I currently use two 22" monitors and am considering adding at least one more. I've never used a 27", but am considering one along with the 22" monitors and "splitting" the 27" for viewing two for documents or web sites together...in affect having four monitors. What I'm not sure of is if this is easily doable as compared to separate monitors. Snapping on my 22" is a bit too cramped for much work.

The other option is just adding two more 22" monitors. I don't really do anything I would need a 27" monitor for as most of my work is with documents, Outlook/Office 365, web sites and occasional spread sheets.

So I thought I would seek advice from those of you who actually use a 26" or 27" monitor, preferably along with other smaller ones, for some hands-on experience.

I've done multi monitor setups with different DPIs levels or different adjacent resolutions in the past, and was never happy with the results. Even when it was only 5 or 10% the different DPIs resulted in stuff not looking right. With different resolutions at the borders between screens windows traps your mouse when trying to go to a location not on the second screen.

I wanted something similar to what I think you're interested in, and my current home setup is 2 20" 1200x1600 panels on either side of a 30" 2560x1600 one; giving equal physical and pixel heights between all 3 screens. Unfortunately this is an expensive setup (and 1600x1200 screens are hard to find these days).

You haven't mentioned your current/planned screen resolutions. If your 22 and planned 27" monitors are all 1080p it shouldn't be too bad. I'd be leery of pairing a 1080p screen with 1680x1050s or 1080ps with at 1440p one; but some of my coworkers use mismatched monitors without any complaint so the issues might not bother you. I don't know if they exist or not, but 15.6" 1440x900 or 16.1" 1440x1050 panels would have identical DPIs to a 27" 1440p model and on paper would be my preferred side panels for one of them; although anything in that price range is probably TN and when rotated would have the screwy viewing angles horizontally aligned instead of vertical where they're much more likely to be noticeable.

I hadn't even considered any of this. Existing monitors are 1680x1050 and a 26-30" would probably be 1080p; what difference specifically might be of concern or is that what you outlined?

Bad ascii art warning; hopefully the formatting will come through intact (if not I'll try again with an image tonight).



In this sketch the monitor on the left has a lower DPI and a higher vertical resolution than the one on the right. Straddling the two monitors is a dialog. Because of the bigger pixels on the left side its edges don't line up vertically. The arrow on the bottom shows the path of the mouse cursor. If you try to go right while its anywhere in the bottom 30 pixels (1080-1050) your cursor will get stuck at the right edge of the screen and stop moving until you shift it up vertically.

The same DPI/edge effects will happen with mismatched monitors in a vertical grid.

To both posts, the only problem I would have is in spanning two monitors of different resolutions with the same document or web site right? The only time I would need to do that is with certain spreadsheets and if I get a 27"30" monitor I wouldn't need to do that anyway.

The other question I had was in the advantage/disadvantage of using a 27"30" monitor for two documents for example vs. one on each 22", which I find is a bit too much room actually, but is very easy to do. I've never done this on one large monitor. It seems a larger 1080p monitor would be better for the times I do watch video clips, etc. I like having two monitors but I don't like that I look straight into where the bezels meet and have to turn to one side or the other to do anything.

Steven

Unless you have your monitors in portrait mode, or are running your viewer software in two page side by side mode, half a 30" is a better reading view than all of an ~20" monitor since it better fits the shape of a page. Side by side can work; but 1050 pixels of vertical resolution is marginal for readability with smaller font sizes and x1200 screens are harder to find these days.

The center bezel bit can by annoying, and was part of why I went with 3 monitors at home. My work laptop can't do 3 though so I have to deal with only 2 there. Especially if your screens are mismatched treating them as primary/secondary with the primary centered can work; but since I replaced my 1280x1024 with a second 1680x1050 I've just embraced the zen of the swivel chair.

Unless you have your monitors in portrait mode, or are running your viewer software in two page side by side mode, half a 30" is a better reading view than all of an ~20" monitor since it better fits the shape of a page. Side by side can work; but 1050 pixels of vertical resolution is marginal for readability with smaller font sizes and x1200 screens are harder to find these days.[/QUOTE]

30" monitors start getting a little pricey for me. Would 26"-27" still be advantageous this way? What specs do I want to look for?

30" monitors start getting a little pricey for me. Would 26"-27" still be advantageous this way? What specs do I want to look for?[/QUOTE]

a 27" 1080p would be a bit better, however the problem I had with 10pf font word documents was less the vertical size of the characters than the fact that when showing two pages the total pixel count/letter was too low for clarity. With comment/track changes shown in balloons instead of inline even 12pt started getting a bit cramped at 1050. I think an x1200 monitor would be reasonably safe in this mode, but it's been a few years since I used my 1600x1200's in landscape. If I remember I'll try it tonight and see how it turns out.