Downsizing screen real estate

For a very long time I was a triple screen enjoyer. Nicely symmetrical and it made it easy to split IDE, chat and documentation across multiple screens. When I got a Pro Display XDR I was on the fence if I should just keep one or two of the 5k LG displays around, but the difference in dpi was too noticeable and it threw me off. So I got a second Pro Display XDR. Turned out that was not the best idea (but not for the reasons you might think).

First of all the XDR is amazing and I would not trade it for anything but another color calibrated 6k screen. Sure it is pricy, but "back then" it was basically the only well supported option for a really high resolution screen. These days things look better and I would likely get an Asus. Not because they are better, but the core criteria are met and Apples displays always were a dumpster fire if you were to use them with anything but a Mac.

Back to my two XDRs. First of all they are too big. Physically too big. I already got a 90cm (35.something inches?) deep table and there was no way to set them up that was really comfortable to use all the screen real estate. I tried several configurations over nearly two years, so I am certain about this.

I am now back to a single XDR display. And surprisingly 6k is the sweet spot for me where I actually do not seem to need a second screen, at least as long as I use a bit of window manager magic to re-arrange windows. I am using Magnet right now, but there are other options as well as some OSS ones. MacOS built in functions sadly do not do the trick. Additionally I have the iPad Pro for video conferencing setup on the side, so chat is by definition on a different screen.

This change also means two more things. One, my wife is very happy about now having a Pro Display XDR on her desk. Second, I hooked up the TV above my monitor to the Mac Studio. Sometimes I just want to move a few windows to my peripheral vision to monitor something. Overall this setup works really well…

… except for one thing. (There’s always the one thing, right?) HDMI CEC. Generally this is something I never assume to fully work as expected, and that is kind of a magic thing only 1 out of 10 devices implements properly. So I was surprised when the TV switched channels the first time and instead of playing the LEC game I was greeted by my desktop. Turns out Apple implement HDMI CEC on newer devices. And as expected it only kind of works. Most of the time the TV does not turn on. Sometimes! But not always. Who knows why, I simply deactivated CEC on the HDMI port the Mac is connected to. Troubleshooting this really is not worth it.

I did not expect going from a dual Pro Display XDR setup to one and preferring it, but here I am, writing this blogpost because more than one person asked me in the past if this is a good idea. And right now I have to go with "no".