Three monitors?

The Sandbox Software/Technology
1

Curious if anyone here is running three monitors, and what the experience is like.

I’ve got two monitors right now, 27" I think. I switch stuff between the two routinely, like ‘current’ and ‘on deck’. So mostly email/IM is on the right monitor, and browser/excel/whatever is on the left.

But I’d like ongoing to see my calendar as well so that I don’t forget something. Don’t want that cluttering up the second monitor, a smaller third monitor would be nice. But desk is starting to get a bit crowded, I’d probably have to move to a smaller first two monitors, not sure I like that tradeoff.

2

I do, sort of. Two big monitors and the laptop screen itself as the 3rd, which I use to hold emails and Windows Explorers, whilst the two biggies are for spreadsheets and databases.

2 Likes
3

Yeah I use 3 monitors (mo’ monitors mo’ better)

I’d use more but you run into limits based on your GPU…

In practice I have my outlook on my right screen, what I’m working on (GoA in this case) on the middle one and my Teams stuff on the left screen. It can be useful though having two spreadsheets as well as a ppt on a third screen, or R on one screen and spreadsheets on another, etc.

Similarly with presentations it’s nice to have two screens worth of reference material, often I’ll have the people on the middle screen where my webcam is, I’m sharing my right monitor and then have some reference material on the left.

4

For my personal PC, I’m connected to 3 monitors.

Primary monitor is a curved 5120×1440 beast. It’s perhaps a little too big, but it works well for having 3 applications open side-by-side-by-side.

Secondary monitor is a more conventional 2560×1080 ultrawide. It used to be my primary monitor, good for having 2 applications open side-by-side, and it’s positioned above the main monitor. I use it for parking a couple of windows related to my hobby use of the computer – stuff I want visible, but not necessarily right in front of me all the time. For example, one of the windows open on that screen right now is a browser window pointing to the web interface for Google messages.

Tertiary monitor is a small 1920×1080 monitor. It lives off to the side, below my primary work PC monitor. It does double duty – it accepts pen input, so it’s good for taking quick handwritten notes/doodles, and it’s where I will park a browser window for streaming Bloomberg or CNBC as background noise during the work day. (When facing my personal computer’s monitors, my work PC and monitor are to my left.)

The arrangement is excessive. I almost certainly could make do with just the primary monitor. (The secondary monitor as a sole monitor, however, would not be enough real estate.). But it works for me.

5

Same here.

Its a two large monitor setup with a laptop (work) on the side with Outlook on it.

Three large screens would be a lot. I have only seen traders do this to keep track of detailed share price movements.

6

Holy crap I need to up my game here.

7

Three monitors plus a laptop screen in my home office, works well for me. :slight_smile:

I remember mocking the guy in our office who was the first to get a second monitor. Now I’m hooked.

8

I keep my laptop screen up at home with outlook on it, but in the office I only have two screens because I have a desktop computer there. The third screen is nice, but I don’t feel it’s completely necessary.

9

I’ve tried three before but found it overwhelming, so I switched back to 2.

10

I bought 2 27" monitors during covid, so i had those plus my laptop for a while. One 27" on center on my desk, the other 27" to the right, and my laptop to the left. I found the angle off center enough to cause neck strain and pain any time i spent any significant time using the right screen. Since i had a separate webcam from the laptop, i ditched the laptop screen and went to just the two monitors.

I like having a primary work screen and use the second for teams/ outlook, or any time i want to compare two files. When i had a third, i used it for outlook just to have my inbox/ calendar up, but that was not all that helpful tbh.

11

I’ve been thinking about this as well, but I’m not sure I want three and I don’t really have the real estate for another monitor on my current desk. I generally use one monitor for Slack/email/calendar and one for working in Excel or whatever. I’m considering using one monitor with half for my calendar and half for email and Slack.

I’ve got dual 24" right now and might bump it up to 27" since monitors are really cheap these days.

I do have a friend who prefers one monitor and just shuffles windows around like tiles, I think he’s using a 42" monitor or something, it’s massive.

12

I will say while I have three monitors that I use, they’re all 24". I do have a 27" as my main for my personal computer, although I think I most prefer 24".

13

I have 1 32" monitor, two 24", and my laptop screen makes the fourth as 15" (or all thereabouts within an inch.)

However, the 2x24" monitors are the bottom 2 of a quad setup, where the top 2 monitors (22"?) are for my personal PC. The 32" stands alone. All told it’s 6 hooked up to 2 computers.

I wouldn’t like to work on any smaller than my 24" monitors, but the 32" (from my company) is nice enough that I’d pay for my own otherwise. The laptop is generally reserved for work chat or Spotify, email, etc.