Monitor Size - Dual monitors - widescreen

[Terry Evans]

I need to buy a couple monitors for a dual monitor setup on a new computer.  Everyone else has 19" dual monitors (non-widescreen) which are 12" high and approx 14.75" wide viewable (19" diagonal). 

All of this widescreen shopping is making my head spin.  They rarely give the viewable height which is probably the most important feature I'm looking for.  I really don't want anything with less height. 

Is everyone else just going with widescreens these days?  If yes, what size and what is the viewable height?

Thanks!!

[Bob]

We have been using 20" wide screens.   Seems to be the size everyone enjoys without being overwhelming taking up too much space.

[Jim Jensen]

I try not to get the widescreen, as it doesn't seem to help much, but regular aspect is getting more difficult to find. Dell still has them. When I was TV shopping, I found some websites that gave you comparisons or calculators to compare the regular aspect height to a widescreen. Don't have any links now, but just do a search for comparing widescreen and regular aspect. It should at least alleviate the math headache.

[Mark]

I HATE widescreens for the office.  Personal preference, but when I figure we spend quite a bit of time looking at "paper" on our screens, the less scrolling up and down, the better.

I don't think widescreen really has a place in the office unless it's huge.  I have heard praise of the 20" like Bob says, but my personal preference would be to avoid them.  What you gain in width, you lose in height.  Unless you have a lot of landscape images scanned in, you're only going to see half a page or so (or less depending on your preferred resolution).

I just grabbed two widescreen monitors for my desk because of the price and am highly disappointed.  Ruined my whole computing experience, lol.

[Terry Evans]

Does anyone use widescreens turned 90 degrees?

[Hans Manhave]

I use 24" and 22" wide screens. A 19"
3:4/4:3 is about the same height as a 24" wide sceen. they work well next to each other. 18" old model is not tall enough.  I gave not found a need to
turn them 90 degrees.

[Gene Foraker]

Newegg.com will let you search for lcd monitors and set the choices on the left bar for non-widescreen.   They are still available.

If this link goes properly -
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100007617%20600030156&IsNodeId=1&name=No

[Billy Welsh]

I believe it takes a 22" widescreen to give you ~ the same height as a 19" standard.  We have mostly purchased the 22 wides because I was told it is not easy to find standard (though when I recently asked for one to match 2 existing ones it magically was easy to get from Dell.  Don't always believe what you hear!).

I suspect the wides are more widely marketed because the factory tooling is the same as for the TV's so they get some cost savings - frankly I don't see much practical advantage of the extra width in business especially when working with scanned documents.

I have the ability to swivel my 3 24" wides to portrait mode, but it is not quick & practical so I rarely do it.  With the additional height I get from 24" I can usually see the documents even after reducing to fit the whole page on the screen.  But they take a lot a real estate, and I would be fine with 3 standards - the wide is not offering me a whole lot more.

[Kevin Crow]

We're using 22" widescreens. We also use WinSplit Revolution (http://www.winsplit-revolution.com/) and AquaSnap (http://www.nurgo-software.com/products/aquasnap) to make managing all that real estate easier. :-)