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Ask HN: Any piece of hardware that was more of game changer than you expected?

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Re: Ask HN: Any piece of hardware that was more of game changer than you expected?

#381

Post by lucumo »

runjake wrote: post #317
lucumo wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> MacOS in particular does an excellent job of rendering 2560x1440 to a 4K screen, and the increased DPI over a regular 1440p 27" screen is very noticeable. MacOS in particular gets amazingly slow when you don't use a 1:1 or 2:1 scaling. I too have have two 27" 4k screens and they made the machine unbearably slow. It got so bad that I now treat them as 1440p screens and let the screens do the scaling. It's not pretty…

I don’t notice the slightest decrease in speed or any benchmark going from native 1440p to 1440p hidpi at 4K. If there is a speed decrease, I can’t notice it on an M1. I’ve seen a lot of people parrot this claim or claim it renders awfully but have yet to experience any evidence. On the contrary, it’s been glorious. Edit: if you do 1440p scaling on a 4K on macOS make damned sure you select “1440p (Hi-DPI)” other you…

Maybe the M1s are better. I have a 2019 MacBook Pro. And two external screens, maybe that makes a difference. It was especially bad after upgrading to Monterey.

I don't "parrot" the claim. I've experienced the problem. It's day and night. After installing Monterey I couldn't run MS Teams on the external monitors anymore. It more or less locked up and I couldn't move the window back to the laptop screen. This was repeatable.

The whole problem went away when I selected 1440p (the "low resolution" one). It's fugly, but at least I can actually use my other monitors.

Re: Ask HN: Any piece of hardware that was more of game changer than you expected?

#382

Post by pySSK »

Retr0id wrote: post #241

A subwoofer. No matter how high end your headphones, bookshelf speakers, or studio monitors are, they will never be able to punch you in the chest in quite the same way as a decently sized dedicated subwoofer. It's a night-and-day difference for listening to music and watching movies, or even just listening to human voices in youtube videos. Just, be careful not to bother your neighbours with it.

The SubPac for me. Better than a sub, doesn't bother the neighbors, and people often use the term gamechanger with it.

Re: Ask HN: Any piece of hardware that was more of game changer than you expected?

#383

Post by entropicgravity »

The Logitech MX Ergo "thumb ball" mouse. A normal mouse requires your entire arm to move to make the mouse operate properly. You might notice that the repetitive motion can cause muscle pain all the way from your shoulder blade, through your neck, down your arm to your wrist. A thumb ball requires just your thumb to move and makes life a lot easier on your arm. It takes two to three hours to transfer your motor memory skills from the standard mouse to the thumb ball and after that you're away to the races.

Re: Ask HN: Any piece of hardware that was more of game changer than you expected?

#384

Post by baristavibes »

GordonS wrote: post #369
cehrlich wrote: post #159

A bunch of 1L glass bottles with wide openings so that they're easy to clean in the dishwasher - has reduced the friction to getting enough water in, and I can't remember the last time I felt that type of tiredness that comes from dehydration. BenQ ScreenBar Plus - It's just a light that goes on top of your monitor, but it makes working much more pleasant. There's probably a clone that's cheaper and does the same thi…

I tried a BenQ ScreenBar and a clone, and found the clone brighter, while being a lot cheaper. It's a great device that lights the desk area nicely - I'm going to use the se forever now! I'd prefer to buy the BenQ, since AFAIK this whole concept was their idea - but the price is just so excessive that I couldn't justify it.

Could you please post the name of your clone? I'm interested in this if it helps reduce eye strain

Re: Ask HN: Any piece of hardware that was more of game changer than you expected?

