When my secondary monitor finally gave up the ghost after 15 years, I faced a challenge and opportunity: What to replace it with?
Do I buy another cheap secondary display just to give me someplace to stash my Teams and Slack windows? Do I upgrade to something a little bigger to expand my workstation as much as possible? Do I also ditch the main monitor and switch them for an ultrawide?
Related: I switched to an ultrawide monitor. Here’s what surprised me
After much umming and ahing, I took a punt on something I’d never tried before: a vertical monitor.
The one I ended up getting — the 28-inch BenQ RD280U with an unusual 3:2 aspect ratio and 3840×2560 resolution (Amazon link) — wasn’t specifically designed as a vertical monitor, but it’s easily rotatable into portrait orientation because it’s meant for coders, writers, and editors.
It’s taken a little while to get used to it. My desk setup still doesn’t look quite right to my eyes. But I can say that, after a few weeks of trial and error and adjustment, I absolutely love it. (And not just because my colleague Matt Smith did it first in his review!)
Here are some of the surprising benefits I’ve found with incorporating a vertical monitor into my now-atypical workstation setup.
It provides more usable screen space
Yes, my new vertical monitor is physically larger than my previous monitor by a few inches, and yes, it has a higher 4K resolution with millions of more pixels on display. But it’s really the vertical orientation that has truly unlocked so much more usable screen space for me.
Scrolling tends to favor up-and-down, not left-to-right, which means I can now easily display entire web pages or documents on screen. That’s as useful for reading through long spec pages as it is for displaying lengthy board game rulebooks. (Lookin’ at you, Twilight Imperium Living Rules Reference!) I no longer need to scroll as much, so I can take in everything at once for better context of what I’m reading or browsing.
Foundry
With so much vertical space, I’ve found that it’s more efficient for tiling multiple thinner windows, too. My single secondary vertical display can handle a D&D character sheet, a number of Discord video feeds, and a couple of notepads for adventure note-taking, which makes virtual D&D sessions that much more enjoyable.
And when I’m working on game development projects, the extra vertical space lets me see entire scripts at once AND makes it easier to compare scripts without any annoying horizontal scrolling.
I can even have a YouTube Picture-in-Picture video playing in the bottom corner for occasional reference without it getting in the way of any work that’s closer to eye level.
It fits better with modern app design
My colleagues know how much I wish modern apps and websites still catered primarily to desktop users like myself, but I know I’m in the minority. Whether it’s social media feeds, web articles, or short-form video content, the modern internet is designed more for mobile devices than it is for PCs, and that means vertical aspect ratios everywhere.
Thanks to the growing dominance of mobile usage, most apps and websites now default to thinner formats and layouts. Additional vertical space is really handy when I’m reading articles with fixed-width columns. A vertical orientation is also perfect for full-screen social media feeds that just keep on going with infinite scrolling, and for watching large-format vertical videos as popularized by smartphones and TikTok.
And while I’m not a videographer myself, I have to imagine that vertical monitors are excellent for vertical video-makers, too, with the orientation helping when it comes to previewing footage on a display that fits with the kind of screens you’re targeting. The same goes for mobile UX designers who want to emulate the mobile screen experience.
It frees up space on my desk
While a vertical monitor unlocks additional digital screen space for work and play, it also saves physical space in my workstation setup.
Most desks are wide and not tall — you aren’t stacking things upwards, but rather placing things side-by-side as much as your desktop affords. Because of that, a 28-inch monitor oriented vertically takes up less desk space than a smaller 21-inch monitor oriented horizontally.
Matt Smith
In a relatively compact home office, maintaining a clear workspace is of paramount importance — doubly so for me because I tend to get distracted and procrastinate with a cluttered workspace.
A vertical monitor offers me the best of both worlds as it increases available desk space while keeping things tidy.
It improves posture and eye strain
As someone who has struggled for years with back pain and posture issues, I’m easily sold on anything that makes my work day more comfortable and encourages better sitting and standing habits.
Dual monitors and ultrawides are excellent for productivity, but unless you sit back far enough, you end up turning your head more often and flicking your eyes across longer horizontal lines. With a vertical display, that’s less of an issue — and easier on my neck.
Related: Ultrawide vs. dual monitors: Which is better for you?
With the horizontal length of my display reduced, I can typically see everything I need with slight eye movements, no head turns required. When I’m focused on my vertical monitor, I’m mainly reading top to bottom instead of left to right, and that’s less eye movement (and ultimately less eye fatigue) on longer workdays, too.
It’s not a cure-all, of course. I do have to be careful not to spend too much time looking at the bottom of the screen, which would encourage poor neck posture. But the overall result is a positive one.
It’s greater than the sum of its parts
It might seem straightforward to simply rotate a monitor on its side, but I’ve found that my vertical display goes beyond surface-level practicality. While all of the above benefits are true, excellent, and compelling reasons to try portrait mode yourself, it’s really the collective benefits that have been so transformative for my day-to-day life.
I’m more productive, more comfortable, and have greater access to information than I had before, as and when I need it. As much as I might resist it, verticality lends itself better to modern app and web design than the horizontal displays I’ve spent decades using.
If you’ve been considering an upgrade to your multi-monitor display setup, consider a change of perspective. I wish I’d done it sooner.
Further reading: The best vertical monitors for portrait mode
Author: Jon Martindale, Contributor, PCWorld
Jon Martindale is a voracious writer and technology fanboy who loves nothing more than digging into the specs of the latest graphics cards, processors, and displays. He's passionate about everything PC, but also enjoys experimenting with AIs, and covering new standing desks that can help avoid his worst posture habits.