27'' 1440p or 4K for work?

[Harvester79]

Hi everyone!

I've been using my U2412M for ages now and figured it's time for a change.

My specific situation is that I like big text/icons/etc. so even though the monitor is 24'' 1920x1200 with 94 ppi I'm still scaling windows to 124% (looks better in a lot of apps than 125 for some reason). I'm sitting an arms length from it and the text doesn't look spectacular, which is too bad because I work with text, so I was wondering:

1. Is higher PPI generally better even when scaled to crazy values, e.g. is 4k scaled to 215+-% > 1440p scaled to 145+-% > 1920x1200 scaled to 125+-%, when it comes to text clarity?

2. Can you do casual gaming on 4k screens by selecting 1080p in game without it becoming a blurry mess?

Cheers!

 

[Megglers]

My son has a 4K that he games on at 1440 and it looks pretty good. At 1080 not so much. I would suggest having hardware to be able to handle 1440.

 

[Dan_D]

I've had a 2560x1440 monitor and I hated it after coming from a 16:10 2560x1600 monitor before that. I was never satisfied with the 1440 crap. Once I went to a 4K setup I've never looked back. All non-native resolutions look like shit unless you can get even mapping like 4:1 etc. 1440 to 4K isn't an even resolution for this. I can't imagine it looking good on any 4K display. Some displays can do 1080P on a 4K monitor at a 4:1 ratio.

 

[Headbust]

I just got a dell P4317Q for work and holy crap it is a great monitor. So great I am going to get one for home as well. Text is only slightly smaller than a smaller lower resolution monitor. The Dell software is great and gives you about 20 options to split the screen in the fashion you want. I mainly use it to split it 4 ways Sonirs roughly 4 1080p screens. A great benefit is when someone walks in and I need to show them something. I double click the window and it's full screen and huge. Great for graphics.

Really great for GPL programming as the wire sheet is gigantic. Excel sheets fit every column across as well in full screen. Really nice and worth the $1000 price tag. Will be getting one for home as well( I don't game anymore really)

 

[Quartz-1]

I've been using my U2412M for ages now and figured it's time for a change.

I upgraded from a 24" Dell U2412M (1200p IPS) to a 24" Dell P2415Q (4K IPS). I also have a 28" Samsung 4K TN monitor.

My specific situation is that I like big text/icons/etc. so even though the monitor is 24'' 1920x1200 with 94 ppi I'm still scaling windows to 124% (looks better in a lot of apps than 125 for some reason). I'm sitting an arms length from it and the text doesn't look spectacular, which is too bad because I work with text, so I was wondering:

1. Is higher PPI generally better even when scaled to crazy values, e.g. is 4k scaled to 215+-% > 1440p scaled to 145+-% > 1920x1200 scaled to 125+-%, when it comes to text clarity?

Yes. Text looks a lot nicer - I have my scaling set to 175% on the P2415Q and 150% on the Samsung. Note also that I have the P2415Q in portrait mode.

2. Can you do casual gaming on 4k screens by selecting 1080p in game without it becoming a blurry mess?

Gaming isn't so good at 1080p on my Samsung 4K monitor as the individual pixels (2x2 pixel groups, actually) become visible, but my system runs my games at 4K anyway, so the question is moot for me. I've not tried gaming on the 24" 4K monitor - as noted above it's in portrait mode.

 

[Harvester79]

My son has a 4K that he games on at 1440 and it looks pretty good. At 1080 not so much. I would suggest having hardware to be able to handle 1440.

It's just that kind of thing that makes it risky. You would think 4K should scale better to 1080 in general, right?

Yes. Text looks a lot nicer - I have my scaling set to 175% on the P2415Q and 150% on the Samsung.
Gaming isn't so good at 1080p on my Samsung 4K monitor as the individual pixels (2x2 pixel groups, actually) become visible

Cool, just what I wanted to know. Do you think pixel-y gaming is because it doesn't scale well or because 1080p is just too low a resolution for 28' anyway'?

I just got a dell P4317Q for work and holy crap it is a great monitor.

I can believe that! I was drooling just by reading about it. However, in my country (in Europe) monitors are often much more expensive, sometimes even by 50 %, so I was aiming for something much cheaper, like:

-27" LG 27UD68-W 4k IPS monitor - the "scale to 1080p, have a sharp image for work and just forget about gaming, movies or anything else completely" solution (not a fan of watching movies on an IPS)
-27'' Dell U2715H 1440p IPS monitor - the "same as what you have now, but a little bit better" solution

Or something completely different, like:
-32'' HP Omen 1440p VA 75hz monitor with freesync - the "forget about the sharper image and have a monitor that for once might be useful for movies and gaming as well as work" solution

 

[illram]

I have a 32" 4K for work and it is heaven. If you can afford the extra real estate >27" I highly recommend it.

 

[Quartz-1]

Do you think pixel-y gaming is because it doesn't scale well or because 1080p is just too low a resolution for 28' anyway'?

The latter. It's been a while, but when I tried a 27" 1080p monitor, I could also see pixels there.

 

[DoubleTap]

It's PPI but also distance. I have a 24" 1440p monitor and while I like it, I also like it to be fairly close and I worry that it might strain my vision or be harder to read if my vision gets worse (20/20 corrected but I'll still have this monitor when I turn 50)

It's nice to have more space on the screen, but as much time as I spend in front of these screens, I'm second guessing myself.

 

[Patriot Engineer]

I just got a dell P4317Q for work and holy crap it is a great monitor. So great I am going to get one for home as well. Text is only slightly smaller than a smaller lower resolution monitor. The Dell software is great and gives you about 20 options to split the screen in the fashion you want. I mainly use it to split it 4 ways Sonirs roughly 4 1080p screens. A great benefit is when someone walks in and I need to show them something. I double click the window and it's full screen and huge. Great for graphics.

Really great for GPL programming as the wire sheet is gigantic. Excel sheets fit every column across as well in full screen. Really nice and worth the $1000 price tag. Will be getting one for home as well( I don't game anymore really)

I’m thinking about buying one of these monitors. Can you capture a close-up of some text, say in a word document? I want to make sure that this monitor does not suffer from some of the “fuzzy text” issues reported on these monitors vs. a conventionally sized 1080P monitor.

 

[Patriot Engineer]

I went ahead and purchased the Dell P4317Q monitor and I am very happy with it. My goal was to replace the (4) 1080p monitors on my desk with a single monitor with a contiguous work space.

This monitor is just as sharp as the 1080p monitors. I am scaling at 100%

Having just one big contiguous workspace is awesome.

Am driving it with a GeForce® GTX 1050 Ti 4G OC Graphics Card. (I don’t need 60 fps.)