Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

tonsky.me

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 1001 posts

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#121

Post by nicksergeant »

codydh wrote: post #39
mastercheif wrote: post #12

It's frustrating that consumer Hi-DPI display development has completely stalled in the last five years. As mentioned in the article, macOS works best using true 2x integer scaling. Using 2x scaling, a 4k monitor will result in an equivalent workspace to a 1080p display—unusable for productivity and development. A superior option is iMac/LG 5k display results which nets an equivalent workspace of 1440p. The only opti…

I'm also hanging on to my 30" Apple Cinema (and adapters to work with a new USB-C MBP). The LG 5K seems like a decent replacement though, I'm not totally clear why it seems so unpopular.

I've been using two LG 5k monitors for years and they are excellent. They got a bad reputation when they were released for build quality issues, but I haven't had a single issue.

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#122

Post by bredren »

PStamatiou wrote: post #78
aplummer wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use a Pro Display XDR for programming / design work, I think you forgot this one. It seems like it would fit your needs (with the obviously premium price) as it’s 32”. It’s overkill for most, but still the best display I’ve ever used and I love it. I actually tried an Asus 4K 120hz for much less but the fan noise was a deal breaker even if the screen didn’t break on arrival (it did). Disclosure: Apple employee

+1, love my XDR for coding and designing: https://paulstamatiou.com/stuff-i-use/

Thanks for this. You don't comment on the 60 vs 120 hz that is highlighted in OP opinion piece. Any thoughts on XDRs apparent lack of support for 120?

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#123

Post by kilo_bravo_3 »

compscistd wrote: post #115
the_af wrote: post #76

The technical details are all right (or seem right to me, anyway), but this is too opinionated for my liking. No, you do not need a 4K monitor for software development. Some people might like them, some won't. [edit/clarification: someone rightfully pointed out that nobody will actively dislike a 4K monitor. I was unclear here: I meant "some people won't need them" more than "dislike them"] This sounds like when Jeff…

I feel like HN as a whole want blogs to come back, and part of that is well written exposition (the technical details) followed by near-outlandish opinions that tend to generate discussion. It's more fun, it leads to more conversation (here we are!), and clarifies our own values. I think three monitors is distracting, but that whole community discussion gave me the opportunity to compare how I use a multi-monitor set…

>I feel like HN as a whole want blogs to come back

Blogs never left— they may have withered to near-nothingness after the same exact people who claim to want them abandoned them, but they’re still here.

I may be wrong but I believe the people who claim to want blogs abandoned them for sites like Hacker News.

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#125

Post by [deleted] »

stephc_int13 wrote: post #82

I am using the same three Dell Monitors since 2008, they are still working perfectly (1680x1050) and in my opinion the text rendering with ClearText subpixel AA is excellent on both Sublime Text and VSCode. Of course, on macOS that's an other story, they didn't always had ugly fonts, but that's been the case since a very long time now and that prevented me to switch more than once (I still have use macOS in a VM to b…

[deleted]

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#126

Post by filoleg »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #104
the_af wrote: post #76

The technical details are all right (or seem right to me, anyway), but this is too opinionated for my liking. No, you do not need a 4K monitor for software development. Some people might like them, some won't. [edit/clarification: someone rightfully pointed out that nobody will actively dislike a 4K monitor. I was unclear here: I meant "some people won't need them" more than "dislike them"] This sounds like when Jeff…

I have a hard time using three monitors effectively, so that in the end they are distracting for me. Probably you need some particular personality tics to make proper use of them.

My personal way of organizing 3 monitors:

1. Main screen. For the code editor, intense web browsing, etc.

2. Secondary screen. For debugging visuals (since I work on web stuff, it usually hosts a Chromium window; for a mobile dev, I imagine it would be an emulator/simulator), documentation referencing (with the code editor open on the main screen), etc.

3. Third screen. For all comms-related things: MS Teams/Outlook/Discord/etc.

I didn't mention terminal, because I prefer a quake-style sliding terminal. For a lot of devs, I imagine that having a terminal on their secondary screen permanently would work great as well.

P.S. Not that long ago, I realized that the physical positioning of monitors matters a lot (to me, at least) as well. I used to have 2 of them in landscape orientation side-by-side and one in portrait orientation to the side. It was fine, but didn't feel cohesive, and I definitely felt some unease. Finally got a tall mounting pole, and now I have the landscape oriented monitors one on top of each other instead of side-by-side (with the rest of the setup being the same). That was a noticeable improvement to me, as it felt like things finally clicked perfectly in my head.

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#127

Post by komali2 »

> Well, the split does not exist anymore. Since not that long ago (yes, I’m too lazy to check) you can have both! You can have a 4k monitor that runs on 120 Hz. In fact, that discovery was the main motivation for this article.

With... good color gamut? Without ghosting? If so I want to buy that monitor today.

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#128

Post by testfoobar »

Anyone else gets eye strain from retina macbooks? Everything looks too sharp. The sharp contrast between the tiny pixels is visually perfect, but seemingly the perfection is what is causing me eye strain. Or perhaps it is some other effect.

Its just that when I use my retina macbook for hours, my eyes hurt. In particular, it is a relief to go back to a older non-retina macbook that I use for some minor projects. The non-retina macbook seems less visually taxing on my eyes.

I would appreciate any ideas.

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#129

Post by rocky1138 »

dragosmocrii wrote: post #55

This post is from the author of Fira Code, a font with ligatures that is incredibly pleasant to use. Highly recommend to give it a try if you haven't already! Shameless plug: I mentioned this as my favorite font for code editors in my blog post https://dragoshmocrii.com/my-favorite-tools-resources-for-da...

Thanks for the heads-up. Personally, I'm not a huge ligature fan in my code as my eyes tend to go directly to them instead of the code I want to read. It's great that Fira Code comes with a non-ligature version.

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#130

Post by silviogutierrez »

PStamatiou wrote: post #78
aplummer wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use a Pro Display XDR for programming / design work, I think you forgot this one. It seems like it would fit your needs (with the obviously premium price) as it’s 32”. It’s overkill for most, but still the best display I’ve ever used and I love it. I actually tried an Asus 4K 120hz for much less but the fan noise was a deal breaker even if the screen didn’t break on arrival (it did). Disclosure: Apple employee

+1, love my XDR for coding and designing: https://paulstamatiou.com/stuff-i-use/

Great post! Noticed you have the Logitech webcam. I think it'd be helpful if you:

- Added a picture of the back of your 6k with the webcam. I'm sure it changes the look, however short the cable is.

- Address the lack of speakers. I see you mention using a bluetooth speaker or your home audio setup. What's it like using the MacBook Pro speakers?

- Added a picture of your setup + speaker if that's what you use regularly.

I love your minimalist look and have a similar one, but have been holding on to my LG 5k because of the speaker/webcam.

Post reply on HN