Do you really need more than 1 monitor?

I have my 13" laptop screen and my 23" 1080p LG monitor. It makes doing Skype a lot easier because I can throw it on the laptop screen and web browse on the main. It could also make listening to music easier but I have my SONY dream machine for that.

3 ASUS 22" Gaming monitors. A LG 19" and 17" A Dell 15"

All on one desk.

I have two 27" Monitors and having two monitors is a must. The amount of extra productivity you can get done just by having that second monitor there is crazy! Like someone stated about the research in one window and word in another is VERY VERY handy as I am a student and there is a lot of assignments to be competed and having this method makes it less frustrating and more smoother and gives me a little extra time to make the assignment top notch because of any time I saved just from not having to open windows and re open then and so on.

Using only one monitor frustrates me to no end. Even an HDPI laptop screen running at 1080p doesn't allow me to do as much as 2 monitors at half the resolution. The ability to Maximize content on a secondary screen is simply second nature, and something I find so useful that I usually dock the two screens at two corners so that I have "solid" walls on all four sides of both monitors. This means that in Windows, I have a viewport that is the size of both widths and both heights, fun when doing a screen capture as half the screen capture is nothing but black, but I also then have the ability to snap the windows to the sides or top of any screen.

The ability to do full screen windows is also one of the reasons I find Macintosh's in general difficult to work with. I find myself dealing more with screen and window management than I do with actual work.

I have a 13" MacBook Pro that I hook up to a 1080p 22" display. It's improved my productivity lots. When I'm at school, I bring an old MacBook with me, and it's only got a 13" display. It drives me insane when I'm trying to multitask on such a small screen. 2 monitors FTW!

You tell me:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=392aqyEhNNI

Short answer: Yes.

Long answer: No, I'd gladly switch to a single monitor if it could match the 9900x2160 I'm running right now.

Dual monitors are great for doing research, staying up to date with twitter, news feeds, etc. You can always have these sort of applications going while you do your main task on the primary monitor.

The only time that I would b using two monitors for something would be work related where I needed the second monitor to be monitoring like working in a call center where you had to make sure that the reps were on the phone and make sure that everything is running smoothly on the floor. I would be using some special applications that required to be on one monitor while having my IM, Email client, word, and what ever else in the other monitor. And still use Alt + tab to switch on the other monitor for pulling up appls that I need to reply back back with or get in contact with the managers on the floor. Otherwise single monitor for me and I still have about 10 apps open and still use only alt+tabe to switch between applications.

Personally it depends on what you need the second monitor for. Work related where your monitoring like agents or reps on the floor. And still taking care of request from the agents and manages. Then yes two montiros should be use. Otherwise one monitor is more than enough for home use.

I love having multiple monitors. However, something that also works nicely is the workspaces you can have in most Desktop Environments (Linux). It works very well, basically it lets you switch virtual monitors on one screen. I use this alot when coding and when just multi-tasking. If you are using windows I think I heard of tools that do the same thing, I don't know how well they work though.

Once you've used 2 there's no going back!