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I Have Four Monitors: Here's How I Use Each One
Having multiple displays connected to your PC is an almost guaranteed way to be more productive and get more from your system. But just how many monitors do you need for peak productivity?
I have four, and here's what I do on each of them.
Why I Use Four Monitors
Honestly, I never set out to make a quad-monitor setup. All four displays on my desk were accumulated over time, and they differ greatly from each other. For example, my primary monitor is a curved 144Hz gaming display, while my secondary monitor is a simple flat panel running at 100Hz.
The side monitor is over a decade old and runs on a VGA connection, and my fourth monitor is my laptop's display, which also powers the other three monitors. This is more of a collection of monitors I've built over the years as and when I felt the need or recycled instead of a pre-planned setup.
One common feature is that they're all 1080p, except my laptop's display. I find 1080p sufficient for content consumption and gaming and haven't felt the need to upgrade to a better resolution.
While having four monitors helps me keep an eye on things, I don't think most people would need more than two or three. At any given point in time, I can only focus on one or two, while the other two hold background tasks or programs I glance over from time to time.
Primary Monitor
My primary monitor is a gaming monitor from MSI called G24 Optix. It's an 1800R, curved 24-inch monitor with a 1920 x 1080 maximum resolution, 144Hz refresh rate, and 1ms response time, as claimed by MSI. It's also the first monitor I purchased, all the way back in 2021.
I use it for most of my daily tasks, such as writing, coding, editing, research, watching Netflix or YouTube, and everything else, as this is the monitor I face at my desk. This is also the most color-accurate display of all three of my external monitors, meaning color-sensitive work like photo and video editing also occurs here.
Since it's also the primary display in my Windows settings, this is also the monitor I game on. I'm not a big fan of multi-monitor gaming, so putting one 24-inch monitor on an arm and moving it when gaming is a far better option. There's also a debate whether 1080p or 1440p is better for gaming, but given my cost and performance constraints, I find 1080p just fine.
Secondary Monitor
The secondary monitor is a Samsung office monitor. It's a relatively simple, flat, 24-inch 1080p monitor with a 75 Hz refresh rate. Its job is to hold any references, additional browser windows, code documentation, or extra Premiere Pro or Photoshop windows while I use my primary monitor.
If I'm gaming, I often put stats like CPU/GPU usage, temperature, power draw, and more on it to monitor resource consumption. And that's pretty much everything I use it for. From time to time, I also let Netflix or YouTube play on it while I work on the primary monitor if I want to watch a show or video while working, but that's it.
Side Monitor
The side monitor is my trusty old Samsung. It's a VGA monitor that I run through a VGA-to-HDMI adaptor. The specs aren't great either: It's an 18-inch LCD panel with 1366 x 768 maximum resolution support and a 60Hz refresh rate. It's almost a decade old at this point and was handed down to me by a friend. Fun fact: It used to be my primary monitor before I got the MSI G24 Optix.
This monitor mostly holds Slack and Feedly. I also tried setting it up as a vertical monitor at one point as an experiment, but vertical monitors just seem off to me. Honestly, I'm only using it because I haven't had the time to take it apart and use the LCD panel inside for a smart mirror project.
Laptop Display
Finally, here's the best display I have on my desk. I recently purchased an HP Omen Transcend 14, which comes with a gorgeous 14-inch 2.8k, 120 Hz, OLED display with HDR10 support. This is the only display I have that runs over 1080p and is by far the best-looking one.
Unfortunately, it's also the smallest display around when I'm at my desk, which means it's not as useful. Ninety-nine percent of the time, I have YouTube Music open on it, a task that has lately been relegated to my Stream Deck Neo, a device that can do wonders for your productivity.
As you can tell, this is a collection of displays I've put together in the last five years or so with little thought behind them. Having four monitors definitely has its advantages, but the cable spaghetti on my desk and the need for a better panel mean I might just end up going back to two.