Pixels/inch with 4K displays

One concern I see regarding the influx of 4K displays is that the pixels/inch density is getting too dense that it will make everything tiny.

I currently have a 2560x1440 display at 27" diagonal, which has a 109ppi. Some of the 4K displays I'm seeing have 140ppi.

I'm hoping they'll make 4K at around 109ppi.

Currently normal DPI is seen only for bigger 4K TVs. From currently available of interest might be Panasonic ones (that have also DisplayPort input, MST one though). But imho it's worth to wait a bit for next gen of Seiki's, that supposedly will have DP 1.3 & HDMI 2.0 (hopefully together with more then reasonable price, like 1st gen are). Otherwise 140 DPI of even biggest available now 4K monitor (31.5" sharp and all it's clones) seems to me too dense to use @100% scaling (even if forget about it being overpriced). For 4K i'd prefer to start with 39-40" with 48-50" being optimum imho. (DPI of 4K 50" = DPI of FHD 24")

Church said:

... (DPI of 4K 50" = DPI of FHD 24")

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This.
But also, text only looks as big if you sit the same distance as you would from the 24" screen.
This doesnt work out too well even of your head is the same distance from the screen centre, because the screen edges are much further away (unless you change your head position depending on which area of the screen you are using).

And being a much larger screen you will likely prefer being further away.

So you may need to use scaling as well.

But that is what i want - at same normal distance with same normal dpi i find normal & accepatable with common displays i had .. just bigger size of display and due higher resolution still crisp image and more screen estate. People using multimonitors have it much worse but don't whine. I'll have same but without bezels in picture and not as wide. Even on 27" i don't use apps maximized (except games & movies). Same will be on 50" 4K, just that i can fit more apps side by side there. Summarizing it - see no need for bigger display (with accompanying higher res) to be located in further distance. I'll wait for acceptable models that will do fine on all points of picture quality/price/size/input ports wise though, as currently there is not one that satisfy all of those.

Church said:

For 4K i'd prefer to start with 39-40" with 48-50" being optimum imho. (DPI of 4K 50" = DPI of FHD 24")

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Fully agreed. I am waiting for 48-50" 4k displays to make the jump. 48" would be the best IMHO, since I could add a couple more 24" 1080p or 32" 1440p to the side for further workspace enhancement, but 50" would be awesome too.
I was seriously pondering the Panasonic AX800 50" 4k, but 1600€ is far too much IMHO.
It pisses me off so much that Seiki didn't release their 39" and 50" immediately with only displayport. If they had, the whole goddamn market would have been theirs for over a year, and they'd have made a SHITTON of money from it...

Church said:

But that is what i want - at same normal distance with same normal dpi i find normal & accepatable with common displays i had .. just bigger size of display and due higher resolution still crisp image and more screen estate. People using multimonitors have it much worse but don't whine. I'll have same but without bezels in picture and not as wide. Even on 27" i don't use apps maximized (except games & movies). Same will be on 50" 4K, just that i can fit more apps side by side there. Summarizing it - see no need for bigger display (with accompanying higher res) to be located in further distance. I'll wait for acceptable models that will do fine on all points of picture quality/price/size/input ports wise though, as currently there is not one that satisfy all of those.

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At some point the resolution will be too high for the distance you sit, maybe 4K is over your limit.
If your eyesight isnt good enough to cover all your bases, you wont like using such high res without scaling.
Fact of life I'm afraid.

Even if you go for a 100" screen, you will have the same problem at some point as screen resolution increases.
You will need to start using scaling or physically move to the section of screen you intend to use.

ps the multi display setup is a bit different.
You turn your head to be in the centre of each 1080p screen, each of which is angled toward you.
Turning your head on a single 4K screen doesnt have the same effect because your head is not in the centre of each quadrant.

I can speak only from my experience - for a while i had chinese made skyworth 50" 4K TV. I disliked 30Hz refresh rate .. but i quickly adapted & liked size & res. It was at same distance on table as 27" 1920x1200 dell before it. Thus i plan similar sized as purchase in future, just when it will have all the required checkboxes - reasonable price, 60Hz via DP SST (or if future gpus by then will have native HDMI 2.0 support). I had to "turn head" even on 27" or current 32" 2560x1440 - but i didn't - simply because my workflow and habits of use are as described in previous post - several non maximized app windows in portrait dimensions side by side. I "work/concentrate/look upon" just one at a time. Rest is for periphery vision like different notifiers or to switch to temporary via glance eg. for reference of some documentation or for copy&paste from another file ..

50" is just too big for a computer screen. It would be like sitting in the first row in the cinema. I only like to move my eyes and not my head.

I have a 28" 4K display, so I'm using scaling, and I'm perfectly fine with it. The only problem is those lousy applications that don't scale.

I could maybe go up to 32" but anything larger than that means I have to sit further back, which means more scaling, and less detail visible in applications thus rendering the point of 4K redundant.

M76 said:

50" is just too big for a computer screen. It would be like sitting in the first row in the cinema. I only like to move my eyes and not my head.

I have a 28" 4K display, so I'm using scaling, and I'm perfectly fine with it. The only problem is those lousy applications that don't scale.

