Time to Upgrade Your Monitor • Hacker News Board

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#131

Post by dsabanin » Wed, Jun 17, 2020, 4:55 PM UTC

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 love my 3 monitor setup. In 20 years of coding, I finally reached peak productivity in my workspace. No switching between windows, ease of throwing a window aside for monitoring, laying out information and tools side to side. It’s incredible once you readjust your habits and learn to use that new space. I compare it to having a large, wide desk when you’re working on something. Who wouldn’t want that?

I was one of the people who worked on 15” retina MBP everywhere, even in the office where I had 30” on my desk, to not have to readjust and keep optimal habits for the screen size. Now I simply refuse to work on a laptop at all, it feels like being trapped into a tiny box and I get literally claustrophobic :)

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#132

Post by santoshalper » Wed, Jun 17, 2020, 4:55 PM UTC

JohnBooty wrote: post #77

I found this article utterly baffling. The author clearly knows their stuff, having created Fira Code, but my experiences couldn't be more different. I spend most of my days in a text browser, text editor and text terminal, looking at barely moving letters. So I optimize my setup to showing really, really good letters. I certainly appreciate how nice text looks on a high DPI display. But for coding purposes!? I don't…

Legibility is a funny thing. When you're paying attention, your standards for legibility will be very low. I was totally happy to read text on a 1024x768 17" MAG monitor for years. When you're paying attention to something else, like designing the code you are about to type, I think crispness and clarity of text absolutely matters. Microsoft Research did a lot of work on this when they released ClearType. They seemed to believe strongly that clearer text measurably improved speed to recognize characters.

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#133

Post by JohnBooty » Wed, Jun 17, 2020, 4:55 PM UTC

nsxwolf wrote: post #56

I’m not willing to give up my 3840x1600 ultrawide. That real estate is now non-negotiable to me. So to improve the dpi I’ll need 7680x3200, and at 120hz I don’t think that’s happening any time soon.

Same here. For coding work, I almost don't even see how it's worth discussing -- sheer real estate is going to win for me, every single time.

I say "almost" because I've been doing this for nearly 25 years and I've learned that other coders have shockingly diverse preferences and styles. But still. Give me IPS, give me bucketloads of real estate. Everything else is secondary.

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#134

Post by bredren » Wed, Jun 17, 2020, 4:55 PM UTC

rootusrootus wrote: post #120

bredren wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been focused on Apple display products for the past few months as I'm looking to make an upgrade from the Dell P2715Q 4k 27" I use primarily for development. There is a three page thread on using the Apple 32" XDR for software dev on MacRumors. [1] I believe there is a major product gap at Apple right now in the mid-market display. Specifically a replacement for the LED 27" Cinema Display which was announced 10…

> 27 inch IPS display, 5120 x 2880 @ 60Hz with standard glass at $1999 That's $200 more than it costs with the computer built in. Would rather see it more aggressively priced, or at least bring back target mode.

This is an important point. I have a pal with an aging 5k imac that he wishes he could use only as a monitor with a new mac mini.

It seems display tech in imac is severely discounted in order to sell the whole thing. And it does seem to break the pricing if you don't see them as different products offering value for different configurations.

Bringing back target mode, or allowing the iMac to act as an external monitor would greatly increase the value of that product.

I can't explain how this pricing makes sense exactly, except that I can only assume Apple will want or need to price this stuff high to help differentiate the build quality in comparison to the collaboration on LG's ultrafine.

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#135

Post by deepspace » Wed, Jun 17, 2020, 4:55 PM UTC

nsxwolf wrote: post #56

I’m not willing to give up my 3840x1600 ultrawide. That real estate is now non-negotiable to me. So to improve the dpi I’ll need 7680x3200, and at 120hz I don’t think that’s happening any time soon.

Agree, I use a 3840x2160 43" 16:9, which gives a 'low' density of around 100ppi, but I have absolutely no trouble reading the smallest text. There is no way that giving up the real estate would be worth an arbitrary increase in density.

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#136

Post by rocky1138 » Wed, Jun 17, 2020, 4:56 PM UTC

fwipsy wrote: post #36

Disappointed that he didn't mention pixel-perfect programming fonts (e.g. proggy) which offer high-density text on low-resolution monitors while not looking nearly as bad as his Consolas example. These fonts make a huge difference imo.

The author is apparently the same author as Fira Code, a ligature-supporting monospaced font. https://github.com/tonsky/FiraCode

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#137

Post by Dylan16807 » Wed, Jun 17, 2020, 4:57 PM UTC

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…

> Some people might like them, [some] won't.

By 'like them' are you talking about the full set of tradeoffs, or the raw visuals? Because I'd be very surprised if someone actually disliked how an all-else-equal 4K screen looks, compared to 1080.

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#138

Post by ptomato » Wed, Jun 17, 2020, 4:57 PM UTC

nsxwolf wrote: post #56

I’m not willing to give up my 3840x1600 ultrawide. That real estate is now non-negotiable to me. So to improve the dpi I’ll need 7680x3200, and at 120hz I don’t think that’s happening any time soon.

Yeah, I'm at 5120x1440 on a 49" ultrawide, and I'm not really interested in ever going back to a multi-monitor setup to get the same amount of real estate.

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#139

Post by ascar » Wed, Jun 17, 2020, 4:58 PM UTC

JohnBooty wrote: post #77

I found this article utterly baffling. The author clearly knows their stuff, having created Fira Code, but my experiences couldn't be more different. I spend most of my days in a text browser, text editor and text terminal, looking at barely moving letters. So I optimize my setup to showing really, really good letters. I certainly appreciate how nice text looks on a high DPI display. But for coding purposes!? I don't…

Well, it's really about personal preference and while I know a couple of collegues with your preference, I feel it's the minority.

I take two 16:9 screens over one 3840x1600 screen anytime. No need to setup some additional inner-mintor split-window management. Split-monitor management and workspaces works very well and I can even turn the 2nd monitor off, when I don't need it and want full focus mode (i.e. reading). Also I prefer my main monitor exactly in the middle in front of me and an actual 2nd monitor to the right. If I have the luxury of a 3rd monitor, it's to the left (usually the laptop that powers the 2 big screens). Setting one half of an ultra-wide in the middle just feels wrong. And splitting in 3 is too small for me and again the inner-monitor window management issue.

While I also strongly believed my old 1920x1080 24" (~92ppi) screens were good, I had the opportunity to use qhd 27" (~110ppi) screens for 3 months abroad and I was baffled when going home how incredibly bad text looked on my old 24" monitors.

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#140

Post by JohnBooty » Wed, Jun 17, 2020, 4:58 PM UTC

laurentdc wrote: post #101

I don't know. Text is important to me, but high refresh rate is much more. Even scrolling text or dragging windows around at >120 Hz is a game changer. Going back to the MBP display gives me instant headache until I re-adapt. It's hard to describe, it's like all of a sudden everything has a very distracting input lag. Now I just need to wait for a 4k 144Hz IPS that can be driven via MBP (or just get what's on the mar…

At the end of the article, the author mentions the Acer Nitro XV273K, which Macs can drive at 4K@120hz (though you have to jump through a hoop in the Displays prefs on each boot)