[Okkef]

I recently got a 27" 4k monitor that I use at 2x scaling, and I'm never going back to fewer pixels per inch.

When I now have to look at monitors with a lower PPIU it hurts my eyes. I can see the individual pixels very clearly and letters are blurry. Much less eyestrain on 4k, can recommend!

[odshoifsdhfs]

I have one like that, and having a MBP retina driving it below it, I can't not notice the pixels on the 4k monitor. I wish we could have more options either 24@4K or 27@5K. Having a retina display next to it makes the differences quite apparent.

[dan1234]

I’d second the more 24”@4ks! I’ve had 2x24” 1080ps for years, and I really think they’re the sweet spot for my setup. I think 2x27” will be too large, and the super wide monitors lose too much real estate vs 2x monitors.

[glandium]

I have 2x24" 1920x1200s (16:10) and would love 4ks instead... if they were 24" and 16:10...

[amatheus]

I have two 24@4K and it's great. Unfortunately, Dell stopped making this model (P2415Q), in fact the second one I bought used because Dell had no more stock.

[MrBuddyCasino]

Even considering a resolution below 4k on a large monitor is absurd. This invalidated the whole article for me.

[colordrops]

100% agree. I don't understand how anyone uses lower DPI screens at this point. I got one from work and immediately packed it up and returned it once I founded out it was lower res. A large curved display at 1080p has pixels the size peanuts.

[fwoty]

For text rendering, 4k doesn't really work for 27" or bigger. It'd work for 24" because you could do true @2x, but there aren't many out there. For 27", besides the UltraFine 5k, I'd prefer just using @1x with 1440p too.

[pivo]

Everyone’s different, I guess. For me, I’m often struck by how lovely things look on my 27” 4K monitor. I have several older 1440 monitors that I no longer use because they look so grainy and unpleasant now.

(Edit: I’m using macOS, might be different for other systems)

[SOLAR_FIELDS]

Everyone is different! I have a Lenovo 2560x1440 monitor I bought circa 2018 for personal use for around $200 USD that is my daily driver on my home desktop. Around that same period I was using one of the LG 5k monitors at my place of work. The 5k is nicer, of course, and I can fit a lot more into the screen, but for the way I work the cheap 1440 is just fine nowadays. I use a tiling window manager and usually have my screen separated into a 2x2 grid where a program either uses a half or a quadrant of that grid. Even gridded up like that the 1440p is almost always enough space for me (code that violates the character length in vscode is sometimes an annoyance).

[krrrh]

A preference for 24” or 27” at 4k is also largely impacted by how far away you position the monitor from your face.

[fwoty]

I suppose if you put it quite far away, a 27" 4k @2x scaling would work well. It'd feel like a 24" 1080p monitor with retina sharpness.

For all the folks confused why I'm saying you don't want a 27" 4k monitor for text, it's because the PPI isn't nicely sized for 1x or 2x, which means you have to set it to scaling that rounds and blurs subpixels.

More info: https://www.caseyliss.com/2017/5/17/retina-monitors

By the way, I'm sure most 27" 4k monitors look fantastic and you should enjoy them! Especially if you don't mind or notice the scaling rounding or if you run it @2x and like the 1080p real estate.

[michaelmrose]

> For all the folks confused why I'm saying you don't want a 27" 4k monitor for text, it's because the PPI isn't nicely sized for 1x or 2x, which means you have to set it to scaling that rounds and blurs subpixels.

This appears to be either a misunderstanding or a description of a deficiency in your environment for example Apple devices. For text there are 2 factors that control its size the designated size in points and for apps not sophisticated enough to scale elements appropriately according to DPI a scaling factor.

You appear to be suggesting that if you only had one knob you would be stuck with text that was either too small or too big however one or an application can adjust the size of the text independent of an integer scaling factor to produce a desirable end result. The same thing is true of images which are already trivially displayed at a different absolute sizes like every image on your browser ever.

For example on Linux most apps you are liable to run that aren't simplistic text apps are liable to be either QT or GTK. QT apps intelligently scale, GTK apps rely on a scaling factor one can set for example with an environmental variable. In both cases there is a setting for font size that effects 90% of apps of that stripe the minority having their own configuration.

It is incredibly trivial to have an environment that looks nice at any size.

[colordrops]

I don't understand you comment. My 4k 27" renders fonts just fine.

[fwoty]

If you go to true 2x scaling, things will be the same size as 1920x1080@1x on a 27". For me, that's HUGE and you don't get enough screen real estate for a 27". If you use 1.5x scaling you will lose sharpness because things won't line up to pixels perfectly.

[colordrops]

Ah I see what you mean. I use fractional scaling without an issue.

[bladegash]

Same here - have three 27inch 4k Ultrafine monitors and fonts render just fine (and are generally amazing).

