Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

Jerk_circus · Mar 20, 2006, 03:52 PM

Hey everyone, I currently have a 23" cinema display, and I've been thinking of getting more screen real estate. Making my website has made me realize how much screen space I really need.

I was thinking of getting another 23", but what about just getting one 30"? Also, would it be even possible to run a 30" and a 23". I have the 6600 256mb GPU
Chime in, and help me out. Thanks!

jamil5454 · Mar 20, 2006, 04:40 PM

It would be possible to run a 30" and 23", yes. That's what I would do.

iREZ · Mar 22, 2006, 04:07 PM

two 30's...

truth be told, id go with one 30 or two 23's...but id avoid getting a 30 and a 23, do you even have that much desk real estate.

brassplayersrock² · Mar 22, 2006, 05:07 PM

right now i'm on a 15'' powerbook dual displaying with a 23'' cinema. if i were you i'd go with the dual 23''. the annoyance that I have with the two differant screen sizes is resizing windows. It gets annoying having to resize windows that are from the 23'' to fit on the 15''. If I were you I would go for the dual 23''. I do not know if your computer supports it, but if your wallet is deep enouph, go for the dual 30''s :-D cant go wrong there

production_coordinator · Mar 22, 2006, 05:12 PM

I think dual 23"...

...if you were going between dual 20" or one 20" and one 23" I would be singing a different song.

Jason Bourne · Mar 22, 2006, 11:41 PM

I have a 30" and a 23" but not attached to the same computer. Just for kicks, I once hooked up both to my quad, but they were basically falling off the edges of my desk. One 30" is a lot of screen real estate so I'm sticking to that, even though I'm not really using the computer that has the 23" attached to it.

iREZ · Mar 22, 2006, 11:47 PM

must be nice...

awcopus · Mar 23, 2006, 12:38 AM

Now that I use Expose as if it's second nature, I find that my 23" is plenty of screen space. It's all about how you manage your space. I used to have a 22" monitor side-by-side with the 23", and pre-Expose I used it all the time. Afterwards, no so much. And I use FCP and DVDSP and Motion pretty much every day.

If I were starting from scratch, I would get the 30" and see how that goes. If you need more, you can always add it later. But really get your groove on with Expose and you can spend some of that saved capital elsewhere.

I plan to get the 30" (or whatever is Apple's biggest and brightest a year from now) and just use that alone.

trevorM · Mar 23, 2006, 02:27 AM

I currently run just one 30" display. I use a range of applications. Somewhat ironically my primary application is a word processor. But, when using Photoshop CS or Aperture I find the 30"display much more preferable over a dual display setup. It seems more intuitive to me using one screen. Since you already have a 23" display, and therefore a reasonable amount of screen real estate to being with, I would say the addition of a 23" would be the best over a 30". I suspect if you got a 30", in no time you would be selling your baby 23".

Hope that helps you out a little.

Jerk_circus · Mar 23, 2006, 02:33 PM

Wow. Thanks for the replies everyone.
I was leaning towards getting another 23", but I wasnt sure about the cost/benefit trade off. I think getting 2 23's is actually cheaper, but I dont get as much vertical space. Hmmmm... I'm not too keen on having two different sizes either. Either way, I think I'll get one more 23". Not any time soon though I think...

Thanks again everyone

Etnier · Mar 23, 2006, 05:50 PM

One big advantage of using two screens of the same size is that you can pull windows freely from one monitor to the other. If one monitor has lower resolution, a window pulled into it will often have to be resized.

Chad A Wright · Mar 23, 2006, 08:28 PM

I use a 30" and a 20" side-by-side. I take all my programs that run all the time and stick them on the 20 (iCal, Mail, iBiz, iTunes. Then I keep what I'm working on on the 30"

Honestly, doing design/video/writing all day every day, I'm planning on buying another 30" when I can afford it. I don't think I'll ever have enough screen space. And yes, I have a big honkin' desk.

KraziKid · Mar 24, 2006, 06:12 AM

I was in the same situation as you last summer. After weighing all the facts, I chose to get a single 30. I honestly love it. I much prefer it to a dual monitor setup, since I dont have to turn my head to far. Plus it is awesome for DVDs.

mountainash · Mar 26, 2006, 08:27 AM

Big desk (wide desk) get two 23". Small desk (narrow desk) get one 30". One 30" screen will give the same area (aprox) as 1.77 23" screens. So there's not /that/ much difference

grinder · Mar 26, 2006, 08:32 AM

I'd say 1 30" and your 23". Use the 30" for DVDs and stuff, and move your unused windows to the other screen. Plus, it just looks cool.

Etnier · Mar 26, 2006, 08:35 AM

It almost seems from some of these posts that people are buying these collections of large monitors because of the confusion of windows which can occur when a number of applications are open at once.

For years I've used QuicKeys to map my most-commonly-used apps (and documents) to Function Key combinations, ALWAYS with the "Hide Other Applications" command included. That way I just hit keys to move from app to app, and hide unwanted windows automatically as I work. In those circumstances where I need to drag something from one app to another, I simply use the Dock to access the desired applications.

In general, I keep major windows open in the monitor directly in front of me, and pallettes and the like on my secondary monitor. Both are set to 1280 X 1024, although my NEC FP2141 could support much finer resolution: I like my type legible.