Two Gateway FPD1985 or one 24" 1920x1200 monitor?

[CougTek]

Because my monitor died a few days ago and I can't stand the blurry CRT I now use to replace it, I'm in the market for a new monitor. Browsing my price lists, I have narrowed my reseach down to two or three options.

• 2x Gateway FPD1985 : 19" monitor with a PVA panel, 1280x1024
  
  or
  
  1x HP L2445M : 24" TN panel, 1920x1200
  
  or (less likely because $$$)
  
  1x Samsung XL2370 : 23.7" TN panel, LED backlight, 1920x1080

Getting two Gateway costs me more or less the same as getting one HP. The Samsung is significantly more expensive so I don't really consider it. Sure it uses less electricity, but the difference between it and either of the other two options is 40W at best. Not worth 170$ IMO.

It would be practical to get two monitors and the panel is of higher quality on the Gateway, but I can forget watching 1080p movies with two 19". It's probably a non issue since I don't have a Blu-RAY reader, but still. I won't be able to hold off the purchase long enough to raise the cash to buy a 40"-46" LED backlight TV like I would have liked to do at first.

What are your opinions about this?

 

[Mercutio]

I think I'd go for the two smaller monitors for a brighter, more accurate picture and more pixels overall.

 

[LunarMist]

What are you using the two screens for? I tried it once and shifting gaze back and forth drove me crazy.

 

[CougTek]

Browsing price lists, coding on one screen and seeing the result on the other. Watching a video on one screen, reading news on the other. Checking stock prices. Comparing two different products. Reading an article and checking references on the other screen. The list goes on.

 

[CougTek]

I think I'd go for the two smaller monitors for a brighter, more accurate picture and more pixels overall.

There's only 13.7% more pixels on two 1280x1024 displays than there is on one 1920x1200 monitor. Since there are more vertical pixels on the 24", I could in fact see more text on the single 24" than on two large but shorter 19".

 

[ddrueding]

If you are running Win7, I would go with the single big monitor. The win+left and win+right hotkeys make it more useful than a pair of smaller displays. I have multiple screens, but it doesn't benefit as much as having a big one.

 

[time]

If you can rotate the 19" monitors to portrait mode, I'd definitely go with them. 2048x1280 & 16:10 overall, but more importantly 1280 precious lines and PVA to boot.

Otherwise, it would have to be the single 24" 1920x1200. No idea why you'd go for the 1920x1080 unless it was significantly cheaper.