Multiple Monitors Or One Big One – Which Is For You?

When it comes to monitor setup, there seems to be two schools of thought – multiple or one big widescreen. Both have their pros and cons. For example, multiple monitors makes it easy to facilitate the use of multiple programs (snapping to a monitor) at once while a big widescreen allows a lot of ‘real estate’ for desktop space or movie watching.

I get asked this question a bit and these are the points I bring up:

Multiple Monitors if:

You have lots of desk space
You routinely need to have several programs viewable at once
You like to keep your inbox viewable while working (building on the above)
You do remote presentations which use desktop sharing (allows you to share one and keep one private)

One Big Widescreen if:

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You routinely view just one program at a time
You are accustomed to using a laptop
You have limited desk space

Did I miss something? I am a multiple monitor person, but which setup do you prefer and why?

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13 thoughts on “Multiple Monitors Or One Big One – Which Is For You?”

Greg Wilke says:

February 10, 2010 at 3:36 pm

22″ widescreens X4. 3 arranged in front of me and the 4th off to the side. I use Ultramon to keep the confusion down and truly appreciate the individual toolbars for each monitor. My music applications, iTunes for the phone and less frequently used research programs sit on the monitor off to the side, mail and several file folders are open on the left monitor, my TV application, Microsoft Excel, and PowerPoint on the right monitor, and my browser and Word on the main monitor in front. It is very frustrating to go to work and deal with a single monitor setup. Productivity goes right in the crapper. It seems I spend most of my time there resizing windows. Of course they are still using MS2000 and CRTs there and I’ve become a Windows7 lover (it took a little while for me to make the jump from XPpro, but I’ve never looked back since). Now if I can just get work to pull out of the dark ages and start using optical mice!

Arafat Hossain Piyada says:

February 10, 2010 at 6:56 am

I prefer single wise screen monitor because I never feel a need of two monitor. Another thing is I’m a movie mad and I love to watch movie from home as it look more productive to me.

David M says:

February 9, 2010 at 9:36 pm

Two 24 inch monitors are much cheaper than a 30 inch monitor. For gaming though, I can’t imagine having to look at a thick black line right through the middle of the game. Because of this, my next monitor will be a single 30 inch.

David Kennedy says:

February 9, 2010 at 7:31 pm

I think you’re right on. Generally I do prefer the dual screens, because it’s much easier to drag and drop to have two apps/documents side by side. But features like Windows 7’s snap feature is making it a lot easier to do this with one big screen.

Vertimyst says:

February 9, 2010 at 1:49 pm

I prefer a dual-monitor setup, but at the moment I’m using a single 24″ widescreen. My desk’s far too small to fit another one, sadly (and I barely have enough room for the one :P).

Bruce H. Johnson says:

February 9, 2010 at 12:47 pm

A wide monitor is a blessing while using DTP programs or other programs like Visual Studio, SharePoint Designer or others which have a work area with several property pages which are usually on the sides.

BP says:

February 9, 2010 at 12:05 pm

I have a dual monitor setup. For the design profession, it is nice to have a CAD/3D modeling software on each screen that reflects changes back and forth. I can work on a floor plan on one screen, save it, and then see the changes reflected on the other to work on. It’s also nice with the Adobe Creative Suite to have tool palettes and windows on the other screen. That gives me the most clean image work space on one screen and all the other misc. toolbars on the other. I hate when I have to travel and only have my small laptop screen.

Doctor Gonzo says:

February 9, 2010 at 11:54 am

I’ve got three monitors on my desktop, one 24″ widescreen and two 19″ monitors flanking it. It works great for me. I only wish I had multiple monitors at work, it’s so convenient to have all my apps open and visible and once as opposed to alt-tabbing.

LANDBARRON says:

February 10, 2010 at 1:22 pm

THREE IS THE ONLY WAY TO GO.yES IT’S A LITTLE MORE BUT IT WORKS SO WELL.tONS OF APPS OPEN FULL CCREEN AND SPLIT TOO!

Brian says:

February 9, 2010 at 10:39 am

I look at it from a cost point of view.

On big monitor is generally more efficient in terms of dollars per square inch. 24 inch monitors can be had for ~$250 and less. But in terms of dollars per pixel, two smaller monitors is the way to go.

Aaron says:

February 9, 2010 at 10:27 am

Personally, I use a 22″ monitor for my work and play. I used to have a dual monitor setup, but as you said it took up way too much space.

As a side note, single monitor users have been thrown a bone with Windows 7 and its handy snap feature. I routinely put windows side-by-side with plenty of viewing space.

Eli says:

February 9, 2010 at 9:38 am

I use one big widescreen. Although I routinely have anywhere from 2 to 10 programs open at once, I like the one big monitor. The only issue is having to manually resize windows to have them side by side, but the widescreen has plenty of room for it. This setup is at home, on Ubuntu linux. Linux makes managing windows so much easier.

With Windows like I have at work, I would definitely prefer two monitors. It gets very frustrating when managing a couple of spreadsheets, a browser, and an Outlook window all at the same time. This is especially so when Windows combines all of my Excel windows into one spot on the taskbar, and I then have to click on Excel, and then select the spreadsheet that I want. For work I sometimes have as many as 6 spreadsheets open at once, and one monitor makes it pretty infuriating at times.

Dave says:

February 9, 2010 at 7:02 am

I have two computers in front of me. One has two monitors and the other, lesser-used one just has one. There are a couple of free programs that I recommend for such a situation. One is Synergy, so you can use just one mouse and one keyboard over two computers. Works seamlessly for me over all three screens. Also merges clipboards, which is VERY useful. You can’t believe how good a simple thing like copy and paste between two machines is! http://synergy2.sourceforge.net/
The other is MultiMonitor Task Bar, which puts a taskbar on the second monitor. http://www.mediachance.com/free/multimon.htm
The author also has some interesting ideas on linking multiple computers.

Paul says:

February 9, 2010 at 4:07 am

I’ve got 2 different set ups, one monitor each. First, I don’t have room for a dual system and second if I run 2 programs at once, it’s by mistake. Before my 3rd computer died, I was using a KVM still with one monitor.