This article was originally posted on Jan 30th 2017 at: https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/how-to-pick-a-good-monitor-for-software-development
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The panels aren't dated. IPS panels are still considered one of the best panel types if you care about color accuracy and viewing angles.
How many developers do you know who are using large oled monitors? I don't know a single one because these monitors don't exist in the main stream.
If you look hard enough you can find some early models in the $1,500 to $5,000 range but it's not like you really gain that much vs a solid IPS panel for general web development. Some of them were even pulled from the market because the quality was awful.
But if you want to go buy one, let us know. While you're at it, go write a 4,000 word review on it and post it here on dev.to. :)
In my case, this is true. I understand your argument about physical resolution and I think the argument is sound. However, I prefer things on my monitor to be a larger physical size on most for my eyesight. Thus I do require a monitor which is physically larger to fit in the same amount of content due to how I set the font sizes in software that I use.
I understand your needs, but this still does not make the statement true. As you say yourself you get "the same amount of content".
But the monitor needs to be larger to fit the same amount of content. I could equivalently say that I can fit more content on a larger monitor with the font size that I use.
Imagine a 40" 4k vs a 17" 4k.
Which one will you be able to have more work content on, at any viewing distance you desire? (Not necessarily same for both)
So, you are telling me that my "pick a size, a resolution, and then take the less expensive one" method is wrong ? Dammit !
Just kidding, awesome article, having a good monitor is underrated, but unfortunately, good monitors are often quite expensive, especially when you need more than one (I'm a 3 monitor kind of guy).
I've been using a 43" 4K display for about a year. It sounds large, but after a very short time it's normal.
You could compare it to using an ultra-wide monitor. You have the extra vertical space, like a 4X4 grid of 1080p displays, but that doesn't mean you have to use all that space all the time. I'll often use the bottom 2/3rds (roughly) and drag extra windows up toward the top.
In many apps the text is initially too small. I adjust them as needed, and eventually nothing I'm using is too small. It's also helpful to select a larger mouse cursor, and I add a tail so it's easier to find.
I've used dual monitors for a long time, but I prefer one really big one. Plus I still have my notebook's display off to the side.
I use a Sony at work, but at home where I sit a little further I use a TCL 49". I don't know if either would be great for video gaming, but for my tasks they're perfect. The TCLs are cheap at Best Buy and Amazon.
That's such a comprehensive article on how to purchase an effective monitor and making sure its worth every penny!
Just to pitch in with my 2 cents here, if you've an open desk do invest in a Monitor mount (preferably desk mounted as it'll save you the hassle of having to drill holes in the wall) which will reduce your desk clutter to some extent and allow you to twist, turn and align your display to the dimensions you're comfortable working with.
There are some great ones available on Amazon, here & here
A lot of hate and bad statements due to insufficient self-documentation. Sad that you shared that kind of twisted ideas to the crowd.
If you're on Linux, there are plenty of tilling windows managers, like i3, bspwm and others. Don't tell me you didn't find.
I know that you can get somehow minimal auto snapping on MacOS too, just don't know the software names (not really into it).
On Windows? Can't help.
Thanks for the article.
I have tried a large number of solutions over the years - starting with dual CRTs up to quad / triple / double panels and the odd vertical one with various arrangements and I have finally settled on a 38UC99 ultrawide. Yes it is expensive but just like beds, chairs, and keyboards, monitors are something that you use a lot, impact your health, and will last quite a while so buy the best one you can. I love this thing so much that I got a matching one at the office. It is also USB-C and powers my laptop so I only have to plug in one cable from the monitor and I am done. The curve, in practice, has little impact on anything as it is so slight. My guess is that LG thought it aesthetically pleasing but whatevs, ymmv.
One thing that an ultrawide will give you (especially of 38 inches) is a lot more freedom around how you arrange things since you have zero bezels cutting through your layout. Personally I have split the space in three columns with column one being the web browser and columns two and three being the terminal / tmux / vim. The terminal is split using tmux into either three or two columns depending on what I am doing. This is my default but when I receive a ridiculous diagram or a huge spreadsheet being able to see the complete document without any bezel splits is glorious.
Regarding window management, which you have mentioned as a concern with large monitors, I am using moom on macOS which let's you save presets (e.g. first third, second two thirds, centred across three fifths etc. ) and also complete layouts (every program gets a default size and position) and bind them to a shortcut. If you are feeling "scripty" then you can always just use hammerspoon and go your hardest with respect to stream-lining / customising management. The upshot being that once you have it setup there isn't any upkeep at all. I seldom touch the mouse to adjust any window.
