20"wide vs 23"wide TFT displays

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zoranb

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Im a graphic designer working with CS2 suite and QuarkXpress and im about to get a 20" wide TFT monitor but i was told that its mutch better to get a 23" wide monitor to work my DTP apps there. At this point theres no money limiting my 23" purchase so money isnt an issue. Can someone tell me if this is true and why!
 
I guess just screen estate, though i guess on a 23" there would be room for an a4 double spread plus room left for all the palettes etc.
 
As in real-estate on a screen - just a buzzword for how much space you have on the screen really.
 
So getting down to it, the best reason to get the 23" is that it can hold 2 A4 pages? What are the 20"s advantages against the 23"?
 
Well I'd generalise and just say there is more space on a 23" screen than a 20" screen (obviously), and for design that is a good thing IMHO. You can look at more material at one time, have space for many toolbars and palettes etc. If you gave me the option and cost wasn't an issue, I'd take the 23" every tome (as long as they were equally high quality monitors and i had desk space for the 23").

Whether you can show an A4 spread of not depends on how you work and what you are working on. I know my 19" , 4:3, work-provided monitor is deeply irritating when i have to work on layout in Indesign. On the other hand, some people seem to like to work at under 100% zoom for overview then go right in for details, others have their own practices. For instance, I can pretty much get two full pages of text on my 1440x900 screen (both the one in my MBP and the external one), which helps me a lot as i write for my job.
 
The only plus for the 20" version is the lower price, really. And maybe if you're low on free space for a monitor on your desk, the smaller one would make more sense. ;) Other than that: Bigger is better. I hear the 30" monsters are quite fine, too. More so, if paired.
 
yeah, a 23" display can show a standard ~A4 DPS at 100%. 20" shows it at about 85%.

that 100% makes a lot of difference.
 
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