Comment by ezluckyfree
5 years ago
I agree. I'd rather hi-dpi 32"+ monitors first though. Hidpi displays are becoming standard on top-end laptops but on desktop you're almost out of luck.
It's wild that the only hidpi 32" monitor is ~$5000, and it was released a few years ago now.
My eyeballs need that sweet crisp text.
What are you calling "hi-dpi"? There's a ton of 4k monitors in the 27" to 32" range, which are definitely higher DPI than typical. And for a lot less than $5000.
I'm typing this on a 4k, 32" monitor, which is 137.68 DPI, but I also have a Dell XPS 15, which is 4K and 15", 293.72 DPI, and the difference in sharpness is astounding.
The other problem with hidpi scaling (200%) at 4k 32", is that everything is huge, and you lose a lot of screen real estate.
Honestly I think 8k 36" is the sweet spot.
DPIs don't mean anything unless you factor in viewing distance.
In fact, it is common to recommend a vertical viewing angle of 30 degrees. Not more as it tends to increase eye fatigue and neck pain. If you follow that recommendation, what matters is the definition (the number of pixels), not the resolution in DPI.
So, let's run a few calculations. The "retina" resolution is based on a pixel size of 1 arc-minute, that's 20/20 vision, at 30 degrees, that's 1800 pixels. 4k is 2160 vertical, so that's about the limit of human vision. So, basically, 4k is what you want at any size.
8k is not useless but you are pushing the boundaries here. In order to notice it, you need perfect, over 20/20 vision, high luminosity and high contrast. Beyond 8k, you enter superhuman territory, with an exception: you can notice discontinuities at a much higher resolution (vernier resolution), but it only matters if you don't have anti-aliasing. And of course, high contrast, luminosity and perfect vision.
There are exception. For example there is a limit on how close a screen can be, so having 4k on a tiny smartphone screen is mostly useless. The other end of the spectrum would be VR, with fields of view over 100 degrees, 8k per eye is considered a minimum for an immersive experience.
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Why scale it if you think that makes me everything huge? I don't do the scaling and enjoy the extra real estate.
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There's settings other than 100% and 200%. Set it to 125%. Or 150%.
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I have the same displays as you- Dell 4k @ 15" and currently using a 32" 4k (I sit 2ft away from it). I also have a Macbook Pro 16 (3072×1920). I honestly don't see a substantial difference between any of them, and I'm generally pretty picky about resolution.
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I use 4K 32" with scaling at 100% and it seems totally fine. Lots of real 15-17" laptop screen at 4K makes no sense to me as I can't use 100% as the text size becomes too small.
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You shouldn't be as close to the laptop screen as to the big monitor. And at larger distances the pixel densities can be lower.
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It's that you have to go to such a larger screen size. I just upgraded my monitor from a 1080p. I really wanted a 24" @ 4k for higher dpi and crispness. Practically impossible to find, despite being common on laptops with much smaller screens. I had to go up to 27" instead, which is still crisp, though not as much, and larger than I wanted for the space it's in.
I need both 4K and 120/144Hz on 32inch but it's not available now. Maybe soon.
There was some really dark times around 2002 to 2012 where good CRTs became unavailable and almost every LCD screen was "HD" meaning 1080p. Still at the tail end of these times, I guess.
I suppose my lack of age here is obvious, but what made the CRTs better? Presumably they weren’t outputting any more pixels than LCDs were?
They were. Most tech people I knew had a 19 or 20 inch monitor, at 1600x1200 in the late 90s/early 2000s. 2048x1536 was available too. Early LCDs were usually 1280x1024 and by around 2005, larger sizes and 1080p LCDs were available. It was hard to find anything approaching the pixel density of an old, common CRT until around 2010 if I recall correctly.