Nice article. I've been happy with my 40" 4k. Though I think a 36" oled 4k would be ideal. I used dual monitors for a long while and the border gap just got irritating. Just make sure you get a lot latency 4k. Many tv tenure sites will not how good a set is for computers and or gaming usage. Disable all blurring it scaling effects. Calibrate the colors and enjoy.
Admittedly my vision isn't great. To much smaller and it just wouldn't do me any good.
Used what, a curved monitor? Yep.
I found the experience to be disorienting and things just don't look right at the outer edges of the monitor where the curve is the most drastic.
I find having 2 separate monitors very slightly angled in towards you gives you the best of both worlds. You get that curve-like feeling (which really just means it's easier to see everything since there's so much physical horizontal space to account for) BUT without things looking warped at the outer edges.
Of course there's trade offs like seeing a 1 centimeter bezel, but there's so many other wins too, beyond it being easier to manage multiple windows on 2 monitors.
For example, if you happen to do live streaming, you can place a webcam in between both monitors to get a natural angle, but with 1 big monitor, your options are way more limited.
Or if you're recording videos, it's simple to only record 1 of your screens instead of having to micro-manage windows into a specific rect area of 1 large monitor.
TL;DR Yes, but the utility and benefits of 2 monitors is a million times better for a general web developer / content creator IMO.
At home and at the office I have a 4k monitor and have my macbook clam-shelled which is usually enough space. When it's open, it usually becomes a bit of a junk draw for windows and can get uncomfortable after a while. Unfortunately, the one supplied at work has some odd backlight bleed and makes it pretty unpleasant to use but I could do with the space. I've also set up snap areas using better touch tool (4 corners, each make the window snap to the corner 1/4 of the entire display, two halves L/R, and 2/3 + 1/3 or 2/6). I'm usually not too fussed about input lag, it's often too short for me to notice when developing and I suppose it only matters most to gamers(?). Refresh rate has to be buttery smooth though..
I'm using RDM (free!!) too when I need more screen real estate and there's no 4k display available. RDM allows you to change the resolution of a display outside it's normal parameters. I can bump up my mbp13" to 2560 x 1600, and then just increase the font size where necessary. It can go up to 4k but I don't hate myself :)
Gosh, I cringe so much when I see people like that.
Great article! I spotted in on my email just as I was just looking for a 40"~43" 4k TV to replace my current setup (15.6" laptop @ 1080p, 21.5" @ 1080p, 17" @ 1280x1024).
Great write up mate covered some interesting points that most of us don't consider.
Personally 4k on a small sized screen is a waste of time I can barely see anything at such a high resolution and for stuff like coding etc 1080p or 2k is enough I think.
4k on a large TV is right and the Samsung 55" curved model I have has very little input lag great for the PS4 Pro but also doubles up as a second screen for my laptop (albeit at an unusable high resolution).
Great having all these high resolution panels but I think some common sense is required when choosing one for day to day use (I had a 4k laptop panel was not practical or comfortable).
Haha, I wish I had that advice back in the days. :D
I bought the last 27" 16:10 Full HD for about 200€ 5 years ago. I love that ratio, sadly it went out of fashion.
But I only use one of them at a time, so hopefully I'll have a decade to go xD
Great overview of the important specs, and I really like that you've added real-life examples of what to expect in terms of windows and lines of code at the various resolutions.
I take the 'more is better' approach, and my office setup uses three identical HP 27er 1920x1080 IPS 27" monitors side by side. They have tiny bezels and very good brightness and contrast, and can be found for under $200. My workflow is such that I use all three in a pretty consistent way, whether I'm coding or writing. I have a smaller 22" to my right that I've plugged a Amazon Fire Stick into to stream CSPAN or market news on mute.
I really don't think you can have too many monitors! The office machine is a Hackintosh and drives its three displays flawlessly. It makes working a joy rather than a chore.
As someone who just purchased a new monitor 2 weeks ago, I can confirm that the whole buying process can be very daunting. This is a great post and explains in detail a lot of the information that I had to source from more than a handful of different articles.
I eventually decided on an Acer XB271HU that I'm really happy with, as I was looking for a monitor that could be used for both work and gaming.
