[staffanj]

Most developers use multiple displays and two 27" or two 30" display means just as much (or even more) head movement - right?

At home I went from two 27" (1080p) to one 40" 4k and the workspace is not as wide (less head movement) and I get the extra vertical workspace (2k vertikal vs 1k vertical)

[nickjj]

Yes, I have 2 displays too, but I don't treat the displays equally.

I spend a lot of time on my main left 25" 2560x1440 monitor and the second 21" 1080p monitor is used for things that I occasionally look at, or look at with intent to only look at that on its own. It's mainly operating as a separate workspace that is occasionally beneficial to have up with my primary workspace (but usually not).

With 1 big monitor, chances are you wouldn't want IRC (or whatever app) right next to your main workspace (ie. loaded to the right of your main coding environment) because it's too distracting.

You would typically dedicate 1 workspace for your main coding environment / etc., but now with a single 40" monitor you would feel compelled to keep things across the entire monitor because it would be weird to limit it to ~25" worth of windows while you keep the rest of the monitor empty, so you're stuck moving your head around like a maniac most of the time, instead of only occasionally when you want to shift focus to a 2nd monitor.

I suppose it comes down to your work flow.