Hi Everyone,


I am looking to add a 2nd Monitor to my laptop for the purposes of multi-tabling poker.

At the moment, I play 6-tables on my 15.6" laptop but would like to increase that to 8, 10, and eventually 12.

To do this, I am thinking of extending my screen real estate by connecting one external monitor to my current laptop.

This is my laptop--Levono ThinkPad E570 w/ 15.6" monitor.

Budget is ~$500, but if there is excellent value and compatibility, then up to $1,000 . I would prefer both screens to be similar in resolution and view so that when my eyes are traveling from one monitor to the other there would be a smooth transition.


Specifications:

OS: Windows 10 Home

Processor: 7th Gen Core i7-7500U 2.70 GHz
RAM: 16 GB DDR4 2400 MHz
Storage: 256 GB M.2 NVMe Opal2 SSD

Monitor: 15.6" IPS FHD (1920x1080) anti-glare LED backlight, 16:9 aspect ratio, 600:1 contrast ratio

Display Adapters: Dedicated NVIDIA GeForce GTX 950M 2GB DDR5 Memory,
Intel HD Graphics 620

Ports: (1) VGA, (1) HDMI, (2) USB 3.0, (1) USB 2.0


Questions:

Should I just get another 15.6" since I am used to my laptop's current screen size?

I was thinking that if I get a 30" external monitor then it would be odd switching back and forth between a 15.6" monitor and 30" monitor. Also, the height difference between my laptop monitor and an external monitor would be large. Thoughts?


Here is a 15.6" monitor from Amazon--ASUS ZenScreen MB16AC 15.6-Inch Full HD IPS Monitor (Aspect Ratio 16:9, Display Resolution Maximum 1920X1080 pixels). At 1.7lbs this seems very portable, which would allow me to travel with it.





Another question that I saw.

Would my laptop be able to even power this particular monitor? (My laptop would be connected to a power source).


Thank you for taking a look.

Not going to get into the questions of compatibility etc, but if you're thinking you wouldn't buy a 30 because it's not 15.6" you are insane.

You need to decide whether you want a screen that is superportable like your laptop (although I would put money on you not wanting to travel all day with both after trying it for a bit) or just to use at home.

If you don't need to put it in a manbag then if you get any large monitor (probably 23 upwards) you can play 8 tables or more on your new screen. Particularly if it's a 30 etc. You won't notice a problem switching back to your laptop screen... because you'll have only the lobby there at best.

Anyway, don't you ever watch TV while you play poker, or something like that? Is your TV 15.6"?

I was thinking of playing 6 tables on my laptop and then another 6 tables equally sized on the external monitor.

That makes sense and this is the type of comment I was looking for. Just practical advice based on experience since I have none on this topic.


That being said, my eyes will be constantly moving back and forth between the laptop monitor and the external monitor... I had the idea that my eyes would have an easier time if both monitors were of similar size, but maybe that is not the case as shown with your larger tv example.

Having the laptop monitor serve to be only for the lobby window is an interesting idea and then I would buy a large external monitor which would be dedicated to all the actual poker tables.

Yes, that's what a lot of people do.

Your HDMI port can probably only do 1920x1080, so that would be the target resolution, I'd aim for something in the 23-24" range. An IPS or PVA panel tends to be friendlier on the eyes than the lower cost/faster refresh TN panels. If you're putting in a lot of screen time, its worth it. I'd also suggest a matte finish monitor, less reflection and eyestrain.

For a bit more than $500, you could buy 2 24" 1080p monitors and a USB 3 docking station.
https://plugable.com/products/ud-3900
http://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop/...or-accessories

Thanks, headtrauma.