Here’s how I use each one

Connecting multiple displays to your computer is almost a guaranteed way to be more productive and get more out of your system. But how many monitors do you need for maximum productivity?

I have four and here is what I do on each one.

Why am I using four monitors?

Honestly, I’ve never gotten around to setting up a quad monitor. All four displays on my desk have accumulated over time and are very different 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 display which also powers the other three monitors. It’s more of a collection of monitors that I’ve built over the years as I felt the need or recycled instead of a pre-planned setup.

One thing they have in common is that they are all 1080p, except for my laptop display. I find 1080p sufficient for content consumption and gaming and haven’t felt the need to upgrade to a higher resolution.

While having four monitors helps me keep track of things, I don’t think most people need more than two or three. I can only focus on one or two at any given time, while the other two have background tasks or programs that I look at from time to time.

Primary monitor

My primary monitor is a gaming monitor from MSI called the G24 Optix. It’s the 1800R, a curved 24-inch monitor with a maximum resolution of 1920 x 1080, a 144Hz refresh rate and a 1ms response time, as claimed by MSI. It’s also the first monitor I bought in 2021.

I use it for most of my day-to-day tasks like writing, coding, editing, research, watching Netflix or YouTube, and everything else because this is the monitor I face at my desk. It’s also the most color-accurate display of all three of my external monitors, which means color-sensitive work like photo and video editing happens here too.

Since it’s also the primary display in Windows setup, it’s also the monitor I play on. I’m not a big fan of multi-monitor gaming, so putting one 24-inch monitor on my arm and moving it around while gaming is a much better option. There is also some debate as to whether 1080p or 1440p is better for gaming, but given my price and performance constraints, 1080p is fine.

Secondary monitor

The secondary monitor is a Samsung office monitor. It’s a relatively simple, flat, 24-inch 1080p monitor with a 75Hz refresh rate. Its job is to hold any links, other browser windows, code documentation, or other Premiere Pro or Photoshop windows when I’m using my primary monitor.

If I’m gaming, I often put stats on it like CPU/GPU usage, temperature, power consumption, and more to keep an eye on resource consumption. And that’s pretty much all I use it for. I’ll also have Netflix or YouTube playing on it from time to time when I’m working on the primary monitor if I want to watch a show or video while I work, but that’s about it.

Side monitor

The side monitor is my old trusty Samsung. It’s a VGA monitor that I use via a VGA-HDMI adapter. The specs aren’t great either: It’s an 18-inch LCD panel with support for a maximum resolution of 1366 x 768 and a 60Hz refresh rate. It is almost ten years old at this point and was given to me by a friend. Fun fact: This used to be my primary monitor before I got the MSI G24 Optix.

This monitor mostly includes Slack and Feedly. I also tried setting it up as a vertical monitor at one point as an experiment, but vertical monitors just don’t feel right to me. Honestly, I only use it because I didn’t have time to take it apart and use the LCD panel inside for a smart mirror project.

Laptop screen

Finally, here is 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, 120Hz, OLED display with HDR10 support. This is the only display I have that runs over 1080p and is by far the nicest.

Unfortunately, it’s also the smallest display 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 recently 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 over the past five years or so with little thought. Having four monitors definitely has its advantages, but the cable spaghetti on my desk and the need for a better panel mean I might end up going back to two.