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Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

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Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#531

Post by Spooky23 »

z3t4 wrote: post #495
Spooky23 wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Atwood is a bit of a prima-donna and part of being a blogger is a to make big statements. One of my roles for a long time was speccing/procuring computer equipment (later overseeing the same) for a huge diverse organization. I took feedback, complaints from users and vendors, etc. People are passionate about this stuff... I was physically threatened once, and had people bake cookies and cakes multiple times as a than…

You dont need a good display until you have used one. Its like glasses, you think you got perfect vision and then you get glasses its night and day in comparison. You dont know a good display until you have seen one. The thing with high res monitors is that you should upscale or everything will look tiny.

I agree and I'm also a monitor prima-donna! That said, most people have not been tainted. :)

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#532

Post by ithkuil »

JohnBooty wrote: post #498
_ph_ wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That Dell would be the screen I would buy right now for coding. I am currently using a 5k iMac at home and a 30" Dell (2560x1600) at work. I really loved the resolution of the iMac, but for my work, I need screen estate. The font rendering on the 30" at 1x scaling is good enough, and having a lot of screen estate is essential for me. Having 50% more horizontal space would of course be great :). The new 32" Apple disp…

I definitely have zero regrets about the Dell. Some of the best money I've ever spent. Depending on font choice (typically I use Input Mono Compressed) I can fit six or seven 80x100 text windows side-by-side on the Dell with excellent legibility. I can't imagine anybody justifying the cost of that 32" Apple display for coding either. I can't even imagine many high-end creative professionals justifying that. I mean, o…

Which model is "that dell"?

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#533

Post by bob1029 »

For me, 2560x1440@144 on a 27" panel is by far the Goldilocks of writing code. 1080p feels like it's not tall enough with fat editors like Visual Studio, and anything bigger in size or DPI is starting to get too difficult to keep in focus.

I do also have a separate workstation with a 4K 43" monitor that I use exclusively as a standing setup. The monitor is fairly far back, but still requires me to move my head slightly to view the extents. This is the workstation I typically use for daily stand-ups so that I can have a ton of relevant information up all at once. I will also do some large-scale codebase reorganization efforts on this setup as I can have 3-4 solution explorers side-by-side and still have 90% of my monitor remaining for code editor windows, debuggers, explorer windows, browsers, etc. That said, this setup is tiresome if you are trying to laser focus on a single area of the codebase for an extended duration.

I will typically alternate between these setups throughout the day as appropriate.

Also, I do appreciate the color accuracy of the 4k 43" monitor (IPS/8-bit). I don't do a lot of artistic work, but when I am trying to see if a certain shade of grey makes sense for a element relative to its contents, having an accurate monitor really helps pick a good color code. With TN you get much more 'coarse' results and its hard to find a good middle point.

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#534

Post by randallsquared »

I fully agree that higher DPI is better.

I disagree that all available resolution should go to increasing sharpness and detail of text, which, after all, can only improve so much. There's only one metric that really matters for text, and that's reading speed. Any beauty or detail which doesn't serve to differentiate characters (thereby increasing reading speed) is essentially pointless.

A better reason to get a better monitor is to fit more text on it. While coding or learning, there might be one or more editors, terminals, browsers, chats, etc. Can all this be behind tabs or in virtual desktops? Of course. But the value of having it all available at a flick of the eyes is so much higher! Even if you turn off all the animations, flipping virtual desktops or tabs requires a much more severe context switch than casting a glance to the right, left, or (slightly) up or down. I'm currently using a 5k2k monitor at its native resolution, and it's pretty awesome.

I have been hoping for two decades that VR would solve this, allowing me to have a truly vast workspace that moved and zoomed just via eye movement, but not only is that day still far away in eye-tracking terms, VR goggles have so far all been much worse for text than high DPI screens, in my experience. I appreciate that there are VR workspaces in development, though, like Immersed, for the day when the hardware is good enough.

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#535

Post by nickjj »

27" 4k is going to be pretty tough to read text at 1:1 scaling even with 20/20 vision.

IMO you're better off grabbing something like a 25" 2560x1440 monitor. You can comfortably read text at a few feet away, even small text with not the best contrast.

If you start scaling to 150% or 200% with your 4k display you'll end up with the same screen real estate as a 2560x1440 or even a 1080p monitor depending on how much you scale up and you'll end up paying a lot more. For example a really good 2560x1440 monitor will run you about $300-350 (IPS display, low input lag, good color accuracy, etc.). The first 2 monitors in OP's post are $1,500 to $1,730.

I did a huge write up on this at https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/how-to-pick-a-good-monitor-fo... if anyone is curious. I evaluated a bunch of monitors and ultimately picked a 25" 2560x1440 since it's the sweet spot for PPI at normal viewing distances while having normal vision.

For programming, having a 2560x1440 1:1 scaled display is going to be a huge win. You can easily fit 4x 80 column windows side by side in most code editors. After using that set up for years, there's no way I would ever want to work on a display that's less than an effective 2560x1440 resolution again.

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#536

Post by noisem4ker »

monocasa wrote: post #456
tick_tock_tick wrote: post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Text honestly looks like shit an any non 4k external monitor for macOS it's kind of crazy how bad it is compared to windows.

It's just a different stylistic choice. A lot of font nerds prefer the OSX choices because they try to stay true to the original font spacing without regard to the pixel grid.

Missing sub-pixel antialiasing is plain technical deficiency, not a stylistic choice. I agree arguments can be had about hinting and aligning the glyphs to the pixel grid, but not much beyond that.

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#537

Post by quicklime »

madeofpalk wrote: post #528
quicklime wrote: post #522

The author says that you don't need to choose between 4K and 120Hz, because there are "reasonably priced" monitors on the market that have both. But their recommended monitor ($900) seems a lot more expensive than a 4K 60Hz monitor (which is around $300-$400 when I search on Amazon). The author also says (they think) that you need the discrete graphics card in a MacBook to take advantage of a 120 Hz display, and that…

For what it’s worth, the latest 13” MacBook Pro (with integrated intel graphics) can power the 6016x3384 Pro Display XHR at 60Hz. I am unsure what refresh rates it can achieve with a lower resolution. But really as someone who made the jump from 60Hz to 120Hz, I wouldn’t bother unless you’re gaming. I accidentally was running my monitor locked to 60Hz and when I fixed it, I barely noticed the difference - it was only…

Yeah you're right, it can do 6K at 60Hz, and according to Apple it can also do:

> Up to two external 4K displays with 4096‑by‑2304 resolution at 60Hz in millions of colours

So I guess if it can power 2 monitors at 60Hz, it should be able to do 1 monitor at 120hz, right?

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#538

Post by OOPMan »

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…

I too use a single 1080p monitor. I find that, for me, the benefits of multiple monitors aren't really there.

I tried it for a while but I find virtual desktops cover my multi-tasking needs just fine.

When I had multiple displays the context switching involved in moving my head and focusing on the other displays wasn't great.

I guess if I was a designer it would make more sense but for coding what I have now works fine.

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#540

Post by johncalvinyoung »

I hate the idea of scaling and blur, but I find I really like 6K-equivalent on my 27" 4K monitor at my desk (driven by a MBP below the monitor). And no, I don't have budget for a Pro Display XDR, as beautiful as it is. If I could get an IPS 6K panel for 15-2500, I'd save my pennies.
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