Ask HN: Is a 27" Screen Worth It?

The answer is yes. I can guarantee it. I wouldn't recommend spending a bunch of money on a single monitor though. Buy two ~22" monitors off of NewEgg. It won't feel the same as a 27" monitor, but you'll have considerably more space, pay at least half the price, and have some explicit compartmentalization going. The downside is that it's not all the same monitor, and you need hte deskspace. As well as having to buy a cable for having multiple external monitors with a Macbook Pro.

I say give it a try, and return it if isn't as comfortable as you want it to be. You'll still be able to get your money back (assuming you return the stuff in the same condition you bought it), and you can go and try the 27" monitor too.

I've been looking at this a lot recently as I consider moving away from the 2 screen setup I've had for years. My main motivation is that my laptop docking stations only have one digital output. VGA just doesn't cut it for a clear screen.

The drop in price on the 27" models has me hoping that the 30" 2560x1600 ones will also come down. I've wanted one of those for ages, though when I once used an Apple cinema screen at that size/resolution it felt kind of weird.

I've currently got a 27" iMac with two 20" Dell monitors turned portrait either side. I keep things like IM, Twitter, Email etc in the two portrait screens and keep what I'm working on in the middle.

I recently had pretty much the same debate about upgrading my pair of 24" monitors, and wound up moving to 4x24" side-by-side in portrait mode. The extra real estate is totally worth it, but you get the added advantage of having that real estate divided up into screens, where you can maximize/tile windows more easily than on one huge display.

The cost is nice, too; the 4x24" monitors were only ~$700, so even with the extra $120 or so for a pair of decent stands off of Amazon, the damage isn't too bad.

(Just realized you're talking about an extra for a laptop, which makes the situation a bit different. Leaving this up anyhow in the hopes of provoking discussion---I'm curious what people do for multi-monitor setups.)

For dev work, I'd say the nicest thing about the 27"s is the ability to put two full pages side-by-side, either a browser window + IDE, or vert. split IDE code panes. 1920px isn't quite there for two panes of code.

And personally, I've had 2+ 24"s, and I've actually found it too cumbersome: having emails/IM's on a second window actually becomes distracting, and moving your mouse cursor across so many pixels was less precise than either alt-tabbing to the right program or switching spaces/virtual desktops w/ a keyboard shortcut. For me anyway, 27" is the sweet spot.

For displaying the likes of Netbeans, both are comfortable. I don't display the browser in full screen on the iMac because it's ridiculously large. For watching videos however, the 27'' are impressive. I would say programmers don't need huge screens nor multiple ones but I suppose it depends on one's preferences and habits.

My thought is that I'm staring at a monitor more than 14 hours a day. It's like the tires on a car, where the rubber meets the road. It's such an important connecting between physical and the computer, that it's worth the additional investment.

That said, I can't make these judgments for you. I still recommend trying it out for a week if you can, and then decide if you're more productive with larger screen space. Good luck!

With the recent window tiling options in both Ubuntu and Windows it's as easy to organize windows on a single large monitor as it is with two.

The display is simply gorgeous and its the first time that I don't frequently wish it was bigger. I used a 24" DELL before and apart from it being extremely ugly compared to apple's, many times it was insufficiently big for my needs.

For example, when programming in vi, I have lots of splits (sometimes more then 10) open in the same window. I find it more effective to see various related parts at once then to switch b/w buffers all the time.

Other times I have a vi, browser and a terminal with autotest each occupying a third of the screen (vertically).

Also, I bought mine through apple's refurb program, and it's been running perfectly. I would suggest that as a good way to save some money.

It doesn't matter where you're sitting. Just plug in power and the display port wherever you go and that's it! I don't have to bring more than a FedEx letter-sized envelope to work every day (it conceals my macbook air).

I can't compare it to dual lcd monitors, but as other people have mentioned I find it perfect for full screen vi or tmux sessions with a lots of splits, and wouldn't want to go back to a smaller form factor. :-)

It does require an optimal seating position though.

I also have a cheap 1080p next to it for testing and for secondary boxes/iPad dev or dashboards. Splitting a 1920 horizontal into 2x960 displays feels cramped.

There are displays that use the same 27" panel as Apple for less dough. The economics work out a lot better there.

I recently switched from three 19" monitors to two 27" monitors (I'm a php / javascript / python developer). I assumed that having the same horizontal resolution with extra vertical resolution would add to my productivity.

With three monitors I had three contexts in which I merely needed to glance in a direction. Almost like doing an "alt+tab" in my mind. If I wanted to check my current code in or run unit tests, look at my left monitor and type. If I wanted to read or write code, look at my center monitor and type. If I wanted to test output or find a reference, look at right monitor and type. *

With two monitors (regardless of resolution), I have one less context. I actually have to think about window placement. Those seconds add up. More importantly the cost of switching context adds up as I get deeper into what I'm working on. If something was important, I maximized it to a screen and that's all that screen was. That is what it meant to look in that direction. Now I maximize a window and... well a 27" window is pretty ridiculous unless your work involves graphics. There's less permanence and hence more to remember.

Save money on the resolution and get yourself as many decent-sized monitors as your desk / system can handle. I assume it's possible to have too many monitors, but I feel I would have done better with three slightly larger monitors (or just a fourth monitor) than I am with two that can hold more pixels than the three. I plan to find out very soon.

* By "look and type", I mean tap my mouse in that direction and click to activate the window and then type.