[dustin999]

"The myth I keep hearing is that you must go to larger fonts when scaling up to a 4K monitor. This is not exactly true. Do the math. If you double the screen resolution and at the same time you double the screen width, you have done absolutely nothing to the size of a pixel or the physical size of your fonts."

Yeah but it's a 39" monitor... On your desk! Seriously, I'm all for the largest monitor and resolution and everything else, but there's a point where I'd argue it's just too much. I think a 39" monitor on your desk is crossing that line. I can't imagine the neck strain that's going to occur.

Instead of selling extended warranties, they need to start selling these with chiropractic insurance.

Full disclosure: I just went through several days of research on 1440p vs 4k. I went into it assuming I'd get a 4k monitor, but in the end, opted for the 1440p monitor because I refused to stick a 39" monitor on my desk, and the 28" 4k would require DPI scaling and all that mess.

I'd get a 4k for gaming, assuming I had a rig that could power games at that resolution. Otherwise, I'm happy with my decision to get the Asus PB278Q 1440p monitor.

[pmoriarty]

A 39" monitor is too big???

I'm impatiently awaiting the day when the norm is high-DPI monitors that seamlessly extend to take up whole walls.. all my walls, to be precise.

Projectors are nice, but the resolution's not there yet. Not to mention the poor color gamuts, poor dynamic range, and typical lack of 3D.

Basically, I won't be satisfied until I get the holodeck... or a neural jack.

39" monitors. psshhh

[digi_owl]

> Basically, I won't be satisfied until I get the holodeck... or a neural jack.

How about a Rift work space?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=db-7J5OaSag

[spyder]

"Projectors are nice, but the resolution's not there yet."

You could just use multiple projectors to get higher resolution, but i agree the color and the dynamic range is a problem with projectors.

http://www.scalabledisplay.com/

http://www.matrox.com/graphics/en/products/graphics_cards/m_...

[dustin999]

Yes A 39" monitor is too big for a desktop. If I'm having to move my head all the time while I'm working, that's a no-go for me.

[woodchuck64]

Maybe a large monitor should be like a large desk. You only work on what's in front of you but with a glance around you quickly see everything that needs your attention. With a small monitor or small desk, things get stacked and buried, hidden in drawers/folders etc.

[notjackma]

> I can't imagine the neck strain that's going to occur.

I was wondering about this too and the impact on your eyes. For a 39" monitor it's recommended you sit over 5ft away, so the optimal desk environment for such a large monitor will be interesting.

http://www.rtings.com/info/television-size-to-distance-relat...

[VLM]

Less, not more.

Too close and the pixels are going to be "big" and too far away and the pixels are going to be invisible.

For example, at 15 feet away the high res would be a waste of money for that screen size, you can't see better than 480 lines at that range.

Extending my arm, I seem to be around 2.5 feet from this screen. Doing the math, higher that 4K at 40 inch screen would be visibly noticeable although its kind of borderline, so 4K should be good enough.

[to3m]

DPI would be more of an issue than screen size, I think. I've got 2 portrait (1200x1920) 24" monitors side by side, one in front of me and one to the right: 28" wide, 22" high, for a 35" diagonal. It looks like this: http://quadruple-a.com/2_portrait_monitors.jpg

I find this works well, and isn't too overpowering. A 35"x23" arrangement would surely be no problem in terms of overall size - but you would be squeezing 1.8x as many pixels into rather less than 1.8x the space. Not sure my favourite 6x13 xterm font would look so good any more...

(I also tried adding a 3rd identical monitor on the left (total 42" wide, 22" high, 47" diagonal), and this looked perfectly manageable. So I'd probably be able to handle a 50" monitor... maybe. 3 monitors all lined up was starting to look a bit intimidating. And in the end Linux wouldn't display anything on the 3rd monitor anyway, so what it would actually be like in practice, I couldn't say.)

[lelandbatey]

A 39 inch monitor is not nearly as bad as it sounds.

I am currently using 3 1080p monitors in portrait[0], a setup that I like quite a lot. Here are some measurements:

    Width :  39 inches
    Height:  22 inches

    Avg. distance from eyes to monitor:
        22 inches

    Maximum head movement to look left/right edge of monitors:
        40 degrees

    Estimated maximum head movement during use:
        20 degrees

It's a very comfortable setup, and allows for a huge amount of screen real-estate[1]. However, I will say that I use it in a somewhat "different" way compared to other setups. The middle monitor is the main workspace, and is where windows with active work on them go. The left and right monitors hold the 4+ windows with non-active or asynchronous information, like chat windows, documentation, comparison code windows, etc.

[0] - http://i.imgur.com/JPY2sum.jpg

[1] - http://i.imgur.com/FEumEXi.png

[chadzawistowski]

Out of curiosity, what color scheme are you using in Sublime Text?

[_raul]

My guess is twilight: http://colorsublime.com/theme/Twilight

[lelandbatey]

You are correct, it is twilight.

[washadjeffmad]

I've been using a SE39UY04 under Linux for the past year at about a two foot viewing distance, and it's no strain to use. I'm slightly elevated to its center because I use a stationary bike as my chair, which also allows me to lean in or out as I need. It is pretty big, so I'd probably hate using it if I had to sit in a regular chair all day, too though.

Also, since most major Linux distros handle HiDPI scaling for you out of the box, I only did minor tweaking for text in dconf. Pretty painless overall, physically and literally.

When I game at 1080_120 or 1440_60, I do scoot back a little more out of habit, but it looks amazing close up. I have another 1080_60 TV the same size, and I have to sit across the room if I don't want to see the pixels. If I did get another monitor, it'd be a 22ish inch 1440_144 overclock. They seem pretty much ideal size, refresh, and DPI wise.

[leoc]

In principle at least, there's no reason why having a larger proportion of your field of view covered by the screen ought to make things worse. If fullscreening a document is going to make it uncomfortable to read, well, don't do that then. Now in practise not being able to just fullscreen things can be awkward, but that's a software problem with current OS GUIs, not a hardware issue. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8634121

[bryanlarsen]

I think 40" is exactly right. I've been using a 30" monitor for 8 years now. At first it seemed overly large. Now I want one more column, and find 27" cramped when I have to use one of those.

I am concerned about throwing too much light at my eyes. That's why my next monitor will be one that has solid blacks and good contrast.

I'm not concerned about neck strain. I bet you're more likely to get neck strain holding your neck in the same place for 8 hours than you would