Ask Slashdot: What Is Your Favorite Monitor For Programming?

First time accepted submitter BadassFractal writes "I'm in the market for a new large desktop monitor (or two) which I intend to use almost exclusively for programming and all sorts of software development-related work. I'm trying to keep the cost down reasonable, and I do enjoy as large of a resolution as possible. What do people 'in the know' out there use these days for that purpose? I'm thinking a 1920x1200 24" would be good, unless there's an affordable 2560xFoo option out there. I keep hearing about nameless Korean 27" screens, any thoughts on those?"

27" Korean's

[MasseKid]

The 27" Korean's are nice screens. For the most part they are the A- grade of the same ones going in to monitors that are twice to 3 times as much. You might have to live with a dead pixel or two, but I doubt you'll be disappointed.

Re:27" FTW

[Keith Mickunas]

I too prefer a pair no matter the size. When developing in something like Visual Studio I have to run it in full screen. So the second monitor gets used for e-mail, web browser, references, etc.

I use 2 U2711 at home and it's wonderful. I also use a 17" alongside those. I use the smaller monitor for consoles or running something like uTorrent. Some people get caught up on the whole 16:10 vs. 16:9 issue, but at 2560x1440 there's plenty of vertical resolution there.

At work I use a pair of 22" 16:10 monitors. That's an ok setup and I've been using something similar at three jobs now. I'm considering picking up another pair of 27" monitors to use at work though. Either the 2713HM or perhaps some of the cheap Korean ones. Perfect color isn't a must for me when coding, so I don't need the 2711 or the better 2713 model.

HP ZR30w - 30" 2560x1600. Never going back.

[tomtefar]

Worth every one of the $800 I plunked down on it. In the beginning I didn't know what to do with all the real estate, but these days I cannot live without the massive scrreen area.

I dont code for a living

[Osgeld]

most of the time, but I personally find widescreens to be mostly useless for large text displays unless stood in portrait mode (IDE's like visual studio do make use of the side area, I guess)

maybe I dont have 1037 nested if's in a billion line widget, but its sort of rare for me to go much over 80 columns

Re:27" FTW

[AdamWill]

I have 2xU2211H, both oriented portrait. I can see having one landscape if you need to work on video or something, but I don't.

I'd always go for the smallest display at a given resolution, to get the highest DPI: I much prefer 22" 1920x1080 to 24" 1920x1080. Still, I wish someone would make 200+ DPI desktop displays. Some day.

Re:27" FTW

[Anonymous Coward]

Dell 30" with ridiculous resolution here (2560x1600?).

I can relate to your vertical needs but not to *grandparent's complaint that 30" is too big.

I'm not using any fancy IDEs. Screen, vim, and make do the trick. Also running Ratpoison so split vertical and now I have 2 vertical spaces good for a browser to render my work; and with sufficient width to easily still be useful for code editing.

TL;DR 30" took a little getting used to but is my favorite.