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The best 4K monitor doesn’t exist yet

m.thewirecutter.com

51–60 of 89 posts

Re: The best 4K monitor doesn’t exist yet

#51
post #48

Has anyone tried the 39" Seiki on a Mac? At $389 seems like an easier purchase. Plus it doubles as a TV. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16889522...

Coincidentally, I was researching this model last night, and the general commentary of this device as a computer monitor is that it's bad (due to the slower frame rate with HDMI at the native resolution).

Re: The best 4K monitor doesn’t exist yet

#52
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like "HD" (1080) vs "HD Ready" (720) I think we've already lost that battle, and yet again it's "buyer beware" where people will get sold inferior goods as if they're the good stuff by having the same or similar terms for different quality. (Although in this case it's not as large a difference as HD vs HD ready was)

Ive never seen "HD Ready" refer to 720. As I remember it, HD Ready meant that the TV was HD (720 or 1080), but it didnt include an ATSC or QAM tuner. It was more like a monitor than a true TV. The distinction I've seen with 1080p is calling it True or Full HD.

Maybe this is specific per country, but in the Netherlands 'HD Ready' always referred to 720 instead of 1080.

Re: The best 4K monitor doesn’t exist yet

#53
post #48

Has anyone tried the 39" Seiki on a Mac? At $389 seems like an easier purchase. Plus it doubles as a TV. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16889522...

We have ~20 of them. They're fine. They 30Hz is a little bit annoying if you drag windows around, but it's not really a problem for scrolling.

Re: The best 4K monitor doesn’t exist yet

#54
post #35
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They do that for digital camera displays and it’s super confusing.

That was meant to be in jest - though i would probably chuckle if I saw a marketing banner that said "All new Monitors now with 5.02 x 10^7 pixels"

Eh, you got me. Digital camera disaply resolution is reported like that, worse, they don’t count pixels but “dots” (i.e. subpixels).

Example: the Olympus E-M10 has a 1,037,000 dots display, which means 345,600 pixels, which means 720x480. But all the marketing material (and review websites) reports “1 million dots display”.

Re: The best 4K monitor doesn’t exist yet

#55
post #37

On the one hand I can't wait for 4k and high PPI mode adaption. Retina Macbooks already show just how pretty it is. But the whole thing doesn't seem ready yet outside the Mac ecosystem. I see lots of issues with 4k: - Going from 120 hz back to 60 hz, or even less. Seeing how they are struggling to get a 60hz monitor to the market, it's probably going to be a long time until we see 120 hz monitors. - Software adaption…

The only reason makers are having an issue with hitting 60Hz is that people are still stupid and keep using hdmi and the monitor makers keep catering for them.

Re: The best 4K monitor doesn’t exist yet

#56

4K is going to really not matter much for a while simply because the average computer doesn't have good enough graphics to make good use of it. The resolution jump is huge and so you need a lot more GPU memory and processing power to do the same things at a higher resolution. Games are now really taking good advantage of 1080p, so we are another 5-10 years away from 4k being a real thing in terms of mainstream gaming…

With g-sync and similar we will probably see smooth gameplay at lower refresh rates, meaning 4k gaming can be a little closer than it would be if we wanted 4k @ 60Hz. The real elephant in the room is the poor scaling of applications, on my 4k laptop screen on windows 8.1 I tried making it work for a few weeks using windows' scaling settings, but caved and just set it to 1/4 resolution and haven't looked back. On a sm…

It's a chicken and egg problem. Until enough people stop giving up on high resolutions, the application makers won't do adequate testing of those resolutions, ensuring that they'll continue to be unusable.

Re: The best 4K monitor doesn’t exist yet

#57
post #6
post #2

I'd like to know if anyone is using a 4K monitor and their experience with it. I have an Apple thunderbolt display and I am ok with it. I do not have a 4K. I use it with macbook pro 15" (retina display) and even though I do not get the same resolution, it does not look flaky at all and is decent enough for reading. Moreover, it connects with the pro using thunderbolt and thus does not require multiple connections for…

I have the Sharp 4K monitor that Apple sells in its stores and it's incredible. I run it at retina resolution at 60hz (now possible on Mac OS 10.9.3+) with a Mac Pro and it looks amazing. Very pricey, but in my experience, worth every dollar.

Is that an Apple monitor or someone else's? I am sorry, I've never seen a monitor apart from Thunderbolt display. Is that the one?

Re: The best 4K monitor doesn’t exist yet

#58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't mind playing games in a lower resolution and letting it scale up to the monitor's res - I consider the stretching to 4K a form of "natural" (if sloppy) anti-aliasing.

Scaling is a problem on a lot of 4K monitors right now. IIRC the Dells will display everything at their native resolution - so a 1080p signal will sit as a box in the center of your screen surrounded by black. There's a reason why the current batch of 4K monitors are considered immature. The lack of "real" (single-tile) input, the inability to handle 60Hz inputs, the inability to scale, etc etc. Looks like the latest…

Oh yes definitely. Don't worry, I'm not interested in jumping the gun.

Re: The best 4K monitor doesn’t exist yet

#59
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was meant to be in jest - though i would probably chuckle if I saw a marketing banner that said "All new Monitors now with 5.02 x 10^7 pixels"

If you used megapixels it wouldn't be any worse than camera sensors. I'm honestly surprised this hasn't been done as an alternative to VGA, SVGA, DVGA, WSVGA, XGA, WXGA, SXGA, WSXGA, UXGA, WUXHA, WQSXGA, WXUSXGA, qHD, HD, FHD, QHD, UHD, FUHD, etc. (several resolutions omitted) A number of megapixels and an aspect ratio would give all the information you need, while boiling it down to easily comparable numbers.

General consumers often care more about physical size than actual resolution. Why else would 1920x1080 pixel computer monitors be sold in sizes up to 27 inches? What explains the proliferation of 15 inch, 1366x768 laptops, or even 17 inch 'laptops' of any resolution?

Re: The best 4K monitor doesn’t exist yet

#60

I agree with their comments on the Dell U2713HM, I've had one for about a year now and it's very good.

Indeed, it has just the right pixel density. A 24" 4k display needs DPI scaling to be usable, thus reducing the "screen estate" advantage and >30" 4k displays aren't yet available with all the necessary features.
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