Mac external displays for designers and developers, part 2 (2022)

Just make sure to test it out before the return window expires because the macOS is infamous, as you are probably aware, for struggling with monitor resolutions. I personally use a 32:9 ultrawide scaled to 2560x720 to get it to look crisp. Don't forget to look into BetterDisplay as well, neat application

>macOS has been designed to be legible and usable with a pixel density of about 218PPI (pixels per inch) for “Retina” class desktop displays. If a display’s PPI is higher, text and the macOS user interface will be smaller. If a display’s PPI is lower, text and the macOS user interface will be larger. Stray too far from 218PPI and macOS becomes unusable.

I some ways I wish I'd never seen a Retina display. I'm cursed to buy expensive monitors for the rest of my life.

It would be nice if these comments were used to discuss this specific article rather than becoming a general dumping ground for unannotated brief announcements about what monitor somebody uses. What’s particularly frustrating is when a commenter posts their setup, it goes against the advice given in the article, but then there is no acknowledgement that the poster has even read the article or wants to justify their choice!

It doesn't help the way that Apple is using "internal" resolution and scaling versus how Windows does it. If you aren't within the density of "retina" display [1.] then there's solid chance the image you're looking at will be blurry. Even though you might have high quality display (whatever the size and resolution are) if you don't play by the rules Apple had imagined you're in tough spot.

[1.] https://www.caseyliss.com/images/2017/5/marc-edwards-display...

I use two LG 5K Ultrafine models. The quality is fantastic. Only two things to watch out for.

The first is burn-in. I now move windows about when I can, and also tend to use Dark mode for everything. I also set up BetterTouchTool to give me 10%, 20%, 30% etc brightness mapped to Cmd plus the numeric keypad. I use a comfortable level of brightness, and only bump it up for a short while when I need to examine something. I also have some anti burn-in videos downloaded with yt-dlp to clear burn-in when I find a ghost of it on the screen.

The other problem is screen activation. There is no power button on the LG displays. I like to keep the Macbook Pro in sleep mode when not in use, so I can resume with my app windows in the same state from the previous session. My whole desk setup is behind a smart switch. Often, when resuming from sleep, one of the displays would not wake and the only workaround was to unplug and replug the thunderbolt cable at the Macbook side. I work around this by having the Macbook continuously powered by my Orico dock when in use or sleeping, and this seems to address the problem. There is also an occasional issue of a single display switching off when I am using it, and this just means a thunderbolt unplug and replug at the Macbook side. But fortunately this has been fairly rare.

So, visually great hardware that I’m thankful for, but Apple’s “it just works” doesn’t really apply here. Just mentioning these in case someone is experiencing similar issues.