'll probably end up turning it down to comething like 1440x900. Will this look like crap? I'd much rather play the game scaled down on full screen than with black bars on all 4 sides.

You should be pleased with it. It is a very attractive piece of work. I personally have always felt that 24" is just an awkward size monitor to have since 19x12 can be pretty stressful for some gaming situations and 24" seems to be too small for a TV substitute. But, others do different things so for some a 24" monitor would be awesome.