Ask HN: What monitor do you use for coding?

8 points by maciekp ↗ HN
Preferably 22" to 27"

12 comments

[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 37.5 ms ] thread
At work I use my Macbook Air's included monitor along with a 20" Samsung monitor. Not sure which model though.

At home I have three Acer S231HLs (23"). They're definitely not the best monitors, but they can put things on screen, which is the most important thing to me.

I've got a Mac Pro hooked up to two 23" Apple Cinema displays. I've normally got XCode open on one screen, and Visual Studio on the other.
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Dell Ultrasharp really are the best value monitors you can buy. I've had one 20" Ultrasharp for almost 10 years and it's still great. 2x24" or 1x27" is my preference.
At home I've got a Dell SP2208WFP. Quite a good monitor. I'm torn between wanting more pixels (it's 1650x1080) and waiting for it to hold out for 4K to come down in price :)

At work I've got a 24" 1920x1200 HP S-IPS (forget the model, $400ish MSRP), and some random 19" Viewsonic I requisitioned from somewhere. The HP is really great, if you don't mind the only inputs are digital only.

3x 24" Viewsonics and a no-name 24" that's on it's last leg. The monitor is not that important it's the pixel count that I care about
13" Macbook Pro for mobile development. It works.
I am going to get a dell u2412m, now I have a Samsung 24" monitor (I don't know the exact type but it is 1920x1200). I would not want to change to a smaller or larger one, though two 24"s would be nice. Sadly my workspace is not large enough.
Of late, I've been using a 12" 1024x768 screen. It's hard to get distracted when you can only see 1 thing at a time ;)

A single IPS 27" 2560x1440 is great, though. (I used one for about a year) Tiling 3 windows vertically is wonderful, but it sometimes feels too big. Multiple monitors never worked for me unless they're small (<19")

I don't think it matters which specific model, as long as it is as large as your field of view can accommodate, supports high native resolution, is elevated to eye level and placed at the back of your desk, and preferably accompanied by one or two identical twins.
SyncMaster 997DF: 19" CRT @ 2048x1536

Unfortunately the the focus has gradually been getting worse for the last few years; it's no longer quite as sharp in the corners as it was a decade ago when I bought it. It may only last another four or five years. Otherwise it's great.

It's flanked by a pair of 23" ViewSonic IPS LCDs @ 1920x1080. I don't use them for programming as much as I'd like, but I do generally use at least one of them to test what I'm writing.

A monitor that's not glossy. A big one!