[lemaro]

Hello, for the past days i’ve been looking for monitors to change the one at home, but there are some questions that i have, to which i can’t find the answers to.
I want to buy 2 monitors, which will be used for coding and playing league of legends, notice i’m not saying gaming, since the only game i play is league of legends and i’m not playing that much nowadays.

When i checked the shop in my country the first model that i kind of liked was Asus – ProArt PA248QV.
Then after some more research i saw some gaming monitors that i liked as well, like BenQ – Mobiuz EX2510S. What i immediately liked about the benq was that the monitor was 144hz (The one at home is C24G1, and since i’m using 144hz now i thought that going to 75hz would look bad to my eyes.

Another thing that i was thinking about was screen size and resolution. I’m actually more for 24-25 inch since dual 27 inch in my mind will be way too much (i work with 27 inch at the office and i think it’s an overkill for home). I guess if i choose to go for 24-5 inch, the decision for the resolution of the screen is already made, since most monitors of that size are FHD, what i’m not sure is if FHD would be ok for my eyes to look at text all day, since i’m starting to work fully remote and i will be coding all day on these monitors

Another problem with screen resolution is that when i’m playing games i play them on my PC which has nice specs that could handle dual QHD monitors, but when i code i do it on my laptop, which is kind of old and not with the best specs, so i’m not sure how it would handle dual 2k monitors being attached to it.

So the main questions are:
1. What are the differences between gaming and so called professional monitors, since the prices are the same, but there are differences in the refresh rates (most gaming monitors being 144hz and above, while others are mainly 60-75hz).
2. Do i actually need gaming monitor, if i’m only playing league of legends and would i actually notice much difference between 144hz and 75hz
3. Is there much difference in system requirements between dual QHD monitors and dual FHD monitors, i mean would my laptop suffer major performance hit ?

[PCM2]

Hi lemaro,

In my mind this is pretty simple. For coding, the (W)QHD or 1440p (2560 x 1440) resolution – not to be called ‘2K’ as that is inaccurate and undersells the resolution – is vastly superior to the Full HD or 1080p (1920 x 1080) resolution. Even in a dual-monitor setup, the Full HD resolution is very restrictive vertically. Viewing comfort factors should be considered and your eyes may prefer the extra clarity of the higher resolution, but it’s mainly the increase in ‘desktop real estate’ that should be appreciated. From what you’ve said, gaming is very much the secondary usage for your monitor. You may well appreciate a higher refresh rate, it’s very subjective – why not try running your C24G1 at 60Hz for a bit and see how you find it? If it is OK but you’d like a bit more then settling for 75Hz is probably going to be fine for you.

Regardless of how you find this refresh rate difference, seeing a lot of your code on the screen at the same time with superior clarity is going to be something you notice a lot more given the amount of time you spend with that compared to playing League of Legends. The superior pixel density is also attractive when gaming as it improves the detail and clarity of textures, fine edges (especially as you view into the distance on the game) and particle effects etc. And for basic text-based tasks and web browsing most reasonably modern systems will cope with dual WQHD models just fine. I wouldn’t worry about that aspect unless your laptop is several years old and even then it would depend on its spec.

Gaming monitors are perfectly capable as productivity screens, you shouldn’t pay too much attention to market position but rather base the screen itself on its own merits. Gaming monitors will typically push up the refresh rate, which pushes up the price. They may also include ‘gaming-focused’ OSD features such as gamma enhancement, FPS counters (refresh rate displays), on-screen crosshairs etc. that are less relevant for productivity monitors. On the flipside, some productivity-focused screens will be cheaper for a given resolution based around a panel with reduced refresh rate. This is most noticeable for ‘4K’ UHD offerings where there is a real gulf in price going up from 60Hz to 144Hz+. The features and the ports they include may differ – it’s not unusual for them to offer superior USB-C PD (Power Delivery) and KVM for example. Though an increasing number of gaming monitors also offer KVM functionality and will offer comprehensive OSDs that will cover plenty of features for both work and play – manufacturers are certainly aware that most people don’t want a monitor purely for work or purely for play.

[EsaT]

…starting to work fully remote and i will be coding all day on these monitors…

Just forget medieval vertical resolution 1920×1080:
Like most work usages coding needs lots of vertical room.
Or do you code with use of line break only once or twice per dozen minutes?
I wouldn’t accept it even for basic reading/web browsing with 1200 vertical pixels being my absolute minimum acceptable.

When marketing says “wide” screen, what they really mean is low screen with lowered resolution/screen real estate per desk space consumption.
(Orwellian doublespeak/think lives strong as ever)

And would have to be awfully old/bad laptop to not support mediocrish 2560×1440.
Thinkpad T500 from nearly 15 years ago supported 2560×1600 just fine.
Only question is how many external (or total) displays laptop’s GPU supports.
Specifications of any proper laptop should tell that.
But 3840×2160 should have been supported already many years ago by any more higher than bottom end models.

And if you’re worried about running out of desk space with two monitors, there could be also single monitor alternative to consider.
38″ 3840×1600 would be one such (mod edit: BenQ EW3880R as an example from productivity recommendations, but there are various others from LG etc.). That would have screen real estate for two program windows with good vertical height/resolution to lower amount of vertical scrolling. Though it’s rather pricy class of monitors and even more expensive than 40″ 3840×2160.
(whose image height is too high for normal distance)

As for physical sizes you could try to visualize those, if you have any pieces of stiff enough paper, or cardboard.
Though for virtual comparisons between single monitors this is good:
http://www.displaywars.com/24-inch-16×9-vs-38-inch-d%7B24x10%7D

[lemaro]

Thank you for your fast answer. I guess i’ve made up my mind and i’ll go for 1440p. My local retailer has Benq EX2780Q on discount at the moment. As i see it’s 1440p and 144hz, which is best of both worlds as i see it. I’ve watched your review on this model, and as i understand it’s good for gaming and office work. I would love to get your opinion if it would be a good fit for my usage.

[PCM2]

As covered in this thread it’s a long-running recommendation of mine for its respectable all-round performance and pricing. It’s particularly attractive when it’s on offer – and it often is these days and appears to be from your local retailer as well. 🙂

[lemaro]

Thank you a lot, i’ve ordered the monitors 🙂

[Author]

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