I currently use my laptop next to a monitor with 21" but I am thinking about an upgrade. I casually play some light games, nothing competitive. The rest is a lot of reading, office or coding work and some multimedia.

What is a nice setup in your opinion? One big screen with 27" or two smaller ones with 22" or 24" each?

I did some research and found for a 24" screen 1080p and for a 27" screen 1440p as a minimum. So I figured a 24" 1440p screen would look awesome. Do I miss something about this finding? Is 2K too much for 24" to even notice it?

The problem I have is my desk is only 65cm wide and I frequently have a book or a piece of paper between me and the keyboard+monitor. The monitor uses 22cm and the keyboard another 14cm so there is just enough space for a piece of paper. Many of the modern monitors have huge standing feets and there are not always good measurements given.

I also thought about a monitor arm but I don’t know if that would help with my small desk or just create more hassle after all.

  • TabbsTheBat (they/them)@pawb.socialEnglish
    2·
    9 hours ago

    Two smaller monitors over 1 large one would be my preference personally, just cause it allows more freedom in how you divide your content. You can have a game fullscreen on one screen and other windows (discord, browser, OBS etc.) on the other without having to run your game in windowed mode to see the other content, or you can have the 2nd one vertically and have a text document there while having other stuff on your main one and so on. Currently I have 1 24" 1080 monitor, and my tv (55" 4k) hooked up to my PC, but I do plan picking up a 2nd 24" 1080 one later this year :3

    Also as someone who also has a small desk I am gonna recommend you get a monitor arm, to free up desk space for sure

    • theorangeninja@sopuli.xyzOPEnglish
      2·
      6 hours ago

      Very true, this is definitely easier with two physical screens. Will you swap your 4K TV out and just use the two 1080p monitors instead?

      I just checked and my current older monitor does allow a VESA adapter so I might pick up a monitor arm for now and see how I like the possibility to tilt and turn my screen and think about the size and resolution for a bit longer.

      • TabbsTheBat (they/them)@pawb.socialEnglish
        2·
        5 hours ago

        I plan on keeping the tv hooked up, cause honestly I mostly use it for watching/playing stuff from my bed rather than a secondary display, because as you can probably guess that’s a rather awkward experience lol :3 though I do occasionally use it to shove secondary apps onto

        I might pick up a monitor arm for now and see how I like the possibility to tilt and turn my screen and think about the size and resolution for a bit longer.

        And that’s fair. I imagine being able to position your display with the additional freedom of the monitor arm would make it easier to visualise the possible monitor configurations you may want

        • theorangeninja@sopuli.xyzOPEnglish
          1·
          2 hours ago

          Yeah that’s why I was asking lol. But for that use its perfect to have it directly hooked up to the PC. And yes, sometimes it can be nice to have a big screen for some random apps.

          I didn’t know my current one could be mounted so I always thought I have to buy a new one before I can even think about an arm. But now trying the arm first with what I have sounds more reasonable.

          But idk which arm to buy now lol. I think two separate arms with gas springs are more flexible but it might look weird if I end up using only one. Using a vertical tube allows attaching arms as you need but I think it restricts the vertical alignment more than two separate arms. Anyway, I have to figure that out somehow. Thanks a lot!