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Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

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Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#901

Post by boplicity »

esperent wrote: post #779
sydd wrote: post #599

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While technically the article is correct, it feels very narrow-sighted to me by placing resolution/refresh rate above everything else. Some more things to consider: - Price. If you are not a programmer in a first world country working for a magic money startup/big 4 then you wont spend $1000+ on a single monitor. Mine was a better 27" 1920 one for $300 and I'm happy with it. I'm sure there are better ones, but I cant…

I think pwm is fairly rare these days. I have two dirt cheap AOC 24" 1080p monitors (about $150 each) and they don't use pwm.

Macbook Pros use PWM, which is why I had to return the latest 16 inch model. I was really bummed; but I need to protect my eyes. It was causing severe eye strain.

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#902

Post by andrewzah »

Waterluvian wrote: post #290
asdff wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of my colleagues love a vertical monitor for writing and reading documents.

I loved it too on a mac. When I switched companies and went to an Ubuntu-based laptop, trying to keep the whole monitor scenario working consistently was frustrating, so I dropped it.

To echo the sibling comment: `arandr` makes it easy to save monitor configurations (as a script). Then you can run that script on startup. I.e. for Xorg I put it in my ~/.xinitrc.

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#903

Post by chiefsucker »

waheoo wrote: post #649
gilbetron wrote: post #644

Been developing software for 30+ years, with up to 2 extra monitors, and I always go back to a single display. I'll put myself up against anybody with multiple displays. The thing is, I just alt-tab (or otherwise) to different things - it's not like I can actually perceive more than 1 window at a time, for the most part. The head twisting to see multiple displays bugs me, as does the eye movements across a huge displ…

I used to feel this way. I found it depends on the work. A lot of my old work didnt depend heavily on looking at a terminal output constantly. These days, i have to have about 3-4 things running. The extra screen just becomes a log window. You can argue the software should be redesigned, i do too, but the problem for me remains and a second screen while not solving it, alleviates it a lot. It might have something to…

Tab cycling can be a productivity killer, especially when you need to cycle between more than 4–5 applications (which can happen quite often, but OP wrote “alt-tab (or otherwise)”.

What works excellent (at least for me, not necessary for you) is to set shortcuts to your most used applications (be it the function key row, or some hjkl combinations). With such a setup you can just press a key / combination from muscle memory, instead of opening the tab switcher overlay, parsing it, deciding how often you need to press tab, and then actually switching to the other application window. Keeping shortcuts to applications feels like you would only have to do the last step.

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#905

Post by chiefsucker »

GregorBrandt wrote: post #885
gwbas1c wrote: post #883

Here's the thing: Reading something extremely close to your eyes is unhealthy and causes eyestrain. (Your eyes work harder to focus on closer items.) If your monitor is so close that you can actually see the details described in the article, you're in the eyestrain land. I keep my monitors far enough away that I don't see these details anymore.

My optometrist tells me this is not true. Exercise does not hurt your eyes.

From my limited understanding not the distance is the problem, but the constant focus at a point in the same distance. That’s the reason why they recommend to look at distant objects every 15 minutes or so. Starring at a tree for ten hours straight would have a similar effect, but woods are so complex that your eyes are constantly refocusing.

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#906

Post by ghostpepper »

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…

Since nobody else has mentioned it, if you like i3 you should give Sway a test drive. Wayland still has some rough edges (screen sharing, for example) but it supports high DPI monitors with fractional scaling almost out-of-the-box.

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#907

Post by Havoc »

smabie wrote: post #728
Havoc wrote: post #604

I bought a 4k screen for same programming rationale. Deep regret. From CRT days I know I can see 60hz but not 75hz. I had stupidly assumed that modern 60hz with freesync would be ok. It's not. Especially @ grey colour for some reason (Asus screen). The fact that I was coming from a 120hz laptop screen didn't help the situation either. Anyway...so I'm buying a 144hz 1440p gaming screen next. Screw this resolution game…

I have a Dell S2716DG [ https://www.dell.com/lv/business/p/dell-s2716dg-monitor/pd ] and I absolutely love it: 1440p, 27in, 144hz, 1ms response time (on fast mode), and g-sync. It's great for games and looks very classy. Also the price isn't bad at around ~$500. I would highly recommend it.

Nice screen. Seems to be quite expensive UK side unfortunately. Almost 750 usd on amazon

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#908

Post by ghostpepper »

namdnay wrote: post #784
monadic2 wrote: post #555

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it not visible for you in the displays settings? You DO need all the monitors to have the same DPI or you’d have a window rendered half in one dpi and half in another when dragging across a display boundary.

No, when it’s an external screen I don’t get any scaling options, only the choice of resolution. I have a 24” QHD, so either it’s ridiculously small 2500xSomething or it’s blurry HD :(

I have this problem as well. I actually run my 27-inch 4K screens downscaled on MacOS because the tiny font at native-4K gives me a headache.

The worst thing about it is that scaling seems to use more CPU than running natively and the OS has some noticeably additional latency when running scaled.

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#909

Post by mark-r »

EForEndeavour wrote: post #186
the_af wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, I do use an external 1080p monitor because I can't stand my work laptop's 1366x768 display, which usually gets relegated to email.

May I ask what specific laptop you're using? It's been a while since I've happened on that resolution myself.

A few years ago it was almost impossible to find a laptop that wasn't 1366x768. I'm really glad to see the makers come to their senses.

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#910

Post by mark-r »

a1369209993 wrote: post #425
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…

> nobody will actively dislike a 4K monitor In addition to what thomaslord said [ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23554382 ], 4K monitors tend to be widescreen. 1280x1024 user here; you'll take my aspect ratio when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.

I have a 1920x1200 at home, 16:10 instead of the usual 16:9. I feel the same way, I won't be upgrading that monitor until it dies. That little bit of extra vertical space is so welcome.
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