How to pick a good monitor for software development
nickjanetakis.com
How to pick a good monitor for software development
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Re: How to pick a good monitor for software development
#2Does anyone know why manufactures don't make 34,36 inch 4k monitors? There are plenty of 32 inch 4k monitors but next 4k resolution is 42-43 inch. Nothing in-between. The whole segment of 32-40 inch monitor is dominated by ultra wide monitors.
Re: How to pick a good monitor for software development
#3> "This will make fonts and porn…I mean professional Photoshop graphics that you design look really sharp."
Author about retina displays.
Re: How to pick a good monitor for software development
#4I would also pay attention to reviews and keep an eye out for problems like DisplayPort deep sleep. I have two monitors, one goes into DP deep sleep with no way to disable and the other doesn't. The monitor that doesn't will always wake first and all windows will end up moved onto that monitor since the DP deep sleep monitor is technically "off" for a few seconds. As you can imagine reorganizing all your windows every time you come out of sleep is a bit of a PITA. Fortunately this is one area where Windows 11 helps as they added some feature to better help laptops reconnect to external displays. It's still a problem on other OSs IME though.
Re: How to pick a good monitor for software development
#5I recently got a 27" 4k monitor that I use at 2x scaling, and I'm never going back to fewer pixels per inch.
When I now have to look at monitors with a lower PPIU it hurts my eyes. I can see the individual pixels very clearly and letters are blurry. Much less eyestrain on 4k, can recommend!
Re: How to pick a good monitor for software development
#6> "This will make fonts and porn…I mean professional Photoshop graphics that you design look really sharp." Author about retina displays.
Make no mistake, good fonts ARE porn.
Re: How to pick a good monitor for software development
#7I would also pay attention to reviews and keep an eye out for problems like DisplayPort deep sleep. I have two monitors, one goes into DP deep sleep with no way to disable and the other doesn't. The monitor that doesn't will always wake first and all windows will end up moved onto that monitor since the DP deep sleep monitor is technically "off" for a few seconds. As you can imagine reorganizing all your windows ever…
Have you tried Powertoys FancyZones? I'd be curious to hear if it helps to persist window positions or at least reset them quickly if they end up in the wrong place.
Re: How to pick a good monitor for software development
#8I’ve bought two monitors that I really loved: an Apple Cinema Display 27” for $2000 in 2003, which was a crazy amount of money for a monitor at the time. I used it for 12 years. And an Apple Pro display with all the options for $7k last year, which seemed a little crazy but it’s just unbelievably good, like looking through a window, and I won’t be surprised if I use it for 10 years. If you’ve got the money, a really good monitor is worth a lot.
Re: How to pick a good monitor for software development
#9[deleted]
Re: How to pick a good monitor for software development
#10I'd like to hear from people who develop with a 49 inch monitor. Especially the really curvy one.
I had a 34 inch ultrawide for a while, but eventually got tired of the low resolution. Switched to a 32 inch 4K and I'm pretty happy with it. But it's a bit slow starting up, the refresh rate maxes out at 60Hz, and sometimes I find myself wishing for more space. Partially because I'm getting old and my eyes thank me for scaling up the size of fonts and such, which cuts down on the effective area of the screen.
I've been toying with the idea of getting the Samsung CRG9, but I've no idea if it would be a good choice for primarily software development. A big upside is that it's a single monitor, which will make my M1 MBP happy.