Summary created by Smart Answers AI
In summary:
- PCWorld tested an extreme five-screen laptop setup using a KYY triple-display extender plus two additional 27-inch monitors to explore productivity limits.
- While all displays functioned properly, the physical arrangement proved cumbersome and impractical, with screens blocking each other and creating ergonomic issues.
- The experiment demonstrates that excessive displays can reach diminishing returns, where workspace limitations outweigh potential productivity gains from additional screen real estate.
For one brief moment, I had five displays glowing around my laptop. For another brief moment, I thought this was a good idea. But as it turns out, there are limits to peak productivity.
Part of the reason I hate return-to-office policies is that not only do you waste multiple hours of your day to commuting, but you simply can’t replicate your home office setup in any meaningful way. For me, that means a few displays, a Thunderbolt dock, and the ability to see everything I’m doing all at once. So when I decided to review KYY’s wildly radical triple-display laptop extender, I thought, you know, maybe I can make the office just as good as my home setup.
But then I got greedy.
Let’s set it up. We don’t even have assigned desks at PCWorld’s San Francisco HQ, but we do have some cheap USB-C docks and one to two displays per desk. KYY’s laptop extender already supplies three. So if three displays are good, a total of five should be better, right?
I’d love to say so, but… no. Trying to squeeze in a pair of additional 27-inch displays on to my desk proved too much, even vertically. Part of the screen was blocked off. I still considered flipping both displays into landscape mode, raising them up somehow, and transforming this “W” arrangement into something a bit more useful. But that’s a project for another day.
Fortunately, my laptop connected to and lit up all five external displays. But I’m a little disappointed to learn that yes, you can have too many displays…or can you? I still refuse to give up. Maybe next time a coworker or my boss will set up shop at that single-display desk just ahead of me, and feel just a wee bit intimidated by my productivity prowess. Hmm, when do performance reviews take place again?