A few years back I decided I wanted more screen real estate. I looked at the REALLY big screens (30” at the time) but couldn’t afford the REALLY big price tag so I bought another 24” instead. Was two screens just an economically necessitated compromise? As it turned out … no.
Two screens is great and does more than just buy you more screen real estate. It buys you a new visual setup. One screen becomes the main focus, one screen the reference focus. For instance, you write your document on your primary screen while the other has your diary/calendar, your music dashboard, etc. One use case that’s particularly relevant to me for this time of year is … do work on primary, watch football on secondary. 
Why Ask Now?
So why am I writing about it now? Well because I’m switching systems and my new system is the 27” iMac. The iMac has an integrated screen (or rather the computer is built into the screen) and screen is a thing of beauty: both big at 27” but more importantly pixel rich with 2560 x 1440 which provides a much nicer DPI; coming closer to print-quality on the desktop (not quite “retina display” levels but that won’t be available to the desktop market for 2-3 years). Of course the big question is, is it big enough not to need a complementary monitor for secondary tasks?
I’ve used it for several days now in a single monitor mode and it is really nice. I can definitely say you don’t need multiple monitors when you’re using this kind of display paired with the a multi-touch trackpad. that said, I am rarely satisfied to constrain myself to the “need” and have an easy way to play with the “want” as I have two unused 24” monitors just sitting there begging to be plugged in. Plugging in two additional monitors – although maybe technical feasible – would be too extreme so I have left that bad idea for others. I have, however, now plugged in one of the 24’s as my secondary monitor. It worked immediately without any configuration needed, now onto my review.
My Review
My first reaction was … oh cool. I felt a sense of relief when I could spread my electronic self out across two monitors. Admittedly the second monitor was noticeably less sharp due to the reduced pixel density but it immediately felt like an improvement. The fact that my HP 24” comes with a stand that has the ability to adjust vertically meant that the two screens could sit at the same height. This helps (and is not actually an option if you buy the expensive Apple Cinema Series monitor as your second monitor).
Everything was going along swimmingly until I used OSX Lion’s “fullscreen” mode. The app I was using – Safari – did indeed go full screen. Specifically it went full screens. What had before been a very broad but uncluttered web page canvas was now a full two pages. The first page was as it had been, the second page was just a blanked out (admittedly with a nice material fabric versus just black). That’s not very friendly. Maybe a few people will appreciate the peaceful serenity of the single application but most dual-screeners will miss out on their “reference page”. Bummer.
I don’t think this fullscreen snafu will talk me back from the two screen precipice (you really can’t go back); but it will force me to consider whether I use OSX’s fullscreen mode. I had liked it in one-screen land – although I won’t say it was perfect – but I was in no way addicted to it. Here’s hoping that the user experience folks at Apple come up with an elegant solution for the small but growing number of multi-screen users out there.
