I don't know about you, but I think size matters. Screen size, anyway. I like big monitors, with plenty of real estate to display multiple browser windows and other applications. The current state of the art is embodied in those big, beautiful 30-inch monitors with eye-popping 2,560-by-1,600 resolution. These machines display images almost life size. Heck, a lot of times they display images that look better than real life.
Apple's Cinema HD Display may be the nicest of these babies, but its price tag is even bigger than its screen: $1,800! That's probably more than your computer is worth.
You can get similar sized monitors from other manufacturers -- Dell, HP, Samsung, for example -- for as little as $1,200, but that still ain't cheap. Especially when you realize that you need high-end graphics technology on your computer to drive these machines.
So what's Plan B? How about running a 19- to 24-inch monitor along with your laptop's built in screen? It's ridiculously easy to do in Windows or Macintosh, and it opens up an impressive amount of real estate at a much more reasonable price. These days, 19-inchers go for less than $200, even less for wide-screen models (which, by the way, actually offer less viewable real estate). And 24-inch models can be found for $300 to $400, or even less, though most of them are wide screen.
Bottom Line: Nothing can compare to the immersive environment of a top-notch big-screen monitor. But the cheapest, easiest way to get more screen space is to run two screens off your laptop.
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