Well I’m not set up with this nifty dual screen thing.  Actually, at the moment I’m ignoring the laptop screen completely and using it as a keyboard.

I’d like to write a review of the monitor, but I’m not sure what I think yet.  At first I liked the colors better, but text didn’t seem very clean.  Then I went through a few color profiles and used the Apple Display Calibrator and comparing it to the laptop screen I can’t say one is better than the other, but they are not identical.  And while I could go all out and invest in monitor calibration eyes to get both in perfect sync, I’m not sure what the point would be.  Display calibration really only seems to make sense if you are designing for print and it is important for what you see on the screen to be exactly what comes out of your high priced printer (which I don’t have).

The problem in designing for the web (and having two monitors side by side reminds me of this now) is that no matter how it looks on your screen, there are thousands of different screens out there with thousands of different settings.

For the most part I’m happy with my new screen.   Before buying it I wish I had made a cardboard cutout to see how big it would be because now I’m convinced 22″ (or even 20″) would have been adequet.  I suppose that’s the disadvantage of buying online.  You can’t see the thing in person.  It’s a little disheartening that all the screens are widescreen these days because websites (and that’s what you’re looking at now, right?) tend to be oriented vertically.  After getting this screen set up I realized there is an option to rotate the image 90 degrees and have a tall monitor which might be ideal for me.  It would take up less footprint on the desk while giving me the same viewing area.  However, the monitor doesn’t have (that I can see) and option to rotate the base 90 degrees.  About the only way to solve this is with a wall mounted bracket, but I’m not that concerned about it right now.

Now I have to pause and ask myself, “Did I really spend this much time talking about my new monitor?  Is someone really going to read all this and care about it?”

Filed under: Materialism by John