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Can Dell’s 6K monitor beat their 8K monitor?

michael.stapelberg.ch

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Re: Can Dell’s 6K monitor beat their 8K monitor?

#401

Post by jq-r »

autoexec wrote: post #211
Aaargh20318 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s crazy how much of a regression there was in resolution and picture quality when we went from CRT to LCD displays. In the late 90’s you could get a CRT that did 2048x1536 no sweat with great color and decent refresh rate. Then suddenly LCD displays became the standard and they looked awful. Low resolutions, terrible colors and bad viewing angles. The only real advantage they had was size. It took a decade or so t…

LCDs didn't replace CRTs because they offered better quality to consumers. They were worse for all the reasons you mentioned and then some. LCDs were cheaper to make, much lighter and less frail so they cost less to ship, and they took up much less space while in transport, and while sitting in warehouses, or on store shelves. We were sold an inferior product so that other people could save money. Gradually, some of…

While I appreciate a bit of sarcasm, I'm not sure if this is what actually happened. In the CRT era, you either had good monitors which were expensive or a bunch of actually crap monitors. I had the former, but most of the people had latter and using those monitors for any extended period of time would give you headaches and dry eyes because of poor refresh rates, and terrible flicker.

As a personal anecdote: when I was choosing components for my first desktop computer (instead of using dad's work laptops), I selected components which are affordable. Also, as a coincidence a local IT magazine had a big test of desktop CRT monitors. So I've chosen some inexpensive one which wasn't terrible and as every kid asked parents for money. My mum who was already working on computers on her job had a look through that magazine and said that she'll pay for the whole computer only on the condition we buy the best monitor on that test. So we did (it was a trinitron Nokia @ 100Hz which was a lot), and I think with that move she saved my eyes long term, as I'm in my early 40ties and the only healthy thing I still have are my eyes. In any case, I've soon realized when I got that monitor is that I'll never save money when buying stuff which I use all day long.

Back to the topic. CRT monitors also were space heaters, and had a large volume which was only fine when being permanently placed on a geek's desk.

When LCDs arrived they actually were considerably better than average CRTs. The picture was rock solid without flicker or refresh rate artifacts, perfectly rectangular (a big problem with an average CRT as a matter of fact) and very sharp and crisp. All for a little bit more money. After two or three years they were actually even cheaper than CRTs. And I forgot to mention, they took much less space so you could place it on a POS counter or wherever. It took much more time to replace the top end CRTs, but I guess this is always the case when talking about some tech product.

Re: Can Dell’s 6K monitor beat their 8K monitor?

#402

Post by rjh29 »

crote wrote: post #385
rjh29 wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it must be a visual processing difference in people's brains. I find 30/60/120 equally playable in gaming, but other people here are calling 30fps intolerable. Similarly I've used a 1080p monitor for years and I'm fine with it. I don't need tiny pixels for coding and messing around with pixel scaling on Linux seems more trouble than it's worth.

I think it depends a lot on the way you use it. 30fps might be fine for playing Solitaire, but it is definitely a limiting factor for first-person shooters. Personally, after a year or two of programming on 30hz, I absolutely want 60hz for office use. Having lag while dragging around windows is not fun. Having a 1080p+ monitor is more about screen real estate than it is about precision: you just can't fit three windo…

> I think it depends a lot on the way you use it.

That makes sense. For programming I use a tiled wm so don't drag windows around at all, I disable all animations so haven't felt any need for high framerates personally.

Re: Can Dell’s 6K monitor beat their 8K monitor?

#403

Post by Kon5ole »

jupblb wrote: post #391
Kon5ole wrote: post #386

I don't understand why these monitors are so expensive. I've been using a 55" 8k TV as my main monitor for years and paid less than USD 1000 for it new. Recently I saw a similar deal for a 8k tv again, so making panels at 8k and shipping them around the world at around USD 1000 is certainly still possible, but the Dell 8k is 4000+ and the 6k is 2300+. Using a tv as a monitor has downsides (Only HDMI, doesn't detect i…

It's because a smaller screen with the same (high) resolution means higher pixel density and smaller pixel size. It's something noticeably more expensive to manufacture.

