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Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

tonsky.me

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Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#311

Post by diffeomorphism »

mthoms wrote: post #213
diffeomorphism wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>And apple was late(!) to hires screens and to hidpi Are you sure about that? It doesn't seem to mesh with my recollection.

Yes.

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#312

Post by wondringaloud »

vardump wrote: post #42
boromi wrote: post #23

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

Can read the content clearly while smoothly 120 Hz scrolling or moving windows around.

Who is reading content while scrolling? That's like buying a $10,000 stabilization unit to be able to read a book while jogging.

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#313

Post by auggierose »

thomaslord wrote: post #239
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…

Hello! Person who actively dislikes 4k here. In my experience: 1. No matter what operating system you're on, you'll eventually run into an application that doesn't render in high dpi mode. Depending on the OS that can mean it renders tiny, or that the whole things is super ugly and pixelated (WAY worse than on a native 1080p display) 2. If the 4k screen is on your laptop, good luck ever having a decent experience plu…

If you are on macOS, all is good. Never had a problem with any of my 4 monitors (3x4K, 1x5K). I set the scaling to a size I like, and the text is super crisp. I don't see how any programmer can NOT like that.

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#314

Post by jciochon »

semi-extrinsic wrote: post #284
thomaslord wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hello! Person who actively dislikes 4k here. In my experience: 1. No matter what operating system you're on, you'll eventually run into an application that doesn't render in high dpi mode. Depending on the OS that can mean it renders tiny, or that the whole things is super ugly and pixelated (WAY worse than on a native 1080p display) 2. If the 4k screen is on your laptop, good luck ever having a decent experience plu…

FWIW, my main monitor is a 43" 4k display, and it works perfectly fine on AwesomeWM - but I' don't use any scaling, the 4k is purely for more screen real estate - literally like having 4 perfectly aligned borderless 24" monitors. I can fit 10 full A4 pages of text simultaneously.

43" seems rather large--how far away do you sit? If it were as close as a more "normal" sized monitor (~2-3 feet), wouldn't you be craning your neck all day trying to see different parts of the screen?

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#315

Post by adtac »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #57
adtac wrote: post #44

This is going to sound like I want to eat the cake and still have it, but I wish there was some sort of balance between real estate, sharpness, and affordability. A 24in 4K monitor without scaling makes text too small, but at 200%, it's no different from a 1080p monitor real estate-wise (even though text is much crisper). My current monitor, a 1440p 24in screen at 100%, serves all of my real estate needs, but leaves…

> 8K screens at 300% would offer similar, albeit slightly lower, real estate at even better text sharpness 5K @ 200% = 5120 / 2 = 2560 8K @ 300% = 7680 / 3 = 2560

Oops, you're right, I knew I should've just used Python instead of trying to do that in my head :)

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#316

Post by tasuki »

jandrewrogers wrote: post #267
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…

After trying virtually every display setup imaginable over the years, I've settled on a single, large, high-resolution display as the optimal setup. While I have written a lot of code on small, low-resolution displays, there are definitely disadvantages to that. I don't understand the value of multiple displays for code work. Just about everything that I could do with multiple displays can be more ergonomically achie…

Yes, I find multiple monitors very engaging and also way too distracting.

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#317

Post by tonsky »

sbierwagen wrote: post #278

>But even today you can peek into the future, if you have extra $4,000 to spare. This is Dell UP3218K, world’s first and only 8k monitor: Note that the UP3218K isn't the brightest monitor in the world. I've read some reviews that claim you need a darkened room to see the full color gamut.

I don’t really understand the concerns about brightness. On my current display I work at 20% brightness, otherwise my eyes start to hurt.

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#318

Post by TacticalTable »

robertoandred wrote: post #192
diffeomorphism wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Who else had hi-res screens in 2012?

Nobody in the laptop scene. They were the only ones with an OS that could correctly handle scaling at the time.

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#319

Post by partyboat1586 »

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…

The author is biased because of ligatures. These special glyphs are a little more dense than normal text, e.g the triple line equals and need a higher res display to look good. I personally dislike ligatures, I have no problem chunking two characters together in my head.

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#320

Post by adtac »

plorkyeran wrote: post #92
adtac wrote: post #44

This is going to sound like I want to eat the cake and still have it, but I wish there was some sort of balance between real estate, sharpness, and affordability. A 24in 4K monitor without scaling makes text too small, but at 200%, it's no different from a 1080p monitor real estate-wise (even though text is much crisper). My current monitor, a 1440p 24in screen at 100%, serves all of my real estate needs, but leaves…

5k 27" imacs have been out for a few years now, but the screen is a pretty significant chunk of the cost.

Which is why I said "general-purpose 5K". I want to use the hypothetical perfect monitors with a i3-like window manager on Linux.
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