Arrangement suggestions with my external monitor? Any setup pictures to share?

Question

Level 4

1,388 points

Arrangement suggestions with my external monitor? Any setup pictures to share?

OK, I finally got things transferred over from my late 2009 21.5" iMac (left in the first photo) to my new MacBook Pro retina 13-inch (foreground in photo) and today hooked up my new LG 27-inch IPS LED display to the HDMI port (the big screen behind the MBP behind it). The 2nd photo shows what it looks like when I'm just concentrating on the MacBook Pro and LG display.

You can see from the first photo how much better the whites and brightness of the LG display are compared to the iMac, which I thought was really beautiful until this evening, but now I think the iMac looks dingy compared to both the LG and the MacBook Pro.

I turned off mirrored displays and set the arrangement so the 27-inch is "above" the MBP. Right now I'm typing on the keyboard, and looking at the big screen, where I put the Chrome window. I don't seem to have any special problems with eye/hand coordination. It's sort of like typing on an external keyboard while looking at the iMac screen.

But I'm still not sure what the best arrangement is. Anybody have their setup photos to share? I would be interested in seeing how people have theirs set up.

Really there are no problems. Just a few minor qualms, and I'm curious how other people are doing it.

One quibble is that the LG display, on its stand, is just a tad low, so the bottom of the screen gets cilpped by the MBP screen. Just slightly annoying. I could probably get used to that.

Another minor issue is that even though the MBP screen is much smaller than the LG screen, and even though the LG screen is really nice - nicer than the iMac - and quite easy on the eyes, the smaller MBP retina screen is even nicer! It's surprisingly easy to read. I was worried about the 13-inch size, but it is so clear and beautiful I actually like looking at it. It's very comfortable on the eyes. So when I glance down at the MacBook Pro I sort of go "ahhh" and the LG looks not quite as nice as the smaller retina display (though looks much better than the iMac). Everything is relative. But I'm looking at this side-by-side now all the time. Until this week I thought the iMac looked great. Well, you know what I mean.

Distance-wise, the LG screen is just a tad far away, compared to how I used to use the iMac. But if I bring it closer, the screen will get even more clipped by the MacBook Pro.

Anyway, no real problems. But I am curious about other people's setups. Particularly the issue of putting the notebook in front of the large screen and arranging it so it is "above" the notebook in the settings. I suppose it's also possible to rearrange space somehow so I put the larger monitor to one side of the MBP. I am not sure how "ergonomic" that would be, constantly keeping your head turned off in one direction. At least this way the screen is in front of me.

I was surprised how easy setting up the external monitor was. It just instantly worked.

doug

MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Late 2013), i5, 512 GB SSD, 16 GB RAM

Posted on Jan 24, 2014 4:00 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Doug Lerner2 Author

Level 4

1,388 points

Jan 24, 2014 6:25 AM in response to Doug Lerner2

I'm thinking with this dual monitor setup and my 57 year old eyes I might need some sort of multifocal lenses (which I don't like). Currently my "reading glasses distance" and "regular glasses distance" are almost the same, and sometimes I go out with the wrong ones on. But the focal plane distance switching between monitors is a bit tiring on my eyes.

doug

Reply

Answer 2

Doug Lerner2 Author

Level 4

1,388 points

Jan 24, 2014 6:41 PM in response to Doug Lerner2

There are a couple of things which bother me about using an external monitor, for the first time.

1. One is probably just the arrangement. I need to find a better placement.

2. It is distracting having the cursor and certain things go over to the other monitor. It looks cool at first, but I am finding it sort of annoying. Maybe it's just a matter of getting used to.

3. The major thing though is that the larger monitor resolution is basically a 1080p IPS LED display (1920 x 1080). (I see that's the same resolution as on my 21.5" iMac).

The resolution is actually lower than my retina 13 inch. So while the 27 inch display looks nicer than my old iMac, it actually has fewer pixels than MBP. So I prefer looking at the MBP, which is really soothing on the eyes. But there just isn't enough screen real estate there because of the pixel-doubling the retina notebooks do in the recommended mode. I could display at full resolution, but then everything would look really tiny.

4. Sometimes there are things which flicker on the big display in response to doing something on the MBP. It's not a hardware problem - it's just that they are both interactively connected, so sometimes doing something on one will affect the other and so it is distracting. Maybe that's just a matter of getting use to as well.

I don't know. No real complaints. Just a matter of getting used to I guess.

I love the fact that the SSD and better cpu on the MBP means zero lag on anything so far. Excel in my old Office 2008 would constantly lag when I switched to it on my iMac while inputting new data. But that hasn't happened at all with my MBP.

I might try clamshell as an experiment. I hear the latest MBPs don't run hotter that way, but I'm not sure.

doug

Reply

Answer 3

Doug Lerner2 Author

Level 4

1,388 points

Jan 25, 2014 2:37 AM in response to Doug Lerner2

Suddenly I'm finding the ability to have two monitors open very convenient, with the ability to have a big screen view of at least two things at once - like a browser and Evernote both open for easy reference.

doug

Reply