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I’ve used dual displays in the past, but never really got anything out of them because they were pretty small, 17″ and 15″ inch to be precise. Also because they were different sizes, it was difficult to come to a compromise for positioning and arrangement so that dragging windows or moving the mouse between them was smooth and unhindered.
Also I never bought both monitors with intention of using them together in a dual setup, i just thought I’d give it a try.

Anyway, recently, my beloved 23″ Cinema Display died after a power cut, (reminder to buy surge protector -_- ). The kick in the balls came when I found out it was just days out of warranty (reminder to buy Apple Care -_- ). Apple wouldn’t service it without a hefty charge, so I took it to a local Apple Authorised Service Provider to see if they could help. They booked it in, and sent it off to their repair department with no promise that it would be repairable. About a week later, I had a phone call explaining that it was going to cost somewhere in the region of £415 to repair the display because the main unit (read: everything) needed replacing. I didn’t speak to them directly, and this was left as voice mail on my phone. I meant to contact them to tell them that I would just buy a new display and to scrap that one, but forgot.

About 5 days later I had another phone call and this time I was available to speak directly to the person handling my case. I explained to him that for £415 I could almost buy a brand new display from Apple, or even get a brand new display cheaper elsewhere. It just wasn’t an economically sensible thing to do. I also explained to him the warranty issue, and he told me I could probably get an extension on the warranty if I phoned Apple and explained the situation to them. So I did. Apple weren’t exactly what I would call empathic or helpful and basically told me they couldn’t do anything unless I told AT Computers to phone Apple and prove the date it broke…

Things didn’t look good. I phoned AT Computers anyway, and told them exactly what Apple told me, and the guy said he’d do it. He’d ring Apple and give them all the details. So I left it with him in the hope I could get an extension. Sure enough a few days later, I got a ring back from AT Computers telling me that Apple had issued an extension on the warranty and that a new Cinema display was on its way to the local store for me to pick up. I was elated. There was only one problem.

During the time when I was under the impression that the Cinema Display was dead, gone and not coming back, I went ahead and bought a new Samsung SyncMaster 245B+. It’s a lovely 24″ widescreen display that cost about 2/3rds the price of the Apple display and it’s an inch bigger but it uses the same resolution (1920×1200) as the 23″ Apple Display.

So I was now faced with a choice. Send back the Samsung display and get my money back, or keep it and set up a dual display situation again and see how it goes.

Well I chose the latter option and set them up on my desk side by side. I remembered one of the other reasons why dual displays didn’t work for me in the past: not enough desk space. Well luckily this time, my desk is big enough to accommodate both displays, even if I did have to move my Mac Pro to the floor.

With both displays using the same resolution, and the one only being an inch bigger (it’s hardly noticeable, they both look about the same size) I can definitely say that this dual setup is awesome. Twice as much desktop space allows me to have just as many windows open as I usually do, but spread them nicely and not have so much clutter, improving my work flow. Especially when I’m developing, I have around 20 windows open including all the ones open in Xcode, iTunes, Adium, Mail, Terminal, the iPhone Simulator, Documentation browser, etc.

The main problem I had was getting the colour and brightness to match on both displays. I’m still not perfectly happy with the colour configuration, but I think it’s as close as I can get them. The Samsung display has a warmer colour temperature than the Cinema Display, meaning it has a more yellow tint, whereas the Apple one has a more blue tint. It’s not so noticeable now that I’ve adjusted the settings, but I don’t think I’ll ever get it truly right unless I invest in one of those monitor calibrators. I think they’re expensive.

Another gripe is that when running a fullscreen OpenGL application (such as a game), it restricts mouse to the OpenGL app only, and the second screen goes blank. I imagine there’s a particular driver one requires to extend OpenGL apps across monitors. No biggie. I don’t think it’d be a good idea anyway, since the centre of the game (where your character, or your cross-hair would be positioned) would be split in half by the borders of the displays themselves.

Finally, I’m still not sure which display I want to use as my primary. I’m trial-ing the Samsung as the primary for the time being, since it has that extra inch. But I still feel the Cinema Display has a sharper display, and more correct colour gamut. So we’ll see.