>It's because a smaller screen with the same (high) resolution means higher pixel density and smaller pixel size. It's something noticeably more expensive to manufacture.

That's a fair point but I don't think it applies at these scales. Even a 8K 32" has a very low pixel density compared to a cellphone screen for example.

Acer has a 16" portable 4K screen for around 600 USD which they presumably sell at a nice profit, 4 of them would make a 8K 32".

Anyway, pricing aside the main problem is that the products don't exist in the first place. A monitor that's simply 4x 27" 4k screens (available from 300 usd) combined would be perfect for a programmer, data analyst etc even if it isn't strictly "retina".

The manufacturers don't make monitors like this for one reason or another. I think it's a marketing/economic strategy more than anything else.

My pessimistic take is that LG and Samsung etc have tons of investments in old tech and want to keep selling old tech to consumers for as long as they can because that's where they get the highest margins.

A slightly less pessimistic take is that monitor makers don't believe that there is a market for really large screens because when you do a survey most people think 32" is "big" and anything larger is absurd.

But it's wonderful! :)

Re: Can Dell’s 6K monitor beat their 8K monitor?

#404

Post by kimburgess »

LoganDark wrote: post #396
lrem wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

20/20 vision is a low bar though. I’m bothered by how much my vision has deteriorated since I was a teenager. The difference is obvious, as I now need to walk up to things I used to read from a distance. I’ve tested 20/20 a few weeks ago.

> 20/20 vision is a low bar though. Absolute preach right here. I would say I laugh when someone says it's not perceptually possible for me to differentiate the pixels of my 4K display from a typical viewing distance, but that's actually become such a common assertion that I'm dying to know if my vision is just that much better or theirs is just that much worse. :/

That's a good point to highlight: 20/20 is not perfect vision. It's simply a benchmark for "good enough" vision. IIRC there are physical limits around 0.4 arcmin. People with good eyesight sit somewhere between the two.

Re: Can Dell’s 6K monitor beat their 8K monitor?

#405

Post by 111111IIIIIII »

qwerty456127 wrote: post #380
111111IIIIIII wrote: post #85

I just purchased 2 of the 6Ks and I am keeping both. AMA. I do not understand the complaints about pixel density. The display is 223 ppi, which is the same or slightly higher than Apple displays. I am using them in a dual display configuration with an M1 Macbook Pro via TB4 and a Windows PC with an RTX 4090 via DisplayPort. The KVM feature makes switching back and forth a breeze. I am using 175% scaling (in Windows)…

> I do not understand the complaints about pixel density. The display is 223 ppi, which is the same or slightly higher than Apple displays. I am using them in a dual display configuration I don't even understand all this ppi hype, nor even dual displays anymore. I always used dual-triple displays in the past but nowaways I just bought a single table-size (49-inch or something like that) 4k display and put it right in…

If I were just using text editors, I would do something similar. However, many people do other things with computers besides edit text. DCC applications are obnoxious on displays larger than 32" and reducing the window size just leaves you with little border areas for multitasking. It's just sloppy. So 2x 32" is a pretty obvious choice here.

Re: Can Dell’s 6K monitor beat their 8K monitor?

#406

Post by cubefox »

foepys wrote: post #387
cubefox wrote: post #379

Recently there was an article here on HN declaring that LCDs are on their way out now in favor of OLED. That doesn't seem true at all for the monitor market. The author doesn't even mention that both monitors are LCDs.

In that post [1] some commenters said that the backlight technology for LCDs is the hot stuff at the moment, apparently. You don't want an OLED PC monitor because it will very quickly suffer from burn-in at the typical locations of taskbar and window controls. 1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36398596

He may referring to mini LED, a backlight which enables more fine-grained local dimming.

As for burn-in, this doesn't seem to be an issue in smartphones for many years now, and monitors are also not normally used with damaging high brightness HDR content like OLED TVs. My guess would rather be that OLED monitors are too expensive, maybe because they have much higher PPI values than TVs. (A 55" 4k TV has only 80 PPI.)

