How to Buy a Dual Monitor Stand – A Buying Guide

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If you like multitasking or gaming, you should definitely invest in a dual monitor stand or at least a dual monitor arm. Dual monitors are great for when you when to increase productivity or enhance your gaming experience. They are also great for making everyday tasks easier by doubling screen real estate. You can do cutting and pasting easier, multi-task much more efficiently, be extremely efficient at picture and video editing as well as music and art creation.

You can stream a movie on one screen while working on another screen. You can even run one operating system on one screen and another operating system on another. The point is that having more screen real estate is a plus in terms of increasing productivity and user experience. Many offices use dual screens for their employees, especially in the finance industry where it is critical for employees to monitor multiple stock prices. Of course, using the best dual monitor stand also has drawbacks. Portability is always a trade-off and having two or more monitors simply takes up more space on your desktop.

Cost is another issue as adding more monitors to your work system simply costs more money. Having two monitors also comes at an expense for your computing power, as it uses more resources, especially in terms of your video card. If you don’t have the latest and greatest video card, you may not even be able to use dual monitors. Finally, there is the concept of less is more. Having more things on more monitors can end up being more distracting than good. If you stream a movie on one monitor, you may end up just not working. Not all dual monitor arms are created equal. They can be different from each other based on their general versatility, attachment type, amount of swivel, compatibility with monitors, ease of installation, durability, and value. Please see below for our buying guide where we outline some important features to consider when shopping for the best dual monitor stand.

Dual Monitor Stand Buying Guide

Shopping for the best dual monitor stand can be a daunting task. In general, you should be looking for monitor stands with lots of versatility, as this means you can place your monitors at any viewing angle possible, and possibly even stack them up on top of each other vertically.

You should look out for how to install and monitor stand and whether you want to wall mount or desk mount your stand. Finally, look for monitor stands made with durable materials and those that can fit the monitors you want to install.

Versatility

The versatility of the dual monitor arm is one of the most important features. Ideally, you want a dual monitor stand that can rotate to portrait orientation, put the screen perfectly together, spread them apart to have maximum distance in space between screens, and independent viewing angles for both monitors. You must also consider the amount of height adjustment offered. Most dual monitor stands will let you adjust the height of the stand-up and down a few inches to make it more comfortable for you to view.

Also, the monitors should be able to freely swivel both up and down and left and right so that you can create the perfect viewing angle. There should be some kind of feature to lock the monitor in place after the adjustments. This also directly affects your neck and back as you need to have the most comfortable viewing position to get the most productivity out of your day.

Attachment Type

Dual monitor arms can also differ from one another based on the type of attachment offered. Most dual monitor stands will attach to your table or desk by screws and some kind of disk mounted below the desk. You need to be able to drill holes into your desk or have holes preinstalled with your desk space. Sometimes you can wall mount the dual monitors, which is great for those who like to stand at work.

Compatibility

Please keep in mind that not all dual monitor stands will fit your monitor. We highly recommend you check the size of the monitors you want to fit onto the monitor stand. Not every monitor stand is built to fit every monitor size. This is especially true if you are using oversized monitors or extra small monitors. Also, it is wise to mount monitors of the same model of the same brand side by side. You run into compatibility issues if you try to attach dual monitors that are different sizes. Besides, it also looks pretty ugly.

Ease of Installation

Ideally, you want the best dual monitor stand to mount and install quite easily. You shouldn’t have to bust out too many tools or even have to go out there and buy new power tools just so you can mount a dual monitor arm. Additionally, after you install the dual monitor stand, you should be able to mount the monitors with ease. Please avoid any monitor stand that makes it very hard for you to mount and unmount the monitors.

Durability

The durability of a dual monitor arm is paramount to the longevity of your monitors. You want to avoid the situation where your monitor stand breaks and sends your monitors crashing down. Of course, this also has to do with how well you mounted the monitors or how tight of an installation you did on the stand itself. However, absent of any mistake you could have made, you want to ensure that the dual monitor stand is strong enough to hold two monitors for extended periods of time.