I use a 32" 1440p monitor and while I would have liked to get a 4k one instead, even with getting tax back by declaring it as a business expense (since I use it primarily for work), 4k still would have been more than I was willing to spend on it right now. I don't want to use a smaller monitor (might even like one size larger) and tend to use large fonts anyway since my eyesight isn't super great, so 1440p seemed like a much better fit for me, given the price of a good 4k one. Maybe in a year or two I can upgrade.
Time to Upgrade Your Monitor
811–820 of 1001 posts
Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor
#812The 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…
> 3. Configuring my preferred linux environment to work with 4k is either impossible or just super time consuming. I use i3 and it adds way more productivity to my workflow than "My fonts are almost imperceptively sharper" ever could
Happy i3 arch linux 4k monitor user here for over 2 years. I only set an appropriate Xft.dpi for my monitor size/resolution in ~/.Xresources once and that was it.
Can't imagine being easier than this tbh.
Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor
#813I find this article resonates with me on many points. Particularly, high DPI and high refresh rates are not gimmicks, they have meaningful impact in making the user experience better. It's something that Apple has been pushing for years, from Retina to ProMotion. Sure, not everyone will appreciate the difference (Some people are happy with Macbook Airs, some need Threadrippers), but that doesn't mean it's not a meaningful difference for many users.
One area that I disagree though:
> The idea of a 4k monitor is NOT to get more pixels but to get the pixel-perfect, high-density UI rendering. Otherwise, a normal 1440p display would work better.
Not in my experience. Sure, 2x scaling is ideal for sharpness. But there's a tradeoff with screen real estate. I regularly switch between a 1440p monitor at work to a 4k monitor @1.5x scaling at home. Fonts are still noticeably sharper on the 4k monitor.
4k @1.5x scaling is not pixel-perfect, but definitely sharper than 1440p.
Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor
#814Earlier 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…
> 1. No matter what operating system you're on, you'll eventually run into an application that doesn't render in high dpi mode You lost me right here on line 1. If there are apps on MacOS that can't handle high dpi mode, I haven't run into them as a developer (or doing photo editing, video editing, plus whatever other hobbies I do). Also, I don't have any trouble with plugging my highDPI MacBook into a crappy 1080p d…
If there are apps on MacOS that can't handle high dpi mode, I haven't run into them as a developer (or doing photo editing, video editing, plus whatever other hobbies I do).
Same. I haven’t run into any apps that don’t support high dpi mode. Even terminal apps look great on my Retina 4k iMac screen.
Before getting this machine nearly a year ago, I couldn't natively view high dpi graphics for web projects I’d work on, which was a problem since there are billions of high dpi devices out there.
Added bonus: wide gamut is a thing and there's increasing support for this in browsers, including new color spaces: https://lea.verou.me/2020/04/lch-colors-in-css-what-why-and-...
Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor
#815The 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…
I have 4K monitor on laptop and also as external monitor but I have no problem with linux (using debian testing with gnome 3). I can easily combine it with 1080p monitors. Everything works out of the box.
I still switched to 1440p as 4K is just better looking 1080p. You cannot fit more information on the screen with scaling and without scaling everything is too small. I work as backend developer so space is more important for me than visual quality.
Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor
#816Earlier quoted context omitted.
How do you manage multiple monitors with MacOS? I was doing this until recently and every single login involved rearranging my windows because MacOS moves them all to whatever display woke up first. In my experience MacOS multi-monitor support is effectively non-existent. Recently I picked up a 49” ultra-ultra wide monitor (basically 2x27” panels). It is one monitor but MacOS can’t drive it. They just don’t detect th…
I was able to use a 5120x1440 resolution on my MacBook Pro using SwitchResX. No idea why Mac OS doesn’t let you select that resolution.
What kind of MacBook do you have exactly? Year, size, graphics hardware and OS.
Reports I read stated that while you can select it with SwitchResX it was scaled.
I never tried installing it myself because I’m not a fan of modifying the system on a Mac, especially one I don’t own.
From my poking around I think the horizontal resolution is the problem. The system scans possible resolutions to see what works. Apple just never expected a single display that wide.
There’s some reports that newer MacBooks with discrete graphics on Catalina can indeed run this resolution. It used to not work regardless of hardware, now apparently discrete graphics MacBooks can run it. Maybe because they updated the drivers/system for their new super fancy monitors.
Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor
#817Earlier quoted context omitted.
Completely agree! Went from a mediocre 2x1440p to high quality 2 x 4K, then back to a pair of equal quality 2x1440p. I would also add, when it comes to 4K and, for example, MacBooks, things fall apart quickly in my opinion. Cables, adapters/dongles/docking stations just must match up for everything to work in proper 60fps, and it gets worse if you have two external displays. As for my home set up, also stayed at 25"…
By equal quality 2x1440p monitors are we talking Eizo quality or Dell UltraSharp quality?
Dell UltraSharp were the 4K and now 1440p. The previous ones were Asus.
Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor
#818Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Also, I don't have any trouble with plugging my highDPI MacBook into a crappy 1080p display at work. Low DPI monitors are pretty much unusable since MacOS dropped subpixel rendering - with fonts being a blurry mess. You can only really use MacOS with high DPI monitors now for all day working. It’s a huge problem for everyone I know who wants to plug their MacBook into a normal DPI display. Not that the subpixel/hin…
This is an interesting position. I have always thought that font and font rendering were always an especially pernicious issue with Linux and a relative joy on MacOS?
I recently started using Linux some on the same 4K monitor I usually have my Mac connected to. I was shocked at how much sharper and easier to read the text was on Linux.
Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor
#819Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I think the point the parent is making is that human vision has limited resolution. If you can't see the difference between 4k and 1080p on a 24" monitor, then you probably need reading glasses. On a 27" monitor it's even worse. It's not so much that you can "see" the pixels, sub pixel rendering and anti-aliasing go a long way to making the actual blocky pixels go away, the difference is crisp letters versus blurry…
> then you probably need reading glasses Maybe, just maybe, one could talk about how crisp text appears on 4k _without_ being rude.
As a glasses-wearer, this does not seem rude to me.
Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor
#820Based on the article, it looks like a poor man's decent option is a 1440p monitor at 60Hz that is running at 1:1 scaling.
Benefits: * Cheap-ish * Reasonable resolution with crisp text * Small difference between 60 and 120Hz
Drawbacks: * If you want crisp text and reasonable real estate, forget any other resolution than 1440p. It just won't align with the physical pixels and will look horrible.
I'd love to get a 4k monitor at some point, at least that would give me the scaling option in MacOS (1440p doesn't), but if I want really crisp text I have to render the equivalent of 1080, which isn't that much real estate for something like IntelliJ.