Time to Upgrade Your Monitor • Hacker News Board

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#181

Post by the_af » Wed, Jun 17, 2020, 5:14 PM UTC

akersten wrote: post #172

the_af wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand this and I don't want to argue against anyone's preferences. You know what's best for you . I'm just pushing back against these out of touch fads. Most developers worldwide don't have a three-monitor setup. There is no proven correlation between quality software and 4K displays or mechanical keyboards (to name other fads). More importantly, the best devs I've known -- people I admire -- used tiny laptops…

Yeah, I wouldn't say having a mechanical keyboard makes your code any higher quality - that'd be pretty silly. I think in general the thought is, if you care enough about your craft that you seek out refined tools, that care will be reflected in higher-quality development. Whether that's true or not, I don't know, but I'm inclined to believe there's a correlation. I mean, it would be weird to visit a professional car…

Thanks for the reply. I think there is little to no correlation, but like the opposite opinion, I've no proof other than the anecdotal: the best hackers I've known didn't care about these things.

Other bizarre opinions I've read from Atwood and his followers: that you should be an excellent typist (this is also related to owning a mechanical keyboard). No. Just no. Typing speed is not the bottleneck when writing software. The bottleneck is my brain. I've never seen a project fail because people typed too slowly.

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#182

Post by nicoburns » Wed, Jun 17, 2020, 5:14 PM UTC

gnicholas wrote: post #153

dsabanin wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> I compare it to having a large, wide desk when you’re working on something. Who wouldn’t want that? I have used between 1-3 monitors over the last decade, and there sure are advantages to having 3 for certain tasks. However, I noticed that having multiple monitors resulted in me having a dedicated screen for email (usually the smallest, my laptop screen). This decreased my productivity. Perhaps not everyone has thi…

I've solved this problem by having my email client (actually it's Slack in my case, but the same principle) and terminal share a screen. This works pretty well because I rarely want to use my terminal and chat at the same time.

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#183

Post by mcny » Wed, Jun 17, 2020, 5:14 PM UTC

the_af wrote: post #84

mcny wrote: post #79

I bought a 1080p 27" HP 27yh for under USD 100 last Black Friday. I thought my monitor would be squarely middle of the pack but turns out it is barely above 80 ppi Display size: 23.53" × 13.24" = 311.5in² (59.77cm × 33.62cm = 2009.68cm²) at 81.59 PPI, 0.3113mm dot pitch, 6657 PPI²

The most important thing here: does your new monitor look good for you? Do you like how it renders graphics/text/whatever-you-use-it-for? If so, please disregard articles like TFA. They are trying to convince you of something you, by definition, don't need.

Yes, the monitor looks fine. It is connected to an old Dell Optiplex 390 with an i3-2100 and 8 GB of memory. I don't watch movies or play video games on it or anything. It is basically a glorified terminal for me to citrix/remote desktop to work.

I've found my off-brand (Aukey) "blue" mechanical keyboard has been a greate improvement in my quality of life though (even though it is not very ergonomic).

It is funny how when I started using Visual Studio around 2008 I didn't have a 1920x1080 monitor and I wanted to see all the panels and it was so painful.

Right now, my biggest pain point is my horrible Internet (Wi-Fi) connection. It is especially painful because I move my mouse or type something and nothing appears on the display and I don't know whether the remote computer is slow or my network connection is crapping out again.

Almost feels like I am whining about a non-issue because even fifteen years ago, I was on a dial-up "soft" modem and it would have been unthinkable to get pretty much live full 1080p remote desktop.

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#184

Post by XCSme » Wed, Jun 17, 2020, 5:15 PM UTC

boromi wrote: post #23

What's the point of 120Hz if your just programming?

I have a 1440p 144hz monitor and a 4k 60hz monitor. I prefer the higher dpi one. I personally don't feel that extra-smoothnes during web browsing or web development when on the 144hz one, it maybe feels a bit better, but I don't mind 60hz.

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#185

Post by XCSme » Wed, Jun 17, 2020, 5:17 PM UTC

chromaton wrote: post #21

These monitors and most of the ones mentioned in the thread are tiny. Whatever happened to the dream of the full-wall display? I really like my 43" 4K LG monitor, but apparently this type of monitor is rarely produced these days. A quick Newegg search shows exactly 1 monitor with similar specs and it's more than twice the cost of what I paid for mine two years ago.

Having a large monitor (> 30") makes it harder to read your content all at once, and you constantly have light/information in your peripheral vision (which is not good for the eyes). Asuming that you keep them as the same distance as "normal" monitors (1m - 1.5m)

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#186

Post by EForEndeavour » Wed, Jun 17, 2020, 5:18 PM UTC

the_af wrote: post #164

GordonS wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I certainly agree that some like them, while others don't. And some grow to like them - I used to scoff... before I tried it for myself. I think as well, it depends on your eyesight, and also your workflows and apps. I use Rider (and previously Visual Studio), and these have a lot of panes/windows - it's really nice to be able to have the code front and centre, with debug output, logs and a command prompt in another…

Oh, I do use an external 1080p monitor because I can't stand my work laptop's 1366x768 display, which usually gets relegated to email.

May I ask what specific laptop you're using? It's been a while since I've happened on that resolution myself.

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#187

Post by mmm_grayons » Wed, Jun 17, 2020, 5:19 PM UTC

beckingz wrote: post #67

mmm_grayons wrote: post #19

Great theory. I'd definitely love to have 4k 120hz displays, but until I'm not broke, I'll stick with my old low-res monitors I picked up for $20 apiece. They suck, but not everyone has the money for $500 panels, let alone the insanely-priced four-figure ones the author recommends. I'll probably just suffer through another decade of garbage text until they get cheap.

electronic waste recycling facility? More like christmas in my opinion.

Yep. I've got my own little fleet of machines, mostly laptops with busted displays, that I run as servers for my own personal edification. Dirt cheap and useful. I've even got a pentium box that still works fine.

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#188

Post by dijit » Wed, Jun 17, 2020, 5:20 PM UTC

I have been looking to upgrade my aging U2412m's for some time.

But 16:10 is dead; so why bother? it might only be a little horizontal space but it's a huge difference to not have it.

Thankfully recent laptops are returning to 16:10 (Macbook's and Dell XPS's) But monitors still do not seem to exist.

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#189

Post by Dylan16807 » Wed, Jun 17, 2020, 5:22 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.

It might be sooner than you think. 8K screens are easily available, 8K 120Hz screens have had working development versions for a while, and slightly cutting the height to 3200 means that you can fit the data into a single displayport 1.4 connection, using graphics cards that are already out.

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#190

Post by EForEndeavour » Wed, Jun 17, 2020, 5:24 PM UTC

diffeomorphism wrote: post #94

coreai wrote: post #47

After using a rMBP for 6 years, I realized that using a lower resolution and lower quality display makes absolutely no sense at all if both graphical power and budget is available (first 13' rMBP had some serious issue driving the display). Better quality image is better quality image. I think Apple's biggest selling point over any vendor right now, despite numerous issues with its hardware and software in the recent…

For the trackpad I agree, but definitely not for the keyboard. And apple was late(!) to hires screens and to hidpi and now has lower res and density than the competition (e.g. 16:10 better 4k on dell xps or 3:2 screens with MS and others). Also, apple had TN screens forever when the similarly priced competition had higher res IPS screens.

Isn't 4k on a laptop a significant power drain? And isn't the point of "stopping" at Retina resolution that the human eye can't tell the difference between Retina and higher resolutions like 4K at typical laptop screen size and viewing distance?