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Comment by FlyingAvatar | Hacker News Reader

I use 3x 27" 4K monitors in portrait mode side by side with my Macbook Pro screen at the end. This gives me about 10 normal screen sized areas.

I usually have the following things open in specific spots:

  - General Browser (mostly for email and weather)
  - Calendar
  - Terminal
  - Text Editor
  - Desktop Mode Browser for App in Development
  - Detached Debug Console for the above
  - Mobile View Browser for App in Development with attached Debug Console
  - Browser for documentation / reference
  - To Do List
  - Slack

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I'll present a different data point. I also used to like multiple monitor setups, using up to three monitors. And then I realized that I'd much rather have a single good quality screen, because there is less fussing around with things. A 27" iMac 5k screen got me enough screen real estate to be happy.

These days I am looking for single-monitor solutions, at 27" — anything larger and you need to turn your head.

(incidentally, 5K vs 4K makes a huge practical difference for me: in my full-screen Emacs I can comfortably fit three columns of code on a 5K screen, but on 4K this is problematic)

Have you tried 2x 27” screens vertically, ideally models with minimal bezel?

I’ve found that it doesn’t increase head turning because it’s not much wider than a single screen, but I can fit twice as much stuff.

Also I can read a much longer file of code at once, which is more useful than you’d expect..

That's been my setup for the last decade (currently a pair of U2720Q monitors). macOS unfortunately does a worse job with "font smoothing" when using the monitors vertically, but it's fine.

The main downside is that since most people (obviously) use their displays in landscape mode, lots of websites and applications are pretty antagonistic to a tall and thin display. (Spreadsheets are often quite bad, but there are lots of places where people eat up horizontal space for padding or side bars that are suddenly super annoying).

There's a bit of a push to larger, ultrawide 5k2k monitors (e.g., Dell's U4021Q or the delayed-by-a-year-not-actually-available LG 40WP95C) but a pair of high resolution 27s is still a lot more pixel density. These bigger ones also tend to have lower brightness, presumably do to power and thermal targets per display.

I use 3x 27" 5K displays (an iMac Pro and two LG ultrafine 5Ks with the same panel) in an H: iMac in normal landscape, with the two side displays in portrait. It's perfect.

They are all on arms that somewhat encircle my position so it is no issue to code for extended periods on either of the "side" displays.

Yes, three displays might make sense — definitely much more than two. But I found that I don't like to turn my head too much, so I'm not sure if that setup would work for me.

Yes.

That setup required even more fussing around with window setups. I also tried one monitor horizontally and one vertically, slightly better. But overall every two monitor setup has a problem in that my best viewing area (right in front of my face) is occupied by the seam between two monitors.

As for viewing more code, I also thought it would make sense, but I'm no longer sure. I ended up using my entire vertical monitor for a single buffer/file only, because splitting it vertically resulted in buffers that were too narrow, and splitting it horizontally defied the purpose of using a vertical monitor. I then realized that I'd rather work with a horizontally-oriented monitor and multiple columns, which provide me with more useful context from multiple files.

Honestly, the graphics quality is the reason I have 3 4K displays. I run them at 2x scaling and they are not fatiguing to use. 5K would be better though, as 1080 pixels wide feels a little tight on some websites.

A single 8K display would probably be better, but well-reviewed and reasonably priced 8K monitors are not really there yet.

Nice! what scaling do you run them at? I like avoiding fractional scaling, I have two 24" and run them at 2x.

The next step would be 27" 5K for a similar DPI, someday : )

They are 2x. I would prefer 5K over 4K as 1080px wide is a little narrow for some websites these days, but I have not found suitably good (and reasonably priced) monitor for doing that yet.

Also, my old 2018 MBP was at its limit driving them all. My new M1 Max has no problem with them (and would be fine with 3x 5K displays as well), so it's looking more possible now.

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