I've aquired a new Sony 17" TFT, and thought I'd plug it into my Dell M1330 XPS (13.3"). I've set it up as an extended screen, but I'm struggling to see any benefits if I'm honest.

So who's got a dual screen setup, and how do you justify it?

I am starting to think I wouldn't mind a desktop again though... 17" is so much nicer to use than 13.3", although the monitor does dominate the desk, and I really do love my little XPS lappy...

I got a 17" lappy..oooo eer.

Best of both worlds.

The old man has some ridiculous 24" screen with his new dell desktop, its bleeding hoooge.

I use an extended desktop with a 19" Sony monitor for my normal PC use and my 32" Samsung to play back movies

They really come into their own if you have lots of applications on the go.

Nothing like having a full screen excel spreadsheet an a full screen word document open at the same time. Or what about, email on one monitor with the internet on another. Quiet a few uses, you just need to find the right combo that works for you.

I'm using a 24" Dell and a 20" Dell, the insurance replaced the 24" after a minor incident and I got the 20" of Dr Zoidberg.

Justification .... because I can I guess Seriously though, when I am doing documentation post install for a customer or recently I was writing test questions for e-learning materials it's handy to have word etc running on the one monitor and firefox / whatever open for research etc on the other.

Add to that when I have a play on FSX I can have my cockpit display on the main monitor and several other views arranged on the 20, handy when trying to get a 747 on the tarmac in Liverpool

Hmmm.

I was sooo happy with my 13.3 inches until I plugged in the Sony I love the baby XPS, 6hrs battery life watching DVDs (OK, I did buy the upgraded 9 cell battery, but its still impressive), its very portable, great spec, but a good desktop replacement too. A great all rounder.

Just wondering how best to utilise this 17" screen really... I do have a Dell 19" widescreen TV/monitor thats wall mounted for telly and films, and it looks lush too, was nudging £700 when I bought it :eek:

Hmm, no thanks button in the Tech Shed :confused:

Cheers Manny.

Quite liking interweb on the 17", MSN convos on the 13"... I suppose I'll just have a play around.

Hmm, no thanks button in the Tech Shed :confused:

There is ???

There is ???

Bloody mods not knowing how t't stuff works

So there is

Tom... you dont deserve a computer

On topic: i use dual-screens at work, one has SCOM console open and the other one everything else.. its quite handy, except would be better if the screens were independant.. IE pressing minimise would only minimise one screen instead of both

LOL. I only find it useful when I have twin screens of the same size, or at least at the same level. I can see why you're not appreciating this Tom, giving your current setup

Two Dell 2001 20" 1600x1200 monitors at home.

There is no substitute for desktop real-estate. As soon as you're programming / surfing / photo editing, you really do need the space.

The desktop I built for my dad has 4 DVI outputs for mega-extended desktops

You're just showing off now Xav. Nobody like a show-off

I remember researching the extended desktops and seeing how far you can go. There was some chap who built a linux-based cluster and had something like 30 screens - and then started playing Doom on it

Will do a search. Looks very nice though.

Our team at work have been designing multi-screen mosaic-style systems using PS3s. Looks very impressive

I hate working on pcs with only one monitor now. In my job interview for my current job I mentioned that I was used to working on 2 screens. By the time I'd started they'd sourced 2 identical 17" Samsung monitors to sit alongside one another

At home I run a 23 or 24" dell 4:3 aspect ratio screen alongside a standard 17" samsung LCD... e-mail or browser often finds itself on the smaller screen and image editing or text editing software on the larger monitor:)

plastk:net <== There

Wow the hard drives in those Dells must be 'happy' that isnt really a good way of mounting them, at an angle

Lovely setup though

In fairness, I have a Dell D630 which has absolutely sh*te resolution compared to my D610 I used to have. Widescreen but as I've lost 1/3rd vertical resolution, it is nowhere near as good.

Still, I have a twin monitor setup at the office and it is great, one for email, one for web. Or MSN, or sometimes full screen. Also 1 for R&D and the other for a client machine.

It can be a pain to use the stretching as full screen is sometimes better as full 'one screen' or 'full stretched across two screens' depending on what you're doing.

plastk:net

Thats some geekery for sure

i have found ultramon to be the best bit of software for sorting 2 monitors just how you like them

Realtime Soft UltraMon

I've got some Matrox bit of kit, will try to work out what it is

I use dual screen at work, like others have said it really comes into its own when you have loads of apps running at the same time.

I don't bother running dual screen at home, when not on my laptop I use my 37" LCD TV as my monitor on my PC