I've happily gone from a pair of 19" 4:3 monitors to one 24" 16:9 monitor. The thing that's made the net loss of screen space feel like a productivity boost is

I've happily gone from a pair of 19" 4:3 monitors to one 24" 16:9 monitor. The thing that's made the net loss of screen space feel like a productivity boost is that now I make very heavy use of Spaces (which I absolutely love), whereas before, I found it pretty jarring with the dual screen setup, and rarely used it. I've also discovered that four spaces arranged horizontally is perfect for me. The weird thing is that Spaces became MORE useful when I disabled the feature that wraps around from the first and last spaces. (It's not a stock tweak - you'll need to download Tinker Tool to access the option). The very slight discipline this imposed helped me develop a really clear idea about which space I was in. I can now "see" them floating on either side of my actual screen. So now I think that "single" vs. "dual" is overly simplistic. In truth, optimized productivity can also result from the use of virtual screens, without which, a dual arrangement may be more efficient, but with which, the single screen suddenly gets a lot more useful.For the sake of focus, I love knowing where stuff is, and being able to 'push' it out of view until the precise moment I need it. When I do toggle to it, it's one of only one or two things visible. As a result, I always feel like I'm entirely focused on whatever is immediately in front of me. Also, the vague Minority Report sense of big horizontal scrolling never gets old. Of course, how well this works varies depending on the task. Obviously, different people have very different jobs. Also, how well people can imagine and handle virtual spaces is by no means constant. In any case, if you're generally a fan of dual screens, but are not 100% satisfied, and have a good spatial imagination, try one big screen + Spaces, and see if this combination makes a difference.