Furrygoat has a recent entry on widescreen vs. dual monitors. We have been having similar discussions here. Currently my debate has really been about dual wide vs dual standard, but Furrygoat makes a good point about being able to replace your desktop with a laptop. Hard to do with dual monitors. My preference has always been to have nearly the same setup between work and home (monitors, keyboards, mice etc.) The major drawback I have to this scheme however is that XP remote desktop doesn't support dual monitors. So I'm forced to a single monitor when working from home regardless. When I switch to laptop all bets are off, I have a different keyboard, mouse, and monitor size / form factor.

As for monitors: the Dell 2405 is pretty sweet, but for that price you can get two 2001FPs. So you can have one monitor at 1920x1200 or two with 3200 x 1200 res. But admittedly resolution alone isn't always the deciding factor.

Those Dell widescreens are nice, but when I'm using my desktop at home, I typically have one monitor playing a full screen DVD, and the other monitor doing Firefox, X-Windows (running remote stuff) and Visual Studio. It would be hard to watch a DVD and do other things on a single monitor.

I would guess it would be hard to do anything else while watching a DVD :)

I'm still trying to figure out if the next LCD I pick up for home should be a wide or not. The problem is that with a 2005FPW I loose some vertical resolution (1050 vs. 1200). I'm currently analyzing my use patterns on my 20" standard format to see if I'm really taking advantage of that extra space. What I've found is that most of my open windows are less than 1050 vertical. I seem to be using the extra space mainly make it easier to click through and bring up background windows. I tend to orient my windows towards the corners.

How are you guys making use of your 2001FPs?

I've been in the same boat. But this was primarily because the widescreen 2005 kept going on sale and the 2001 didn't. But with them both recently at $464, the 2001 is very attractive.

After seeing both in person, the widescreen just felt a little short for me. I'm used to working on a standard aspect ratio for my work pattern. Like John, I am trying to standardize on keyboard, mouse and screen at home and work, and just felt not having the two match would be frustrating. Another benefit is that the 2001 just has more pixels.

I've been playing HL2 and CS:source at 16:9 resolution (1600x900 with black bars). It's really nice, as is playing Warcraft 3 at full 1600x1200 res.

I would recommend the 2001 over the 2005. And the 2405 over both of them (of course it's around $900).

As for dual monitor... I'm over it. I just don't like "staring at the crack". I'd rather just have 4 virtual desktops on a really nice single monitor. In the long run, the 24" will come down in price and we'll all be using widescreen single monitors.

Ok we have addressed the 'crack' before. No one sets up their dual monitors that way. As for virtual desktops, what software are you using? I've attempted a virtual desktop model about once a year since 93 and I just can't get use to it. Personal preference I guess. Currently I'm back to playing with Expose clones and alternate task switchers. I'll have a write up soon.

I saw a lot of ppl set up with the crack when I was in Mountain View and everyone has two of the 2001s. If there's no crack, I'd think it would be a pain to look to the side all the time at the other screen. Seems like you'd need 3 monitors then. Anyway... to each their own.

I'm recommending the non-widescreen. After all these years of using that aspect ratio, it's just what I'm used to (until I have the cash for a 24" widescreen!) I'll probably go widescreen lcd tv when they get down to the ~700 price point (half the current pricing).

Oh, I just use the XP power toys screen switcher. It gives you 4 desktops and you can get it so it only uses a tiny portion of your task bar. Actually I use the 4 way Linux virtual desktop much more, I cluster terminal windows on screens in relation to the remote system or project I'm working on.

You're right, that in the long run, something like expose will be a better way to manage the desktop. The taskbar just doesn't cut it anymore and that's why tabbed browsing, tabbed visual studio are a must. Maybe Longhorn will do somthing about this. I really don't like going with 3rd party UI extensions. There's always some incompatibility or something. I'm paranoid.

Check out this article, about half way down about the new monitors they've got planned.

Sweet! I think the large ones are TVs, but with HDTV pushing LCD prices down and sizes up this means good thing for computer users!

Yeah and 1280 x 720 is not a bad res for gaming and web surfing at 40".

Oh, that 40" is going to be so sweet when I CAN'T PLAY ANY FREAKING CONTENT ON IT. I've thought about this a lot recently. It's one thing to "exploit the analog hole" in recording DRM'd audio, but how exactly are you going to do this for video? I just can't see videotaping a screen, or recording 5 channels of audio seperately.

Well I have a few 'hopeful' words... Not all stupid ideas that are forced on people are accepted. Just remember DIVX (the disk not the format). So far most attempts at restricting what you can do with the 'content' you buy have caused consumer backlash. I guess time will tell with this one. I guess we'll have to vote with our wallet and not buy content with this type of restriction.

I'm already at the edge of not buying any more DVDs today: I was about to watch a DVD (that I bought) and it wouldn't let me skip directly to the play menu: it forced me to watch all the previews! It was gracious enough to say that I was allowed to fast forward through them, but I could not skip them. That, plus the "Assume I'm A Criminal" FBI/interpol warning at the beginning of every freaking disk is starting to seriously piss me off. Hollywood can shove it.

YES, that is super annoying that they won't let you skip those ads. That's what CSS was actually developed for, you know :-)

I actually have a method for that! I always put a dvd in the player before I turn on the TV, sometimes hours before I'm going to watch it. By then it's at the menu by the time I want to watch it.

I started doing that too, but it's the principle of the matter! I'm at home, not some crappy cell-phone-ringing, baby-screaming, sticky-floor theatre will smelly people and ads. Play the frickin' movie already!

The movie industry monkey-spankers must also have home theatres... do you think they suffer through this too, or do they get special "builds"?

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