[nickjj]

2 separate monitors is almost always going to win vs 1 ultra wide monitor.

1. You can orient them independently.

2. You can position them in ways that are more suitable to your environment. For example if you wanted a small gap in the middle to fit an eye level web cam, you can do that.

3. If you put them flush together, 2x 24" inch monitors has roughly the same head movement requirements as a single 48" monitor.

4. 2 monitors gives you the option to do a GPU pass through VM which is extremely useful in some cases (running native Linux but wanting native Windows performance for certain apps without dual booting).

5. It's usually easier to manage multiple applications using native window snapping tools. It's also easier to ignore a 2nd monitor vs the 2nd half of a single monitor.

[azhenley]

They are measured diagonally so the width of 2x24 is not the same as 1x48. Also the bevels do take up a noticeable amount of space, but will likely get better.

I definitely agree about the window management though. I went from 2x27 to 1x34 and found it much easier to organize windows on the two displays.

[karmakaze]

Measured diagonally it's still the same head turning (ignoring bezel) whether the second display is level with the first or not.

  +------+
  |      |
  +------+------+
         |      |
         +------+

[nickjj]

Good call on the diagonal measurements but it's not a big difference in the end. Both of my monitors have about a 1/4" inch bezel. So there's 1/2" of extra space and this monitor isn't made to have slim bezels. If you need to move your neck to see an extra 2 inches, that's not really going to make a noticeable difference in the end. You can also choose to sit back a fraction of an inch further to fit more in your field of view.

[the_pwner224]

> Good call on the diagonal measurements but it's not a big difference in the end.

This makes a huge difference. 2x24" will give you half the total surface area of 1x48". For example, if you have 2x24" side-by-side, you could put another copy of that pair above the original pair (to get a 4x24" grid), and that would be equivalent to having a single 48" monitor.

If you cut your current X inch monitor into 4 quadrants, each quadrant is diagonally X/2 inches. So having two of those would be like having just the bottom half of your current monitor.

[kaftoy]

In the original article they are talking about Ultrawide single monitor setup. In practice, all ultrawides don't have the same aspect ratio as normal wide minitors (16/9 or 16/10). I have seen ultrawides from 21/9 to even 32/9 (just search for ultrawide, I'll not provide links). So it's not as easy as to divide 48" by 4 to get to 24".

Also, only very expensive setups give good resolution, to not waste all the metric space.

[mjmj]

I find #5 a disadvantage as with 1 widescreen monitor I can easily snap an app perfectly in the center of my vision and ignore the edges. But with two monitors, if I’m ignoring a monitor that means my neck is angled the entire time or I’m physically adjusting or moving monitors.

[noveltyaccount]

> native window snapping tools

This is an area that could use some work. I use MaxTo on Windows to set up snapping regions on my 34" ultrawide. It's pretty good but I sure think it would be better if it was built into Windows.

[smudgymcscmudge]

It’s a similar story on mac. There are multiple third party utilities to help snap windows to predefined areas, but it seems like they are fighting the OS.

[mszcz]

Have you tried using AltDrag for window positioning? I've been using it for years and it's been a real life saver.

[checkyoursudo]

#4 is why I originally got 2 monitors. Now I just like it.