Summary: 2 smaller monitors vs. 1 larger

[dgschaefer]

Lots of opinions on this one. (Some of you have some pretty generous
hardware budgets too, with dual 24" or larger screens.) No real
consensus, however.

Some who had dual monitors would take two smaller over one
larger, some thought a large wide screen would be a good alternative.

Many pointed out that Win7 has some nice new window management
functions that would make a larger wide screen act like duals.

A couple pointed out that two dissimilar monitors might have
different colors which could be distracting, get two of the same model
if possible.

No budget for two new monitors that are appropriate. The 19" screens he
suggested were a lower resolution that what I have now (1280 x 1024 vs.
1600 x 1200), so they weren't a good choice.

Looks like I'm going to get a single 26" NEC [1], which has good reviews
on Google products [2]. Also, he has plans for my old 20" to replace
one of the remaining CRTs in the office, but he has a couple of spare
high res. 19" screens that I can try as a second if I'd like. We'll see
what the color differences look like.

Thanks everyone,

[1] -
http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/products/Displays/productdetail.aspx?

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[brianlynn]

Why not order a monitor that is identical to what you have now and then
set up duals of what you have?

Brian S. Lynn
Technical Coordinator, Product Engineering

[mdebower]

Slightly off topic, but this has gotten me thinking....

How much is a monitor? Couple hundred bucks? A thousand? Miniscule when you start thinking about an engineers time and productivity.

2080 working hours in a year minus vacation and holidays

$50, $60, $100 per hour shop rate?

Doesn't take long before you overtake the cost of a monitor, yet companies in general are too short sighted to see it. The monitor is a hard cost, but the savings are soft, they will never drop to the bottom line, so they don't do it. And shoot themselves in the foot.

[dgschaefer]

My current monitor was purchased with the PC before the one we are
replacing, maybe 5-6 years ago, so it's not likely available anymore.
Besides, it's been getting ghost images for some time and the USB hub
quit working earlier this year. It'd be an OK second monitor to a
larger primary screen, but it's on it's last legs.

Doug Schaefer

[TrainStopper]

Yep, off topic until Friday, but...



We can justify spending $50K - $250K on a production machine that is
used one shift < 30 hours per week and run by a $20/hr production
employee, yet get into arguments over spending more than $1000 for a
workstation that is used 40+ hours a week for 5 years, run by a $40/hr
engineering employee.



Regards,

Walt Weiss

[PAULKORENKIEWIC]

FRIDAY RANT MODE <on>

grrrrrrrrrrrr.... this is an old discussion I've had many times with
many managers... mostly to no effect. Take a senior design engineer,
pay, vacation, healthcare, 401k contributions and all the "support
costs" (building, heat, lights, plotters, IT, HR, accounting...) and
then cry about spending $2000 on a workstation that he or she will use
for 3-4 years everyday... grrrrrrrrr...

Monitors are even worse! We still have the SAME monitors that we had 14
years ago in service! I have two, only because I bought a second one
for myself!

Just silly...

FRIDAY RANT MODE <off>

Thanks...

Paul Korenkiewicz
FEV, Inc.
4554 Glenmeade
Auburn Hills, MI., 48326

[DamianCastillo]

I believe my users should have the best equipment to get the job done.
Dual monitors are not for everyone, but many who try this setup would
never go back to a single monitor unless it was a 30" Wide screen of
course. I am not going to say that it improves my productivity because
it's hard to measure it, but it makes it easier for me to do my work.

I am in the process of getting Dual Monitors as the default setup for
Engineering. 🙂


Damián Castillo
CAD & Administration Manager
Engineering Department
Hensley Industries

[DamianCastillo]

Good point.

The time you save with better hardware pays for itself quickly. I found
that running benchmarks helps prove the benefit of newer hardware.

Software improvements and newer OS usually require faster hardware to take
advantage of the added technology.

We replace our workstations every 3 years to make sure we are not running
slow hardware as the software continues to improve.


Damián Castillo
CAD & Administration Manager
Engineering Department
Hensley Industries

[bryan_puch]

Doug,

I would rather have two $250 24" displays than one $500 26". You just can't put two prints side by side on the single large monitor like you can on the dual setup.

• I regularly use two SyncMaster 2494HM (1920 x 1080) which cost $450 for the pair
• I also use two Dell 2407w (1920 x 1200) which cost $1000 for the pair

In both cases I keep ProE's main screen on one and push the model tree and menus to the other. A big change when you get a 2nd screen is that you almost never make paper copies of reference material any more. I use the 2nd screen to look at other drawings, the old print, spec sheets... as I design.

I can't say the Dell's are worth the extra money, but I wouldn't turn them down

Bryan

Looks like I'm going to get a single 26" NEC