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Dell introduces 28" 4K Ultra HD Monitor for under $1K, shipping early 2014

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Re: Dell introduces 28" 4K Ultra HD Monitor for under $1K, shipping early 2014

#91

Post by bhauer »

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #77
bhauer wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like jfb says, different strokes. I use multiple 30" monitors on my two workstations and I would prefer a single 50" display. My wife's Seiki has more raw pixels than two of my 30" monitors. I admit that an ideal 50" display would be OLED and concave, but I'll keep those off my wish-list for the time being. I don't want the manufacturers to think I'm being unreasonable. High-DPI and large form-factor seem reasonable…

> When you say you know people who can't handle a 30" monitor, do you mean that? They would refuse to use a 30" even if they were given one? I've only met a few people who are of that particular disposition, and I personally consider them odd. It's a weird self-flagellation or quasi-Luddism. Not at all. It's practicality. Close enough to read normal-sized text clearly, and the edges fade into peripheral vision; far e…

Very well. I'm only describing the people I know first-hand whom have said they are perfectly happy with small monitors. They are the same people who previously told me that TN LCDs were perfectly fine, and were content with convex CRTs before that. They didn't understand why I would complain about the low density iPad 2 LCD and didn't appreciate the appeal of high-DPI until they had a iPad 3 (or similar) in their hand.

I am emphatically against the notion of "good enough," and those whom I personally have heard express confusion about the appeal of large monitors have routinely described various technology levels as "good enough."

I don't mean to suggest that everyone who would refuse a large display is definitively a Luddite. Furthermore, I am abusing the definition of Luddite here to mean someone who is satisfied with the status quo.

That said, I cannot relate to the appeal of small monitors whatsoever. It would frustrate me greatly to use a 24" LCD for a whole day of work. All the alt-tabbing, control-tabbing, the loss of context, and window shuffling would get old, quick.

Incidentally, for me, I'd have to sit very close to a 24" LCD to have its edges fade into peripheral vision. I like having my monitors about 2.5 to 3 feet from my eyes. A monitor would need to be 50" or larger for its edges to fade into peripheral vision at ~3 feet.

Something else I really enjoy about large monitors is the ability to zoom in and then sit back further (4 or 5 feet) and relax. I like the flexibility of varying the viewing distance nicely between 1.5 to 5 feet by leaning in or leaning back depending on use-case and my feeling at the moment.

Re: Dell introduces 28" 4K Ultra HD Monitor for under $1K, shipping early 2014

#92

Post by bhauer »

saym wrote: post #90
bhauer wrote: post #9

Awesome. I say this is a sign that the incumbent manufacturers are finally adapting to the heat brought on by Korean and Chinese newcomers. "Industry's most affordable Ultra HD monitor" is semantics. The Seiki 39" is still substantially cheaper, now at less than $500 on Amazon. Technically, that is a television, so I suppose "monitor" is a clever use of words by Dell. If Seiki drops an HDMI 2 version of their monitor…

When I saw this title, I knew you'd be at the top of the comments. Glad the industry is heeding your call to action! :)

Ha! :) I wish I had that kind of influence.

Re: Dell introduces 28" 4K Ultra HD Monitor for under $1K, shipping early 2014

#93

Post by terhechte »

eigenvector wrote: post #81
mortenjorck wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, the 28” is going to have the wrong pixel density to use with OS X in Retina mode. Non-Retina MacBooks start at 110 PPI. Cinema Displays have hovered around 100 PPI for about a decade, with the 27” Thunderbolt Display topping out at 109 PPI (same for its sister 27” iMac). At 28", a 3840 x 2160 panel has a PPI of 157, which, dividing by two to get the equivalent non-Retina PPI, comes to only 78.5, a redu…

Ugh. This is why true DPI independence in the OS is so important. There should be no such thing as a "wrong" pixel density.

There used to be a flag for that. Starting in 2006, there was a special "DPI Slider" in Mac OS X that allowed you to set the resolution from 1.0 to 3.0. Each WWDC they claimed that by next year they'd activate it as a user feature, but that never happened. Instead we got retina mode. The reason probably is that they never really got all apps and all use cases to look terrific in all supported scale variants. I remember playing with it a lot from 2007 to 2010 and usually there were always apps (oftentimes even Apple apps, like Textedit) that simply looked awful at 1.3 scale or other variations.

Re: Dell introduces 28" 4K Ultra HD Monitor for under $1K, shipping early 2014

#94

Post by johnchristopher »

nitrogen wrote: post #73
rschmitty wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you need to move it further back you are essentially shrinking your monitor size and you could have instead purchased a smaller monitor and kept the same distance

It doesn't feel the same. Unless one is nearsighted and/or crosseyed, it's easier to focus and converge on a more distant object. It also provides for a lot more desk space in front of the monitor.

Interesting. I am crosseyed and I never paid attention to how it plays out with my monitor preferences.

Re: Dell introduces 28" 4K Ultra HD Monitor for under $1K, shipping early 2014

#95

Post by selmnoo »

bhauer wrote: post #46
btian wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the Seiki 39" TV has its framerate capped at 30Hz while on 4k resolution, which makes it inadequate as a monitor.

