[theideaofcoffee]

My 7 year old QHD monitor pair through a M1 Pro MBP still looks fantastic. Then again, I do spend most of my day in apple Terminal, but I'm not really in want of anything more. Some other sibling comments are saying Windows 10/11 looks crappy, and I agree, as I have to occasionally switch between the two, I just don't like working in Windows anymore, mostly because of the poor display.

[seec]

I use both OS on the same display and Windows looks much better on an "old" no Hi-DPI display, I can tell you that much.

I used to dislike Windows font rendering, but it's still better than what macOS gives you for "regular" displays. You can fix it somewhat with BetterDisplay but still...

[tijtij]

Modern versions of macOS don't support subpixel rendering, what Windows calls ClearType, so that is why macOS will always look worse on low resolution displays.

Using BetterDisplay to force a "2x" resolution will give you better rendering but at the cost of lower usable/effective resolution.

[seec]

Yeah sure I know that, which is why I relate my experience to that is the result of those engineering choices.

It's pretty funny that you need special hardware to keep nice macOS font rendering to stand in comparison to Windows.

Microsoft has a lot of problems but they are way more pragmatic in their choices giving a "good enough" experience on most hardware. But if you don't follow Apple's choice, your experience can go from great to barely passable in an instant.

Very different approaches, but as I'm getting older, I understand why the one from Microsoft is popular and why they deliver more value.