I could maybe go up to 32" but anything larger than that means I have to sit further back, which means more scaling, and less detail visible in applications thus rendering the point of 4K redundant.

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Once you try a 40"+ 4k screen without scaling you'll change your idea.

Those "lousy applications that don't scale" make up too big share. Those that do scale, often require individual reconfiguration/hidded settings, or have only partial support with bugs. Many from those not high dpi aware ones are major high profile apps as well. While OS provides facilities/APIs for good UI/font scaling, no OS vendor can force tens of thousands apps to be bugfixed/enhanced/fixed/rewritten by mirriad of 3rd party developers/vendors - it's left to goodwill of them .. and i am too pragmatic to believe in rosy future that they all will put in required man hours and money for apps to be fixed. +Lot of apps/games i wish to use are old ones, not updated for ages. If i pay for something above average to get something better, then i don't want to compromise and have to suffice drawbacks in other areas nor i want to give up some apps or some workflow i'm used to and switch to others, nor i want to spend lot of time workaround buggy scaling implementations. I just want to use hardware i bought with least problems i can. 100% scaling on bigger size screens is the answer. +I wished for bigger size screens itself for a long time .. problem being that for many years all screens >30" - limited to just FullHD. 4K simply finally enables to fulfill that wish without pixels getting ugly big as they would on big FHD placed at normal PC display distances. All i need - to wait a bit for fitting displays to be purchasable. Not some small sized too high DPI ones with crappy TN panel with horrid colorshift, not DP MST ones and with load of problems and limitations due that, not uber priced to sell my kindeys to afford it.

M76 said:

50" is just too big for a computer screen. It would be like sitting in the first row in the cinema. I only like to move my eyes and not my head.

I have a 28" 4K display, so I'm using scaling, and I'm perfectly fine with it. The only problem is those lousy applications that don't scale.

I could maybe go up to 32" but anything larger than that means I have to sit further back, which means more scaling, and less detail visible in applications thus rendering the point of 4K redundant.

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I have a 28" 4K display and a 39" Seiki 4K UHD TV. I use scaling on the 28" but not exclusively because I turn it off for certain tasks. Scaling itself isn't much of an issue to me because I typically use the 28" with OS X and the Apple implementation of scaling seems to work fairly well despite specific applications,......for the most part anyway or at least from what I have seen. Windows scaling isn't quite at the same level but future versions of Windows may address this.

I use the 39" Seiki without scaling in Windows and I don't think its too big at all. It fills my field of view fairly well and I don't have any problems with it.

Having actually used it for desktop work I simply don't understand the talk about having to sit further back (to any significant degree) or having to turn ones head and so on. None of that is an issue for me or even a consideration.

I have a triple display setup that requires me to turn my head for the flanking monitors but even that isn't a big deal or a hardship IMO.

24" 4K display here - I love it because it's like reading a magazine - no jaggies, hardly see the pixels. For reading text it's awesome and my photos look very detailed - almost as good as a paper photograph (even better than a real one in terms of color reproduction compared to a photo print).

There seem to be two camps - those who want a bigger display with more pixels for more real estate, and those who want higher pixel density for more realistic images.

Octavean said:

I have a 28" 4K display and a 39" Seiki 4K UHD TV. I use scaling on the 28" but not exclusively because I turn it off for certain tasks. Scaling itself isn't much of an issue to me because I typically use the 28" with OS X and the Apple implementation of scaling seems to work fairly well despite specific applications,......for the most part anyway or at least from what I have seen. Windows scaling isn't quite at the same level but future versions of Windows may address this.

I use the 39" Seiki without scaling in Windows and I don't think its too big at all. It fills my field of view fairly well and I don't have any problems with it.

Having actually used it for desktop work I simply don't understand the talk about having to sit further back (to any significant degree) or having to turn ones head and so on. None of that is an issue for me or even a consideration.

I have a triple display setup that requires me to turn my head for the flanking monitors but even that isn't a big deal or a hardship IMO.

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Multiple monitors setup is completely different, you focus on the center of the screen of course you turn your head, but if you use one screen and run a fullscreen application you want to see the whole screen at the same time. For desktop applications I guess it's good to have a big 4K screen without scaling, but for games I don't think so.

As for scaling, I played around for a week with cleartype and scaling settings until I got it right, but now I see no disadvantage compared to no scaling. True by default text can get extremely bad.

Rectal Prolapse said:

24" 4K display here - I love it because it's like reading a magazine - no jaggies, hardly see the pixels. For reading text it's awesome and my photos look very detailed - almost as good as a paper photograph (even better than a real one in terms of color reproduction compared to a photo print).

There seem to be two camps - those who want a bigger display with more pixels for more real estate, and those who want higher pixel density for more realistic images.

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I want a big display with high pixel density, 8K FTW! (40" 4K display here, because it is more useful for my purposes, but 40" 8K would be awesome)

Thingol said:

I want a big display with high pixel density, 8K FTW! (40" 4K display here, because it is more useful for my purposes, but 40" 8K would be awesome)

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I want a 100" 10240x4320@120hz curved OLED! That's gonna be my ultimate display!

And i'd go for 4K occulus rift IV