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I have a pair of Acer 22 inchers on my 8-core MP. I thought about adding two more screens, but i thought it would get too confusing and too much crap to look at. The two work great.
 
Sounds similar to my setup lol, but my room is not small but I do have a 52" sony bravia, 5.1 hifi system, yamaha hd receiver, rotel poweramp, mac pro with 16gb ram,3tb drives, 1tb external drive,23" ACD, 17" penryn 2.5ghz mbp with 4gb ram, hitachi 7k200 drive and that hot ass crt monitor!!:eek:

Temperature in the room isnt so bad but that crt actually made it way worse.. its actually wayy hotter than the whole mac pro!!

I'm still trying to decide on a 20" ACD or just a cheap dell/lg as a 2nd monitor since 2nd monitor isnt much of a big deal... To anyone here have you got a cheaper 2nd monitor and regretted it?? Or you guys glad that your main monitor is bigger and better as to the 2nd monitor??

I think it would really depend on the kind of work you do. I really prefer having a smaller second monitor. I mostly use my second monitor for chatting, browsing, and monitoring things while I do work on my main monitor. I went for the longest time with a horrible fishbowl CRT as my second monitor on my previous computer -- it was so blurry and borderline unusable, but having a good primary display made it usable for those times where I just needed the extra real estate.

I don't know why, but the idea of not having one "bigger, main" monitor bothers me. So much so, that if I needed even more real estate, I would probably rather have a third monitor. a 24 in the middle and two 20s off to the side. That would be a great setup.
 
I first went to best buy to check out all the dell/samsung/lg screens for around $250-$400 and none looked that great to me.

So I bought a 20" ACD at my local apple store today and its great!! I had the 20" ACD as my main display a year ago for the mac pro and I knew what to expect from it so I went ahead and bought it.

Wow this little monitor is perfect for a 2nd to match the 23" ACD and I'm very glad that I bought it. No dead/stuck pixels and colors look excellent! I'm very very happy with my purchase! :D

2375275112_ff81289020_b.jpg


One thing to note is that I cant believe I used to use the 20" as my main monitor, no wonder I upgraded to the 23" ACD its so much bigger compared to it but 20" ACD is perfect to compliment next to the 23" ACD!
 
Two Gateway FHD2400, 24" 1080p monitors.

Has DVI and HDMI so I can run dual monitors with my two desk-tops.

My Velocity Micro runs Vista Ultimate on both monitors via two DVI cables, and my Mac Pro runs Leopard or XP (two boot drives) via two DVI-to-HDMI cables.

Dual monitors is the only way to go for me.
 
Two Gateway FHD2400, 24" 1080p monitors.

Has DVI and HDMI so I can run dual monitors with my two desk-tops.

My Velocity Micro runs Vista Ultimate on both monitors via two DVI cables, and my Mac Pro runs Leopard or XP (two boot drives) via two DVI-to-HDMI cables.

Dual monitors is the only way to go for me.

I was looking at them are they any good,and how long you has them?
 
Dell E248WFP 24" & Dell 2007WFP

Two LCD's are nice. Three would be better ;) I just wish some applications like FrontRow and iTunes (large album cover view) would not take over both screens. Also, more LCD's throw more heat. I can tell the difference and I'm glad that the room they are in has an overhead fan.
 
Two LCD's are nice. Three would be better ;) I just wish some applications like FrontRow and iTunes (large album cover view) would not take over both screens. Also, more LCD's throw more heat. I can tell the difference and I'm glad that the room they are in has an overhead fan.

Believe me, three screens is definitely far better ;)

My only gripe is that OS X doesn't seem to be very friendly for multiple monitors in general. I notice a lot of bugs or other annoyances from time to time in my daily use... for example, my issue in my post further up... also, sometimes moving app windows across monitors causes them to snap back to their original position every time I let go of the mouse button (I usually have to try several times to move the window or close/restart the app).... invoking quicklook in Leopard makes the quicklook preview window open up on a different monitor instead of the one where the window or icon originated, etc.
 
Believe me, three screens is definitely far better ;)

My only gripe is that OS X doesn't seem to be very friendly for multiple monitors in general. I notice a lot of bugs or other annoyances from time to time in my daily use... for example, my issue in my post further up... also, sometimes moving app windows across monitors causes them to snap back to their original position every time I let go of the mouse button (I usually have to try several times to move the window or close/restart the app).... invoking quicklook in Leopard makes the quicklook preview window open up on a different monitor instead of the one where the window or icon originated, etc.

It sound like we all won't be happy until we each individually have the same number of LCD's as 24 Hours T.V. Show's war room ;)
 
Two LCD's are nice. Three would be better ;) I just wish some applications like FrontRow and iTunes (large album cover view) would not take over both screens. Also, more LCD's throw more heat. I can tell the difference and I'm glad that the room they are in has an overhead fan.

2376163888_5eb4a49e34_b.jpg
Left side of my 23" ACD is my 52" Sony Bravia XBR4 also connected to my Mac Pro and that's my 3rd monitor! :p Excuse the vaseline my lips gets chapped quite often! :D
 
2376163888_5eb4a49e34_b.jpg
Left side of my 23" ACD is my 52" Sony Bravia XBR4 also connected to my Mac Pro and that's my 3rd monitor! :p Excuse the vaseline my lips gets chapped quite often! :D

Sure...that's why there's a piece of tissue underneath your TV too...
 
Sure...that's why there's a piece of tissue underneath your TV too...

