30-inches: too much screen?
I never thought I’d question it, but is 30-inches too much for one screen?
I’m a serious resolution and screen real estate hog, so I’ll let that sink in for a sec as I recount my week spent with a 30-incher I bought (and eventually sold) earlier this year. There’s no doubt that productivity goes up and stress goes down as you add more pixels to your desktop, and like many over the last ten years I’ve gone from 14 to 17 to 19-inch CRTs, to 20-inch LCDs, eventually to 24-inch, and more recently to 30-inches. I’m not going to get too into the Dell 3007WFP-HC itself — which is absolutely amazing, and has color rich enough to make your eyes ache (in a good way) — but I could barely believe it when I discovered a display size that was simply too large for me to use comfortably.
Oh sure, I could fill up that amount of resolution easily. And since I’m not a MacBook Air user, actually powering that many pixels wasn’t really a problem. It all came down to the six inch jump, which necessitated dramatic eye movements from distantly adjacent windows, and, eventually, constant neck adjustments to reduce the strain of said looking back and forth.
Part of me thinks I’m crazy though, because I’d love nothing more than a wall of 30-inchers to work on. Guess I’ll have to check out those new 27-inch models — too bad they only add size, and not pixels over the 24s.
I'm an editor and technology critic in the midst of founding a new web startup: 
I went from dual 23-inchers to a single 30-incher last year, and was resistant to it for the first week or two. It seemed like I sometimes had to literally move my head to get see something across the screen.
But then I started to move things around, and eventually got used to the space. Now I love it…
I’m a little bit behind you Ryan in terms of space growth.
I used to have a single 12″ iBook then a MacBook, Macbook Pro and I added a 20″ monitor to my Pro.
Today. I have a 15″ MacBook Pro with a 24″ monitor attached to it. I love it. The first week was weird but monitor cost has made it easy to move up. If 30″ monitors dip into the $600 dollar range then I’ll go for it but having used one, I agree that my head has to move around way too much.
Every thought about dual 30s?
No way. I have two 24 inch screens sitting portrait on either side of a 30 inch screen sitting landscape hooked up to my Mac Pro at work. The 30 inch is perfect for two browsers open side by side and Twhirl with all my Tweets and all my Friendfeed.
I hope not, my work just ordered a apple cinema display 30 for me ;)
Hey Ryan,
I tend to agree with you. When I made the jump to 30″, I wasn’t as giddy as I thought I’d me. For me the problem is the widescreen aspect of it. I love the height, but the edges are less useful for me.
I do like having multiple screens though, cause it compartmentalizes windows. I have a 30″ plus a 20″ rotated vertically next to it.
I think the ideal scenario for me would be if I could find a non-widescreen equivlanent to the 30″. (26.5″ 4:3 at 2133×1600 rez). Along with flanking vertical monitors.
arn
One of the lcd panels recently announced by Samsung is this:
LTM270TT01 – 27″WS TN Film (BTN III), 2048 x 1152 resolution, 5ms response time, 1000:1 contrast ratio, 400 cd/m2 brightness, 160/160 viewing angles
Nice eh? Too bad it’s TN :(
Source: http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/news_archive/13.htm#samsung_panels
[...] critical for developers, I can totally dig that. I was just reading Ryan Block’s blog post, 30-inches: too much screen?, and I realized that I actually prefer my dual 19-inchers over a larger screen. While having that [...]
I’d have to agree also Ryan. I use a MacBook Pro 15″, usually on my lap or free standing in one way or another. When I use the old 17″ iMac at work it just isn’t enough real estate and Spaces has to save me (though I also use Spaces on my MBP). When I work on my boss’ machine however, which is hooked up to a 30″ display I have two issues:
1. Either my eyes or my neck strains after a while of flipping from one thing to another (as you said).
2. I have to lift the mouse all the time or clear the entire desk to get from one corner to another in a single movement, even with my usual maximised sensitivity settings.
24″ is as big as I think I want to go now, though using my 15″ display with Spaces somehow doesn’t bother me no matter how much I am doing. I guess being a keyboard guy with Spaces helps a lot here though.
Before you mock me about my set up, I have to say, its amazing.. Especially from a graphic design point of view.
I do have to admit, it is quite excessive, BUT I think under my circumstances of working with high res photos, its needed. And I also think it really depends on what you use your computer for.
So with that said….
Dual 37 inchers from Westing house. That’s right, compensation at its BEST!
I have the Dell 24 inch monitor and am not going higher than this. I assumed with the 24 inches I will have ample screen real estate since I multitask a lot and work in the Flash authoring environment frequently. But switching daily between the Macbook air and this monitor, what I have really come to find out is that there is never enough space at the end of the day. Within an hr of use, the 24 inch screen is just as cluttered with windows overlaying each other. So for me there is no need to go to 30 inches
A friend of mine who worked with Google usability shared an interesting study they had done. Basically the gist was that users were 25%+ faster navigating a 24″ display than a 20″ one, little gain between 24 and 27 inches and a reduction in efficiency between 27 and 30in displays.
I didn’t see the details, but I imagine it has to do with field of view. Depending on your distance to the display, 27/30 inch displays may in fact cross a threshold where you have to turn your head/move your eyes, whereas you can see everything on a 24″ 1920×1200 display.
Oh if you’ve got strong pixel lust consider a pair of 20″-22″ displays rotated. 2100×1650 is 50% more real estate than 1920×1200, but without the horizontal head flapping of a 27-30″ display; and considerably cheaper than a 30″. Two full pages side by side can open quite a few doors to your workflow options.
I actually ran an experiment at the bank I worked at where we bought five 30 inch screens for our financial analysts.
The single biggest issue impacting comfort is the distance the screen sits from you.
At our office all the analysts use L-shaped desks which limit the distance the monitor can be located from the user since it gets catacornered by the back walls of the desk.
However, our graphic design head doesn’t use the same desk and has far more room to move the monitor farther away.
At home I found out the same thing with my 30 inch monitor. I’ve had it over a year now, but it wasn’t until I got a telescoping vesa-mount arm that it really became a dream to use.
I can put it flat back against the wall for maximum viewing comfort.