I have a white MacBook. It has a 13" glossy screen which sports a 1280x800 max resolution. Awesome stuff. Lovely fonts, great display quality. Only, sometimes, 13" isn't spacious enough.
I also have a 19" external LCD from ViewSonic (VX1940w). It has a matte, wide-screen display, and sports a max 1680x1050 resolution. When I have a need to make room for more windows on the screen simultaneously, I connect the LCD to the MacBook via a mini-DVI to VGA adpater. Fonts don't look half as crisp, and the quality isn't quite what I enjoy on the small glossy screen, but at the very least, I get more space to manage my work with some level of comfort.
While the font quality isn't desirable--they appear jagged--I am willing to overlook it. But--and I can't understand why--I feel a lot of strain on my eyes when I look at the LCD. I don't know why. I have tried tweaking all sorts of conceivable settings, both on the LCD and system preferences, from contrast to brightness to colour calibration, but managed to get no-where. I've toyed with the ambient light to no effect--and the fact that I don't so much as twitch in front of the 13" screen would suggest that my ambient settings are not at fault. But no sooner I sit in front of the LCD than I start feeling an incredible strain burdening my eyes down. I should note that the LCD only seems to support a refresh rate of 65Hz. It won't let me switch to another. Could this be a problem? Is there a way for me to work around it, somehow?
It is a shame I can't really use the LCD as much as I'd like to. I am short-sighted, but as I mentioned, I have absolutely no issues with staring non-stop at the 13" screen (I know bad idea, and yes, I make use of AntiRSI with some level of success).
Any pointers, insights would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
Update: JNK, in their reply, touched upon a point that I failed to address in my question. I am going to make a small update respecting that. Initially, I started with a dual-head setup. It didn't work for me, what with the eye strain and the disproportionate sizes of the two displays. I then settled down with the LCD as my primary and only display. But the incredible eye strain I felt in that setup forced me to go back to using my 13" only.