Lol, that's not tissue, its that swift dust cleaner. I leave it there so that the dust will collect there most of the time or use it to clean the tv. :D
 
I was looking at them are they any good,and how long you has them?

Had them [Gateway FHD 2400 1080P monitors] since they came out (~Q3 2007?).

If I had to do it over again, I would probably have gotten something else. It looks great in the store and it got very good technical reviews, but I think that glossy finish (?) has bothered me more than I thought it would. I spend a lot of time in code editors and after a while the display just seems harsh and fatiguing to the eyes. (Don't know if these vague statements are of any help.)

Probably should have gotten two 23" Apple Cinema Displays.
 
Currently not doing anything important with the mac, but you can see what it's like with 2 screens,

on the right is my 20in Cinema screen with anything i'm currently using, on the old 17in Iiyma to the left goes things like iTunes, Aduim and anything that is good to monitor but doesn't need to get in my way on the main screen

I'd love to have a 23-24in screen as my main, and use the 20in for everything else, but my current setup does the trick just nicely :cool:

Funny, I've been thinking of a similar set-up: I have a 20" ACD, and a 17" Philips widescreen TFT side-by-side, and the OCD in me hates the fact that they are different heights. From the pic you posted, it looks like your screens are pretty much the same height.

So, does that mean that a 20" Widescreen is roughly the same size as a 17" Standard Ratio monitor? What about a 24" Widescreen? Anyone know if it's likely to be the same size as a 20" Standard Ratio monitor?
 
Initially used them with dual Viewsonic (17")VP171B LCDs (3x inputs!)

Have since upgraded to a single 26" Samsung with 1x HDMI and 1x DVI. My Vista box sports the two Viewsonics now.
 
So, does that mean that a 20" Widescreen is roughly the same size as a 17" Standard Ratio monitor?

The 20in ACD is about 5mm taller, the pixel pitch is near enough the same too, the pixels are just slightly bigger on the 17in, but as long as your not spanning window across the 2 screens it something that never gets noticed :)
 
Man after using the 20" ACD for a couple of days now... It doesnt look so great compared to my 23" ACD. The white on the 20" ACD looks more darker and has a pinkish hue that makes white look like grey (set at adobe 1998 same as my 23" ACD). The 23" ACD just looks that much better. I'm thinking about returning the 20" ACD.
 
Maybe its just me but after staring at the 20" ACD for a long time the colors look great again but once I look at the ACD 23" and still look back at the 20" the colors still look good... but if I use the 23" ACD for a longer period of time then switch back to the 20" ACD, again I see the pinkish hue (but its weird I checked it in the dark with the whole monitor having the color black and from angles I dont see pink.. but the white looks greyish as to the 23" whites look more white with a more yellowish push. I guess I'm used to the yellow hue... :confused: But then the 23" ACD I have doesnt feel it has a yellowish hue.. looks perfect.. oh well I guess I'm going to have to get used to that.
 
I'm using two Dell 1900FP LCD's I've had for quite some time.

They are most definitely long in the tooth. I'm just waiting to find the perfect 24" at the right price point and performance. Then I'll use one of the 19's as a secondary, in portrait, for e-mail and stuff. And the other 19 I'll relegate to full-time duty for the Powerbook.
 
im surprised so many of you professionals chose to buy such a crappy monitor like the apple 'cinema' display when you could have bought one thats much better for half the price. literally half.
 
im surprised so many of you professionals chose to buy such a crappy monitor like the apple 'cinema' display when you could have bought one thats much better for half the price. literally half.

Try naming a few monitor that has better color rendition/color accuracy/viewing angles that are better than the 23"/30" ACD at around its price. I doubt you'll name any as the "half price" monitors are the inferior TN panels that are just OK for general purpose use I suppose.

I do think that the 20" ACD are not as good as the 23"/30" ACD though seems like a totally different panel/backlighting (cheaper).

As a side note I've yet to see a better monitor than my 23" ACD, been through the dells 24"'s as well. I think probably the eizos are better than the 23" ACD, I've also heard that Apple uses the same circuitry/components/glass/backlighting that the Eizos uses.

Actually now that I look at it the 20" ACD has more of a bluish push to it, there's no pink.
 
Maybe its just me but after staring at the 20" ACD for a long time the colors look great again but once I look at the ACD 23" and still look back at the 20" the colors still look good... but if I use the 23" ACD for a longer period of time then switch back to the 20" ACD, again I see the pinkish hue (but its weird I checked it in the dark with the whole monitor having the color black and from angles I dont see pink.. but the white looks greyish as to the 23" whites look more white with a more yellowish push. I guess I'm used to the yellow hue... :confused: But then the 23" ACD I have doesnt feel it has a yellowish hue.. looks perfect.. oh well I guess I'm going to have to get used to that.

Have you calibrated both monitors? It is a massive pain in the ass to do well with the Apple tool, but it corrects small imbalances like that. A stock LCD with the default color settings will most certainly be configured in a subpar manner.

Play around with the calibration tool, and take your time when you do it. It takes a bit of time and a lot of attention to detail to really get it right.
 
Have you calibrated both monitors? It is a massive pain in the ass to do well with the Apple tool, but it corrects small imbalances like that. A stock LCD with the default color settings will most certainly be configured in a subpar manner.

Play around with the calibration tool, and take your time when you do it. It takes a bit of time and a lot of attention to detail to really get it right.

I havnt calibrated the 20" ACD... do you know if there are any precalibrated ICC profiles I can d/l??
 
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