Santa's sled in the form of a courier driver dropped off my xmas present early on Friday.
The Dell 24" is the pick of the developers monitors at the moment. A screen resolution of 1920x1200 is perfect for visual studio. My Dell 9300 laptop has the same resolution but its colours and brightness do not compare. You can pick them up for around $1100. The original release had some issues but this is the v3 model with those problems solved.
I recommend the speaker, it is silver, attaches to the bottom very neatly and means if you ever use it as a tv you get sound.
An interesting issue for people that use a desktop replacement style laptop is how to setup a 2nd monitor. I have been using the monitor above the laptop style configuration for a few years now and find it works quite well.
The monitor also has every video connector you can think of so the idea is it can make a perfect 1080p TV for the bedroom if i ever part with it!
They say the three things a good programmer should get themselves are:
- Really good monitor (eyes)
- Really good chair (back)
- Really good keyboard/mouse (wrists)