I’m having a bit of a change around of my office set up to reflect the gradual shift to how and where I work.
I’m relegating the laptop now to those rare occasions maybe once every 3 -4 months when I need to be at client HQ, and replacing it with a desktop tower.
Also looking to add another 27" screen to the two I have to replace the laptop screen which has acted as my third, and configure them in a half hexagon arrangement, and so looking to get some desk space back by using an arm and reduce the footprint of three monitors.
A lot of the arms that do this have a desk clamp but given nice teak desk (which also has bevelled edge) I don’t want to do this.
Have seen a quite a few single foot arms which can support 3 monitors in the arrangement I’m looking for, but wanted to check whether anyone else had done this and had experience and advice of what to look for and how much to spend?
My brother has a 3-arm setup, but I’m not 100% sure if his is clamped or not.
What resolution screens are you using? Just thinking about this from a JTBD perspective, an alternative approach that might work is to go for something like this:
It’s a 5120x1440 screen, so if you’re already using 2 2560x1440 monitors, then it may not give you much of an advantage, but if you’re using 1920x1080 monitors, you do get about 20% more pixels than the triple monitor setup would give you (plus you don’t need to faff around with additional stands).
Also, just to double-check, do your current screens have VESA mounting points? If not, you may well struggle to find a triple monitor stand for them.
Edit: One additional thought. If a triple-monitor setup is definitely the way forward, it might be worth seeing if a wall-mounted option is viable (I’ve no idea on your setup). The big thing with a triple setup where you want a decent curvature across the screens is that you start pushing the weight closer to you from the stand, which means you need a stand where the legs come forwards quite a bit.
The other curveball (and an option I’m currently considering) is this:
40" ultra-wide (but 21:9 aspect ratio rather than the 32:9 of the 49" one). It’s 5120x2160, so the same pixel width as the 49", but with way more height. I was looking at it as giving two effective sets of window layouts: 3 x 1700x2160 (three vertical stripes), or 4 x 2560x1080 in a 2x2 grid.
I’ve currently got 2x Dell 27" Ultrasharps which are 2560x1440, and a third arriving Monday with the desktop.
Wall mount is sadly a no as the desk backs onto a window (and the sill is obscured from being a clamping point by a radiator otherwise I’d have used that).
Can you not fashion a sacrificial piece of wood on the surface of the desk, stained the same colour, to clamp to? Clamping gives you far more stability if you want to move the screens for any reason.
A free standing three screen affair is likely to be wobbly
Rather than loose wood spacers - How about a 3d printed slide in protector then the arm mount can safely be clamped? Happy to model and print something for you
Can you screw a piece of wood to the bottom or back of the desk that sticks out, to allow decent clamping? I can’t help but think that any solution that isn’t clamped will be expensive when a dog, or you, does something stupid.
Your screens are quite large for this kind of thing. If you were using 20" screens I’d say get one that says it works for 30" ones, say, to give the stability, but you’re already close to the usual max.
I’d use wood/mdf/IKEA plastic cutting boards to customize and cut out to the exact footprint of the clamp to protect your desk.
And I’d buy 3 basic 27" 4K monitors for around 150 Squid each instead of fancy wide screens.
Have 2 of those 4K monitors at home (paid by the company) while in the office we only have HD screens as company policy
2 screens are sufficient for me, but 4K is a must, makes Excel work like a dream, even filing mails in Outlook in almost a dozen project directories is now a piece of cake.
Quite persuaded by looking how to make a clamp mount work. Pulled the desk out and although bevelled there is actually closer to 2” of lip underneath to grab onto.