Yes, I know. My wife is using the 39" and it's fine for her computer usage. She doesn't play video games on her computer. "Inadequate" for gaming, yes. Inadequate for computing? Hardly. But this is why I said that if Seiki dropped an HDMI 2 version of the same display, things get interesting.

> "Inadequate" for gaming, yes. Inadequate for computing? Hardly.

How about for watching movies? High framerates would obviously seem very important for gaming, but it's not clear how important they are to movies/shows. Your thoughts?

Re: Dell introduces 28" 4K Ultra HD Monitor for under $1K, shipping early 2014

#96

Post by bhauer »

jfb wrote: post #83
bhauer wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like jfb says, different strokes. I use multiple 30" monitors on my two workstations and I would prefer a single 50" display. My wife's Seiki has more raw pixels than two of my 30" monitors. I admit that an ideal 50" display would be OLED and concave, but I'll keep those off my wish-list for the time being. I don't want the manufacturers to think I'm being unreasonable. High-DPI and large form-factor seem reasonable…

I think current interfaces would fall over in a truly immersive environment; I find it too damn hard to keep track of all my windows and modals and popups and shit with 2x27"; if I was offered tomorrow a 65", 400ppi screen, I'd have a hard time setting up my work environment to match. Given that I'm not terribly happy about vast screen resolution with existing software, I'd much prefer smaller, higher-PQ, super-high…

You are right, of course. Current interfaces are not well suited to high-DPI large form-factor displays. But if we wait for interfaces to happen first, I worry the wait will be prolonged.

Plus, if you gave me a 65" 400 DPI screen today, I would drop everything and immediately put it to use. I would set it up on a drafting-style standing desk and would enjoy extremely high-clarity text throughout my desktop user interface. I would hand-craft the desk myself and I'd shower you with thanks and praise.

The point being, I want to be an early adopter and hopefully there would be enough of us for the UI designers to eventually target our demographic. Right now, so much UI R&D is on small form-factor that it's a little heart-breaking to someone like myself who spends 8 hours a day working at a desktop. Science-fiction movies routinely taunt us with immersive desktop computing and we're just barely moving the needle in that direction.

Re: Dell introduces 28" 4K Ultra HD Monitor for under $1K, shipping early 2014

#97

Post by ffrryuu »

maqr wrote: post #49

I'd just be happy to see a 2560x1600 monitor at 120hz or greater. I think we're going to have to max out resolution (to 'retina' or whatever levels where most people can't distinguish additional pixels) before we start seeing monitors commonly supporting greater than 60hz.

The cheap korean monitors can almost do it, but you run into ATI's DVI cap.

Re: Dell introduces 28" 4K Ultra HD Monitor for under $1K, shipping early 2014

#98

Post by jfb »

bhauer wrote: post #96
jfb wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think current interfaces would fall over in a truly immersive environment; I find it too damn hard to keep track of all my windows and modals and popups and shit with 2x27"; if I was offered tomorrow a 65", 400ppi screen, I'd have a hard time setting up my work environment to match. Given that I'm not terribly happy about vast screen resolution with existing software, I'd much prefer smaller, higher-PQ, super-high…

You are right, of course. Current interfaces are not well suited to high-DPI large form-factor displays. But if we wait for interfaces to happen first, I worry the wait will be prolonged. Plus, if you gave me a 65" 400 DPI screen today, I would drop everything and immediately put it to use. I would set it up on a drafting-style standing desk and would enjoy extremely high-clarity text throughout my desktop user inter…

I'd drop everything for a 65" 400ppi display, of course, but I'd take a 24" 400ppi over a 65" 200ppi without even thinking about it.

Re: Dell introduces 28" 4K Ultra HD Monitor for under $1K, shipping early 2014

#99

Post by majormajor »

selmnoo wrote: post #95
bhauer wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I know. My wife is using the 39" and it's fine for her computer usage. She doesn't play video games on her computer. "Inadequate" for gaming, yes. Inadequate for computing? Hardly. But this is why I said that if Seiki dropped an HDMI 2 version of the same display, things get interesting.

> "Inadequate" for gaming, yes. Inadequate for computing? Hardly. How about for watching movies? High framerates would obviously seem very important for gaming, but it's not clear how important they are to movies/shows. Your thoughts?

Displaying 24fps content on a 60fps screen repeats frames. If you repeat half the frames of the 25fps stream twice, and alternating half of the frames three times, then you get 60 frames per second, with a stream looking like:

AABBBCCDDDEEFFF...

This isn't perfect, since really each frame should be on the screen for exactly the same amount of time, which is why 120hz TVs came about -- 120 is evenly divisible by each of 60, 30, and 24. But it's also pretty much good enough, or else there'd be a lot more complaining about watching movies on computers or other 60hz devices.

A 30hz screen makes that harder, since you're going to have to repeat every fourth frame once, so the unevenness could be more noticeable since those frames are now twice as long instead of 50% longer. But I haven't tried one to tell you just how noticeable it would be.

Native 60fps content (sports is the most common one I know of) would require throwing away half the frames, but at least the remaining frames would all be shown for the same amount of time.

NTSC "video" content (stuff shot at 30 interlaced frames per second, so 60 fields per second, stuff like old TV shows) would work alright. You wouldn't be able to take advantage of deinterlacing methods that try to reconstruct 60 full frames, but it wouldn't be a huge loss.

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