What's a Good Sized Monitor?

[martyb]

At work, I have dual 22's but at home, I've sold my desktop Dell on Craigslist, & only use my 17" Toshiba laptop. Wife only uses her Kindle Fire.

[plex]

Eye strain aside, bigger isn't always better with screens because monitors/TV's only have so much pixel density. That means, the picture quality goes down the larger the screen is and the closer you sit to it, your brain starts noticing the pixels.

You can use an easy calculator to see how this works:

E.g.: Is This Retina? - DPI/PPI Display Calculator

A 42 inch TV, which generally is not going to be at a really high resolution unless you are spending big bucks, from 4-6 feet away, is going to look pretty bad. A standard 1080p one will only have a pixel density of 52, around 300 is ideal when close up (with something like a smartphone/ereader/Ipad).

[bUU]

Yup. I think 29" is probably the largest screen that useful for a computer given the most common resolutions of video cards and monitors. 42" would be useful only for meetings and such, and then, only for things like PowerPoint slides and images.

[timo2]

I have a dual setup with a 19" aligned vertically a 20" aligned horizontally. That's for my home PC. For my telework setup, I have a 26" and use the laptop screen as a second monitor. I have a 26" monitor in the home office that I use as a TV but am considering using it as a computer monitor, except that then I would need to get a new TV.

[audreyh1]

None of those big monitors has the hi-res screen. Not even the Apple big monitors. So I prefer my laptop 15" high res screen (Retina display) for all my photo editing.

BTW - if you need things bigger on the screen you should be able to switch the display to show less pixels per inch and magic - everything looks bigger. We did this adjustment recently for some friends in their 80s. Another option is configuring the default letter size in your system configuration and making it larger.

So glad I don't have a desktop computer and monitor - yuck! Different strokes, I know!

[bUU]

Quote:

Originally Posted by audreyh1 None of those big monitors has the hi-res screen.

None of which big monitors has hi-res screens?

[audreyh1]

Quote:

Originally Posted by plex Eye strain aside, bigger isn't always better with screens because monitors/TV's only have so much pixel density. That means, the picture quality goes down the larger the screen is and the closer you sit to it, your brain starts noticing the pixels. You can use an easy calculator to see how this works: E.g.: Is This Retina? - DPI/PPI Display Calculator A 42 inch TV, which generally is not going to be at a really high resolution unless you are spending big bucks, from 4-6 feet away, is going to look pretty bad. A standard 1080p one will only have a pixel density of 52, around 300 is ideal when close up (with something like a smartphone/ereader/Ipad).

Exactly!

[gozer]

I use 3 monitors. Dual widescreen 23's that are for computing tasks and a 32 inch led hanging on the wall about 5 feet from my workstation. We will sometimes watch Netflix or Hulu on the TV while doing other things.

My wife has dual 23's and drives her work area with her laptop which is a 17 inch widescreen laptop. So she is using all 3 monitors for computing tasks.

[audreyh1]

Quote:

Originally Posted by bUU None of which big monitors has hi-res screens?

None of the large standalone computer monitors - 24 inch, 27 inch, whatever.

My 15.4 laptop screen has 2880 by 1800 pixels giving a pixel density of 220 pixels per inch. The much larger stand-alone monitors have fewer pixels across than my laptop, so much lower pixel density, given their much larger size.

[W2R]

Which is why one should consider the desired resolution, as well as the desired monitor size.

Now, if one is using a lower-than-HD resolution, a slightly bigger monitor with HD resolution may not show things in a larger size at all, because you are getting more "real estate" that way. In that case, if you also want a larger size you might need a larger monitor than you think you need. A larger monitor can also be helpful, for example, to make it easier on aging eyes to see things in even HD level resolution when one cannot take advantage of that full resolution in the tinier sizes, due to vision that is less than perfect.

That was my point. I would be shocked if anyone here did not know that monitors can have higher resolution than HD! My goodness.

[timo2]

Quote:

Originally Posted by W2R Which is why one should consider the desired resolution, as well as the desired monitor size. Now, if one is using a lower-than-HD resolution, a slightly bigger monitor with HD resolution may not show things in a larger size at all, because you are getting more "real estate" that way. In that case, if you also want a larger size (for example, to make it easier on aging eyes to see even HD level resolution), you might need a larger monitor than you think you need. That was my point.

