

Bigger Computer Monitors = More Productivity - blackswan
http://blogs.wsj.com/biztech/2008/03/10/bigger-computer-monitors-more-productivity/

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PStamatiou
" There is an upper limit, however:"

Agreed. I had a 30-inch Dell for about 7 months and eventually downgraded to a
24-inch Dell and I'm much happier.

30-inches is more time spent moving your neck around to see the rest of the
screen and more space spent taking up your desk, that in my case is only 2
feet deep so being so close to such a large monitor is a bit awkward.

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ctkrohn
There's a reason why trading floors have three, four, or more monitors per
computer. Where I work, most traders have four, but the FX and commodities
guys have sometimes as many as eight monitors (one row of four above, one row
of four below) tied to two computers at a single desk.

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ivankirigin
I was blown away a few days ago when PG demoed Viaweb on a rickety mac laptop
with a 12 inch screen. It just didn't make sense to me.

Two of the biggest reasons to get a MacBookPro:

1\. The screen is best in show.

2\. The video card can power an external 30 inch monitor.

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jacobolus
Big reason not to:

Extreme portability is awesome.

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notatoad
i don't understand how a 12" is more portable than a 15". my bag fits them
both the same, so they are equally portable. to me, there are three levels of
portability: pocket, bag, and luggable. anything from an eee to a 17" fits in
the bag category.

~~~
pmjordan
Weight.

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Electro
My Dell's an Inspirion and was top of the line, on par with a MacBook Pro. It
weighs like 5kg (vs a 1kg LifeBook) and is anything -BUT- a mobile computer.
The battery lasts 2 hours with internet, 3 hours without. Not to mention, with
upgraded graphics drivers (which dell won't provide) you only get about 20
minutes before it freaks out and the monitor stops displaying.

I'm travelling in just over two weeks and I have to revert back to old
drivers, which don't do onboard T&L but a simple upgrade allows them to
perform like a dream. At 1440x900 and the FPS it runs games at, I think it's
actually beating the nVidia card the same model came supplied with... when
they worked I mean, because they made a recall and switched them to ATI.

Right now I'm looking at a nice refurbished MacBook, or maybe a LifeBook; if I
can justify the price for the usability. It's actually spurred arguments
between me and my girlfriend, she likes a large screen on her laptop and I've
come to disdain it, perhaps two years in college will set her straight.

Desktop = Power. Laptop = Usability. Those are my new golden rules for buying.

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ojbyrne
This seems like it should have been studied long ago. I guess it takes a while
for academia to get new monitors (and notice that they have bigger ones
available).

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a-priori
I remember reading a study by Microsoft about the _number_ of monitors vs.
productivity. From what I recall, they found that 3 is the optimal number.

~~~
PStamatiou
Likewise I usually run 3 to 4 Spaces in OS X.

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spydez
Here's to hoping my bosses read this. There are so many engineers here working
on single 18 or 19 inch monitors it's not even funny. I consider myself lucky
to have two 19 inchers...

But it's still very cramped compared to my set up at home.

Anyone know where the study is? I want to know if they did widescreen vs.
flatscreen, or if they tried out more than 2, and what 'jobs' they had the
subjects do.

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cstejerean
Yeah, a 26'' monitor would give you no benefit over a 24'' monitor as it
likely has the same resolution. If you want an increase in resolution you have
to go to 30''. I'd try the same task again with a 24'' and a 30'' and see if
there are any differences.

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graywh
My boss is great about monitors, and I even work in academia. He uses a 30"
LCD (as do two other professors) and most of our other faculty/staff (with the
exception of the admin staff) have at least two 19"s or larger.

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noonespecial
I use three with 3, with x2vnc. Linux in the middle on a 22", os x on the
right on a 19, and windows on the left with a 19. It works wonderfully and I
have instant access to multiple os's and browsers.

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andr
In other news, computers run better with electricity.

~~~
cstejerean
It might be common sense to us, but some companies refuse to spend more money
simply because their employees FEEL they would be more productive. It's a good
thing to actually prove this with some serious studies.

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kingkongrevenge
> tested how quickly people performed tasks like editing a document and
> copying numbers between spreadsheets

The limiting factor in productivity for knowledge workers, excluding those
working with graphics, is not mechanical tasks like copying and pasting.

This study is probably valid if you answer phones in a call center. I doubt it
has much bearing if you spend most of your time thinking when in front of the
monitor.

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cstejerean
I think it applies pretty well to programming. It involves switching between
files, and between the IDE, console, web, debug and application views. Emacs
makes a lot of this easy but it helps to have more available as simply moving
your eyes from one place to the other on the screen is faster than even a few
keystrokes.

I'm curious though what the time savings would have been if the test subjects
were using Emacs.

~~~
randomhack
Frequently switching b/w views or files is a real pain point for me. I prefer
to be able to see as much code as possible at a glance. One reason why I hate
50 classes in 50 files of 5 lines each when working with Java.