[Meritiooo]

My eizo 27" 4k likes to tell a different story.

[fwoty]

What scaling do you run it in? If you do @2x things are massive for my taste and you don't have enough screen real estate (same space as 1920x1080).

[Wertiho]

You can configure widget sizes and font sizes independtly.

UI scaling set to have enough space and font size for readability.

[fwoty]

Definitely, and it's probably not very noticeable, but there's no escaping the physical problem of not a perfect 1:1 or 2:1 pixel ratio.

Say you have a UI element that's supposed to be 9px wide. If you have perfect 2:1 pixel ratio you can use 18 physical pixels and it's as sharp as the monitor can be. If you're using UI scaling of say 1.5, the monitor needs to use 13.5 physical pixels to render it. Except that's not possible, so it will average together the 13th pixel with the 15th pixel (simplifying). It's basically introducing an extra anti-aliasing pass to your frame. This is is why the Apple/LG 24" is 4k and the 27" is 5k. All that said, I'm sure 4k @ 27" even with 1.5x scaling still looks great and you'd never notice the difference, except if you had the two right next to each other.

[vosper]

3440 x 1440 works well for me. Planning to stack another.

[chrisseaton]

Funny I have a 27" 4k and it's low resolution compared to for example a basic MacBook Pro laptop screen.

[hyakosm]

The lack of options for 27 inch 5K monitors is disappointing. There is nothing cheaper than the old Ultrafine 5K.

[formerly_proven]

There used to be more options in that market segment but lack of interest kinda made them extinct.

[BeFlatXIII]

Gamers and business buyers drive the market. Neither care about pixel density.

[glandium]

What baffles my mind is that retina densities are so much better for CJK languages, and yet, we don't see more retina densities in those markets. They must like the pixel blobs for characters with large number of strokes... /s

[chrisseaton]

Business buyers care about text... which is better with higher pixel density.

[adhesive_wombat]

Business users care about that.

Having used many monitors in businesses, I can only assume that the buyers do not.

[SirZimzim]

Yes, but the difference doesn't have any real impact on productivity.

[wruza]

Don’t try 144hz then, because it is as addictive, but no cheap 4k/144hz options exist yet in IPS category (although the situation is much better than say 4-5 years ago).

[phkahler]

>> 4k monitor that I use at 2x scaling, and I'm never going back to fewer pixels per inch.

Doesn't that scaling make it effectively 1080? I use a 55" curved 4k TV and will never go back. The ability to "spread stuff out on the desktop" is unmatched.

[sgt]

No, the point of 4k and scaling is that you still have a very high pixel density, so things look smooth and sharp. I would not think a native resolution using a 4k 27" screen would make much sense, as things would be tiny.

[colordrops]

Depends on the scaling. They are probably not talking about pixel scaling, but font and UI scaling, which means things stay just as sharp when scaled up.

[fwoty]

I don't think that's possible? Say if you had a perfect 1px wide black line @1x and then you change UI scaling set to 1.5, you now have a 1.5px (physical) wide line. Which means you'll get blurring.

[colordrops]

If you are displaying images with one pixel lines, yes. Buy how often do you view an image scaled to exactly one image pixel per screen pixel. And when it comes to UI and font toolkits, they account for variable scaling aren't usually drawing single pixel features. Anyway I haven't noticed any blurring. You'll only really get noticable blurring if you render at say 1x and display at more than 1x because the detail just isn't there.

[fwoty]

I think this always applies. For instance the border on this textarea is 1px. There's nothing the OS can do, it's a physical issue. If UI scaling is 1.5, the correct answer for the size of the border is now 1.5 physical pixels. The best you can do is color the first pixel black and the second pixel the average of the first and third pixels. I might be wrong on this but I can't imagine what else it could do (other than mis-sizing the element).

I do agree that it probably looks fine and you wouldn't actually notice, unless you had an @2x monitor right next to it (of which there are sadly very few options)

[colordrops]

If I'm not mistaken, you are talking about aliasing, and you are going to see that no matter what. There are always going to be assets made at a certain size and scaled to fit the particular element on the screen regardless of DPI. You'll perhaps see aliasing less with a 1080p screen since older UIs are built with them in mind, but these issues will be there regardless. Web pages will be this way on any monitor since they are always scaled.

[secondcoming]

Funny, I'm the opposite. I don't think the price increase for 4k is worth the PPI gain. I 'upgraded' to [0] and I would have stuck with 2k but my laptop was 4k (also not worth it IMO) and having a thunderbolt connection in the monitor is quite useful.

[0] https://www.samsung.com/uk/monitors/high-resolution/tu87f-32...

[conartist]

I've been on the fence about updating to 4K from an Ultrawide but the eye strain is the big reason I want to.