Best High PPI Displays

[Panel]

I’ve noticed that there’s a heavy focus on input lag and refresh rate when it comes to displays here.

Today, I wanted to ask if you have any recommendations for displays that are excellent with high PPI. I don’t really care about refresh rate or input, just the resolution and overall quality of the image. I know there are far too many crappy $200 4K monitors out there to just judge based on that one number. I need help in knowing which ones actually, you know, look good.

 

[sethk]

What size and budget? Is max ppi with good IQ your main criteria? I know there are some IPS 23” 4k screens. There are also some very expensive pro monitors for image and video grading/ review that cost thousands of $ and have great quality but not sure if you’re looking for something like that.

 

[Panel]

What size and budget? Is max ppi with good IQ your main criteria?

Yes, it is my main criteria. I’m glad you mentioned size and budget though, because those $5K professional screens are definitely out of it, and the 23” screens would be too small.

So, I don’t really want to spend more than $1500 on this. The size I’m looking for between 27” and 32”. I’d honestly be fine with up to 35”, but I don’t think there’s anything above 32” until you hit 40” (which is too big).

 

[sethk]

The further you go up in size, the lower the PPI. Other than the rare odd duck 5K screen, resolutions tend to max out at 4K.
That said, 4K @ 32” is still relatively high DPI for a desktop and that may be the sweet spot for an IPS display with good color and decent DPI. There are a few entry level pro monitors in that size that are pretty well calibrated (hardware addressable 14bit LUT) or can be dialed in pretty easily with a colorimeter and should fit your budget in the US (e.g. PA32uc)
There should be a higher PPI IPS 28” 4k soon but no firm date and you’d have to wait for reviews regarding image quality.

 

[Panel]

The further you go up in size, the lower the PPI. Other than the rare odd duck 5K screen, resolutions tend to max out at 4K.
That said, 4K @ 32” is still relatively high DPI for a desktop and that may be the sweet spot for an IPS display with good color and decent DPI. There are a few entry level pro monitors in that size that are pretty well calibrated (hardware addressable 14bit LUT) or can be dialed in pretty easily with a colorimeter and should fit your budget in the US (e.g. PA32uc)
There should be a higher PPI IPS 28” 4k soon but no firm date and you’d have to wait for reviews regarding image quality.

Wow… honestly, that looks like a phenomenal display. I’ll admit though, I am a little worried about FALD on a monitor. Even with that many zones, I’m concerned about getting the glow effect around my cursor (I’m not sure what the “technical” term for this is… the halo effect?).
Do you think that would be an issue with this one?

Have you heard about the quality of LG’s Ultrafine 5K? That’s not nearly as good a display (only 500 nits), but it is a lot cheaper to make up for it.

 

[Armenius]

Wow… honestly, that looks like a phenomenal display. I’ll admit though, I am a little worried about FALD on a monitor. Even with that many zones, I’m concerned about getting the glow effect around my cursor (I’m not sure what the “technical” term for this is… the halo effect?).
Do you think that would be an issue with this one?

Have you heard about the quality of LG’s Ultrafine 5K? That’s not nearly as good a display (only 500 nits), but it is a lot cheaper to make up for it.

Haloing is only an issue if you always use the dynamic backlight with a FALD. If you turn it off then a constant voltage is applied across the array, making the monitor appear like one with a standard backlight and no haloing present. The dynamic backlight should only be used with active content like movies and games, in my opinion, and turning it off with static content.

 

[Panel]

Any other suggestions guys? Those LG 5K displays are still pretty attractive.

 

[AgentQ]

The LG Ultrafine 5K is an excellent monitor if you have a Thunderbolt 3 source. It's my top choice for image quality. Really outstanding to use with a Mac.

I switched to the LG Ultrawide 5K2K monitor. The PPI is lower than the 5K Ultrafine, but it's only really noticeable when you have them side by side. For my workflows, the added width of the 5K2K Ultrawide is more valuable than the increased IQ of the 5K Ultrafine.

 

[Panel]

The LG Ultrafine 5K is an excellent monitor if you have a Thunderbolt 3 source. It's my top choice for image quality. Really outstanding to use with a Mac.

I switched to the LG Ultrawide 5K2K monitor. The PPI is lower than the 5K Ultrafine, but it's only really noticeable when you have them side by side. For my workflows, the added width of the 5K2K Ultrawide is more valuable than the increased IQ of the 5K Ultrafine.

After months and months of deliberation, I finally bought an LG UltraFine 5K. For my usage, I don’t regret it one small bit. The text quality is so clear, it looks like the printed page. After seeing the effect of high PPI, the only other option I’d even consider is the LG 5K2K, but it’s a little too late to try out that one. In any case, solid recommendation. Seeing how there are similar offering out there from Dell for sub $800 price-tags, I don’t think I could recommend anything different for text-work, even on Windows.

 

[kasakka]

After months and months of deliberation, I finally bought an LG UltraFine 5K. For my usage, I don’t regret it one small bit. The text quality is so clear, it looks like the printed page. After seeing the effect of high PPI, the only other option I’d even consider is the LG 5K2K, but it’s a little too late to try out that one. In any case, solid recommendation. Seeing how there are similar offering out there from Dell for sub $800 price-tags, I don’t think I could recommend anything different for text-work, even on Windows.

How are you hooking it up? These are mainly made to work with Macs and seem to require a Thunderbolt PCIe card or adapter or something to work with say a Nvidia GPU.

I use the Ultrafine 5K at work and it's pretty great but I wish I had the 5K2K ultrawide instead because of the additional desktop space. 16:9 just feels so small after being used to working on an ultrawide at home but I do like the high PPI.

 

[Panel]

How are you hooking it up? These are mainly made to work with Macs and seem to require a Thunderbolt PCIe card or adapter or something to work with say a Nvidia GPU.

I use the Ultrafine 5K at work and it's pretty great but I wish I had the 5K2K ultrawide instead because of the additional desktop space. 16:9 just feels so small after being used to working on an ultrawide at home but I do like the high PPI.

It’s being used as a productivity display for the most part, so I’ve got it plugged into a Mac directly through Thunderbolt. For other systems, like you said, you’d need a Gigabyte Thunderbolt add-in PCIe card to make it work. They’re not particularly expensive, so that’s a plus.

I’m also starting to feel a bit of remorse for not going with the 5K2K, but mostly because there are so many 4K videos out there on YouTube and the like that don’t scale all that well on the 5K. Seems like a small issue, but YouTube videos are something I’d prefer not to use a different system for, so it’s just a tad annoying.

 

[kasakka]

It’s being used as a productivity display for the most part, so I’ve got it plugged into a Mac directly through Thunderbolt. For other systems, like you said, you’d need a Gigabyte Thunderbolt add-in PCIe card to make it work. They’re not particularly expensive, so that’s a plus.

I’m also starting to feel a bit of remorse for not going with the 5K2K, but mostly because there are so many 4K videos out there on YouTube and the like that don’t scale all that well on the 5K. Seems like a small issue, but YouTube videos are something I’d prefer not to use a different system for, so it’s just a tad annoying.

Never though that would be problem. I guess it gets a little bit blurrier when set to fullscreen?

 

[Panel]

Never though that would be problem. I guess it gets a little bit blurrier when set to fullscreen?

Yeah, exactly. Definitely a first world problem (I still use this as the YouTube machine of choice), but noticeable and worth mentioning.