I'm one of those people who is annoyed by the pixels of 2k at 25" ~ 27" but still can't be bothered to upgrade my 2012 retina macbook (still chugging along for web development and running a non-profit). Would love a 4k set up (and would take resolution over refresh rate) but macbook are not spec'd to support 4k until the 2013 line. Ah well, when I upgrade, it'll be a good one!
I spent a year developing on an UWQHD monitor, and now I refuse to use anything else. It’s just awesome to have docs/Slack, your work-in-progress, and your code all side-by-side in the same view.
I strongly encourage devs to try out a 21:9 display for dev. 3440x1440 seems to be the sweet spot for me right now.
As one of those with the abnormal vision, I stand by very strongly on my 4k 27inch monitors (x2) for my own use.
One thing to emphasize: it's abnormal. Among 14 other people within the shared office space. No one else could ever get used to / accept my screen setting.
So its a setting I would discourage for most without trying it out themselves first.
Side note: Regarding "whole problem of managing windows", your completely right on this, and over time I learn to accept, that I should stick to using window snapping tools. Even if its not 100% optimal use of my screen size. And I have my screen split into multiple fixed logical segments. Mitigating the problem (but it took time). So for those with the OCD of aligning all their text to maximize screen space, learn to move on.
Its end result is not much different from having 4 x 1080 screen with a middle split in each.
I bet i3 (tiled window manager) would be amazing on your monitor.
To add one of the criteria I think is absolutely essential:
Congrats, this is the best article I've read about how to choose a monitor for developing code.
I really enjoyed the "Understanding Physical Size vs Resolution" topic which is not usually covered on articles and which is very important!
This is packed full of really great stuff... and of course my only question is why is 80 characters still the "standard" for a LOC?
Thanks for reading.
My thought process on why 80 characters is still a good standard can be found on my site at nickjanetakis.com/blog/80-characte....
I may end up posting this article here, but truthfully it may take 6 months+ before it ends up on dev.to. I typically post things on my site and then syndicate them on other platforms after a number of months.
Definitely fair; but I seem to like something closer to 120-ish? Or whatever doesn't wrap obnoxiously on my screen; especially with SQL.
If 120 works for you, go for it.
Most of the code I write in Python, Ruby and Elixir doesn't have wrapping issues. Lines end up naturally being less than 80 characters 99% of the time. That's with long descriptive variable names too.
HTML on the other hand, that's a different story! Good thing auto-formatting tools fix that easily haha.
Great article! :)
What's your take on ultra-wide and curved monitors?
Thanks.
I'm not a fan of either.
For curved monitors to get that effect, the physical pixels on the monitor are distorted.
If you're into design, it may become difficult to see exactly how things look on a flat panel. For general use it might be ok, but personally I wouldn't go for one. There's already so many variables to account for with web design.
Ultra-wide could be interesting, but if you want that much screen space I would prefer 2 separate monitors, mainly because you have more control over how things are displayed.
When dealing with a ton of horizontal space, it's often useful to angle in both monitors towards you slightly, but with a single ultra-wide monitor you couldn't do that.
Also it's way easier to manage multiple windows with 2 monitors because you can independently maximize and split windows on each monitor, but with 1 huge ass monitor, you're going to spend a lot of time micro managing individual windows.
Maybe not a bad thing to disclose Amazon affiliate link for transparency...
I just wanted to throw some love your way - I bought the same monitor you did because of this post. Been using it for a few days and I'm loving it. Thanks!
Hey thanks for reading and enjoy the monitor!
Thanks for taking the time to write this article, it is very informative
I have 2 of your Dells, one vertical. Best. Setup. Ever.
Great in depth article, thanks!
No problem, thanks for reading.
You know, I did end up going for the dual set up but I ended up returning the 2nd one because the vertically oriented monitor ended up looking like the empire state building.
twitter.com/nickjanetakis/status/9...
I use a standing desk and adjusting the horizontal one to be higher (which it definitely could be) wasn't an option for me because then I would always be stuck looking way up for the main monitor.
The amount of vertical space was incredible though. Maybe I could have gotten used to it in the end, but I'm content without it for the time being.
I picked up the 24" version of that monitor from a classified ad and agree that it's great; I use a pair of the 27" ultrasharps at work too.
Nice post, I bought myself a Dell Ultrasharp U2715H , never look back ;) .
I kind of believe for now 4k is kind of...too much , I'd rather have 2 2k monitor than 1 4k monitor , still :D