Re: Can Dell’s 6K monitor beat their 8K monitor?

#407

Post by goosedragons »

xps wrote: post #349
111111IIIIIII wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The built-in kvm feature is very basic and I don't even setup the keyboard shortcuts because that requires software to be installed on the computers. Basically it just lets me switch between computers with 2 quick button presses on each monitor. I use an additional usb 3.0 switch from CableMatters so my peripherals can be switched between each display incase I want to have both computers up side by side. If you only…

Does this KVM work with a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse? Do you have to reconnect the devices every time you switch?

I don't think any KVM supports Bluetooth. You either need to use software like Barrier or get devices that can switch between multiple. The other option is wireless peripherals that use a USB dongle can work fine with KVMs like the ones Logitech sells.

Re: Can Dell’s 6K monitor beat their 8K monitor?

#408

Post by 111111IIIIIII »

Toutouxc wrote: post #318
111111IIIIIII wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh OK sorry but yeah I wouldn't use that. If this is usually supported on Dell monitors, I would bet it works on these. Personally, I rarely adjust brightness on my desktop displays and my ZMK keyboard volume buttons work reliably cross-platform.

I you don’t need it, you don’t need it, but I don’t understand the first sentence. Many different displays support DDC, my Philips at home does and the Dells and I think BenQ that we have at the office do too.

My macbook is my work laptop and we're encouraged to minimize installing extra software.

I wish my personal was a mac as well, but I had to abandon macs when they abandoned me by not upgrading the mac pro for like a decade then kept me away by later ending support for eGPUs.

Re: Can Dell’s 6K monitor beat their 8K monitor?

#409

Post by 111111IIIIIII »

LeafItAlone wrote: post #347
111111IIIIIII wrote: post #85

I just purchased 2 of the 6Ks and I am keeping both. AMA. I do not understand the complaints about pixel density. The display is 223 ppi, which is the same or slightly higher than Apple displays. I am using them in a dual display configuration with an M1 Macbook Pro via TB4 and a Windows PC with an RTX 4090 via DisplayPort. The KVM feature makes switching back and forth a breeze. I am using 175% scaling (in Windows)…

Thanks for providing all of that information. Maybe I missed you answering this: What do you do with the monitors? Do you work with images, videos, code, etc.?

My day job is software development for creativity/art related software and I do a lot of visual creative work on the side, both personally and professionally. I use the PC for 3D rendering.

Re: Can Dell’s 6K monitor beat their 8K monitor?

#410

Post by jwells89 »

frozenport wrote: post #348
jwells89 wrote: post #119

I also bought one of these, but ended up returning it. The technical aspects of this review are interesting, especially the wide range of machines tested. I finished writing a review of my own[0] a few days ago, which is less technical but goes into some other aspects of the monitor. [0]: https://www.wells.dev/dell-ultrasharp-u3224kb-squandered-pot...

Expected apothesis but got a computer monitor. Its not clear what the alternative monitor would be.

I returned it not because it wasn’t perfect, but because its list of issues was too long. With exception to the antiglare coating grain (it was one of the most bothersome), I could’ve lived with some of its problems if they weren’t so numerous. No monitor comes totally problem free after all.

The other issue is its cost. Expectations raise alongside price, and at an MSRP of $3200 they’re pretty high, and this monitor in my opinion doesn’t meet the bar… with its build quality, problems, and lack of polish it’d maybe make sense at half that price, but even then that antiglare coating would make it a hard sell. They’d need to at least change the coating to make it resemble that of a more traditional matte monitor (which has no grain or sparkle effect).

And you’re right, there isn’t really an alternative except the Pro Display XDR, which is priced far beyond what many of us would find reasonable, uses increasingly dated local dimming tech, and has no extra functions beyond the hub on its back. That’s part of why I was disappointed: everything was lined up for Dell to have been able to knock this one out of the park — it would’ve been easy — but they didn’t.

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