And I found that my newer ASUS that has the HDMI connection looks very good even on my 26" HD LED monitor/TV

[Hermit]

All I have now is a laptop with a 15.4" screen. It sits on my desk all the time just as a desktop setup would. I have a 24" monitor but it is in storage and not accessible. I have found that trying to use the laptop for document creation and editing is painful. If a whole page is displayed, it is too small to read and scrolling up and down doesn't help to see the page layout. What really would be nice is to have dual monitors where you can set it up to see a document as it would be when printing double sided. It moves a lot of printing and finding what are essentially layout errors to displaying and finding those errors. It just does not work for me on the laptop screen. If I didn't work with such documents I probably would not have a problem.

[W2R]

Quote:

Originally Posted by timo2 And I found that my newer ASUS that has the HDMI connection looks very good even on my 26" HD LED monitor/TV

I'll bet!! Also I was blown away with how terrific a friend's computer output looks on his 55" TV, using an HDMI connection as well. Pretty spectacular for some of us with less than ideal vision.

Right now I usually just use my laptop's 15" built in monitor. However if I was going to use an external monitor at all, I'd use a BIG one that would be easier on my crummy eyes.

[bUU]

Quote:

Originally Posted by audreyh1 None of the large standalone computer monitors - 24 inch, 27 inch, whatever.

That's not true. Some of the large standalone computer monitors I mentioned earlier have precisely the same, or greater, resolution, than the laptops we connect to them.

[MichaelB]

The Apple Thunderbolt Display is amazing. It has 27" of retina display resolution and I almost bought it for DW when we got her MacBook. The official reason I didn't: a bit too expensive when the high resolutions wasn't needed. The real reason: I'd most likely steal take it from her for my own use.

[easysurfer]

Okay, so I tinkered with the resolution settings around a bit and decided to not get a new monitor - at least for now.

My setup has a native setting of 1440 x 900 which is good for when I want high resolution (like game playing) but too tiny for me for simple tasks like using Windows Explorer or email.

I switched the resolution to 1152 x 864, which isn't as sharp, but because of the larger size is more comfortable for my eyes.

When I want to go to 1440 x 900, I found this freebie software called HotKey Resolution Changer that allows me to assign control keys (or use a menu drop down) to easily switch to selected resolutions.

[walkinwood]

Quote:

Originally Posted by easysurfer .... but unfortunately, my eyes have gotten older and have to squint to see the smaller size characters

I hear this a lot, but can't a better eye glass prescription fix this issue?
That's worked for me so far, but I am curious - does it get to a point, where glasses cannot fix the issue?

I bought a 27" monitor (Dell H2713HM) with a 2560x1440 resolution about a year go and I LOVE it. Everything is crisp and the colors are awesome. However, make sure your computer has the right digital video out (either dual-DVI or Display Port) to support the higher resolution. I ended up having to build a new computer. Oh, and then I had to buy a pair of mid-distance glasses to read the screen Yes, there was grumbling and gnashing of teeth, but I like the end result.

[easysurfer]

Quote:

Originally Posted by walkinwood I hear this a lot, but can't a better eye glass prescription fix this issue? That's worked for me so far, but I am curious - does it get to a point, where glasses cannot fix the issue? I bought a 27" monitor (Dell H2713HM) with a 2560x1440 resolution about a year go and I LOVE it. Everything is crisp and the colors are awesome. However, make sure your computer has the right digital video out (either dual-DVI or Display Port) to support the higher resolution. I ended up having to build a new computer. Oh, and then I had to buy a pair of mid-distance glasses to read the screen Yes, there was grumbling and gnashing of teeth, but I like the end result.

I did some more testing with my setup (Is A better or B? Feeling like I'm at the eye doctor's office ) and decided to set the software so the higher resolution/small display as my default and lower res/big display when I do a task like use Windows Explorer.

Yes, a more fitting prescription definitely will help. My regular glasses are too sharp and causes eyestrain. I'm using computer glasses which I had made several years ago, but they are pretty scratched up. New computer glasses the next time I see my eye doctor is the plan.

[braumeister]

For those with Apple machines, there is a great little trick I use all the time.

I put my pointer in whatever part of the screen I'm interested in.
Then I hold down the Control key and scroll. Scrolling up zooms in on that part of the screen, scrolling down zooms back out.

It works wonderfully well. If yours doesn't work at first, go to System Preferences/Accessibility and check the second box.

I imagine Windows machines have something similar.

[bUU]

One of the things I believe makes a big difference is the finish. In the interest of mitigating the impact of glare, many displays these days are matte finished, which I feel makes everything look like you're looking through a thin sheet of water to see it. I much prefer the crystal clear glossy finish screens, controlling the glare by closing blinds and turning off glaring lights.