#385

Post by nickjj »

capableweb wrote: post #266
nickjj wrote: post #95

A 2560x1440 monitor running at its 1:1 native resolution. The screen real estate improvement over 1080p is substantial. You get so much more vertical space and you can easily fit 4 side by side code windows at 80 chars. At 24" or 25" the PPI is also quite nice for reading text. I wrote up a very big monitor selection guide at https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/how-to-pick-a-good-monitor-fo... , I try to keep it up to dat…

You're mentioning "Panel Lotto" in your blog post in relation to reviews being for IPS panels but then sending customers TN panels instead of IPS panels. I don't think that is what is commonly referred to as "Panel Lotto" (I'd call that straight up fraud and I'm sure most courts would be on your side). "Panel Lotto" (as I know it at least) refers to the company's policy regarding returning a panel that had dead pixel…

It's called a lotto because what you get could be left to chance. This was a pretty common to have happen in the past and some tech news sites covered it too. I'm not sure if it's still happening a lot nowadays but it was certainly a real thing 10 years ago. Current day monitor manufacturers still do very questionable things like rating a 4k monitor at 120hz in its primary tagline / description / on the box but there's fine print that says "only when running at 1080p". It's taking advantage of folks who don't know a lot or do a bunch of research beforehand in order to sell more units.

To a lesser degree the "lotto" idea happens with CPUs too in terms of overclockability potential. Certain serial numbers performed better, it became a lotto unless you went out of your way to purchase specific ones. This feels a lot less wrong than the panel lotto aspect tho.

You are right in that it feels criminal, it's not even the same product.

Re: Ask HN: Any piece of hardware that was more of game changer than you expected?

#386

Post by anfractuosity »

cracrecry wrote: post #81

Midi devices. I have lots of the cheap ones for controlling my software with hardware wheels: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umO-Bwzl3f0 I also control software like blender using those, even my emacs use that. It is always in the same place and once you learn it, you are so fast. I also use sheets of paper and color pens.

I've played a little with a Behringer X-TOUCH MINI for controlling Darktable (I think midi support is now in stable), was pretty cool altering the exposure etc. with the wheels.

Re: Ask HN: Any piece of hardware that was more of game changer than you expected?

#388

Post by alias_neo »

alanfranz wrote: post #222
alias_neo wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How far are you sitting from that monster? I've never understood having large format displays for work (programming in my case). I once (before children) had 3x28" 4K displays but they had to wrap pretty tight around my sitting position otherwise I had no chance of seeing what's at the far ends.

I think my desk is about 90cm deep, I’d say I stay about 100/120cm from my eyes to the display. Sometimes I just don’t place things to the edges or the very bottom. A 37” or 40” display would suffice but I didn’t find any, and 32” is too small imho.

Oh yeah a metre plus is pretty far. I sit about 30-40cm from my screen unless I'm sitting back in my chair.

Re: Ask HN: Any piece of hardware that was more of game changer than you expected?

#389

Post by pySSK »

miller_joe wrote: post #313
bsenftner wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have four 4K screens, and it is heaven. I got spoiled early in my career by a Unix system that had a greyscale newspaper layout monitor in the early 90's. That monitor could crispy display an unfolded two page newspaper layout with space on the left and right for tool/editing interfaces. For a while, 4K monitors were landing right near US $300, so I got 4 over a period of months. Simply being able to array referenc…

Do you recall the name of that monitor from the 90s? Sounds interesting

Just in case you didn’t know, you can rotate any monitor 90 degrees and get the same layout.

Re: Ask HN: Any piece of hardware that was more of game changer than you expected?

#390

Post by odiroot »

Arkanosis wrote: post #342
odiroot wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Monitor and speakers stands: that has bought me a lot of desk real estate. Can you share what speaker stands do you use?

Gator Frameworks Clamp-On Studio Monitor Stand: https://gatorframeworks.com/products/frameworks-clamp-on-stu... I've spent countless hours weighting the pros and cons of many stand models, and this one checks all the boxes except one (you can only tilt it in one way); no other model I've seen comes close. Also, they feel very solid: I use them with the 10 kg Edifier R2000DB (awesome bookshelf speakers, BTW) and it's…

Thanks for the link. They're not even that expensive, ~90€ over here.
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