A Dell 22″ LCD Monitor Upgrades the Workstation

After almost a year of working on my 13″ Dell XPS Laptop monitor - I finally bit the bullet and upgraded to a larger monitor.  Because I spend SO much time on the computer, I felt the time had come.

Not only that, but Dell.ca had a good sale running, which included the shipping.  After reading John Chow’s post about his new monitor, I decided that I had to seriously consider a similar investment in hardware.

The monitor that I ordered is the Dell Ultra Sharp 2208WFP, a full nine inches bigger than my old laptop and the difference is insane. 

Why didn’t I do this before?

Not only was my neck starting to bug me from craning over all the time, but I think that the small monitor may have been affecting my productivity.

You can see how big the monitor is compared to my laptop in the above photo.

Here’s how things used to be set up (is it any wonder my productivity was suffering?):

Now I can have the same effect as two monitors - I’ve got my email open on one side of the screen and whatever application I’m working in on the other side of the screen.  It’s great.

I’m running the new monitor at maximum resolution: 1680 x 1050.

One study showed that two people performing the same task on different sized monitors finished the tasks at different lengths:

Researchers at the University of Utah tested how quickly people performed tasks like editing a document and copying numbers between spreadsheets while using different computer configurations: one with an 18-inch monitor, one with a 24-inch monitor and with two 20-inch monitors. Their finding: People using the 24-inch screen completed the tasks 52% faster than people who used the 18-inch monitor; people who used the two 20-inch monitors were 44% faster than those with the 18-inch ones.

The work mentioned in the study is very typical of the type of work that I do on a daily basis.  The study also concluded that someone using a bigger monitor could save up to two and half hours per day.

Cool!

This got me very excited and I’ll be sure to report on the productivity improvements after using the bigger monitor for a while.

The monitor that I ordered is the Ultra Sharp 2208WFP for $299 including shipping.

The difference between Dell’s Ultra Sharp and Dell’s standard monitors is in the contrast ratio.  The Ultra Sharp has a contrast ratio of 1000:1 and Dell’s standard monitor is 800:1.

We have another Ultra Sharp in our home office which is a Dell 20″ Ultra Sharp and I really appreciated the color saturation, contrast and crispness of detail.

I’m glad that I ordered the big Ultra Sharp and looking forward to:

1. Less neck pain
2. Better productivity
3. An extra 2.5 hours per day!

What will I do with all that time?

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