My thoughts on 1440p and 4K, 5K, 8K PPI values

[datum]

I welcome increased resolution but I wonder what they were thinking about screen sizes.

There are lots of 27" 4K monitors and 4K does not play well with 27" IMO, using isthisretina, we see that you get 163PPI. IMO 4K works well with the 32" size works out to 138PPI. which is almost perfect.

LG has an interesting proposition, they have this 32" "true" 4K monitor which is 4096x2160. The PPI grows from 138 to 145. Not a huge increase but 138 is already very good. I wonder if 145 is the perfect PPI value. The resolution is great but not so fine you have to use Windows to adjust the scale, effectively making 4K monitors not 4K.

Now take 27" and make it QHD (2560x1440) and you get a PPI value of 109. It's almost perfect but could be just a hair sharper. My daily driver uses one 4K 32" and one 27" QHD monitor. I used to have 2 QHD monitors and one 4K but it was just too much so I have just one of each. 4K is great but I use QHD all the time when I want things to be a bit larger. They both work well together. I've ran QHD monitors ever since they came out and they are great.

I tried a dell 4K in the 27" format and did not like it at all, it was just way too tiny. expand 4K to 32" and it's nice. I know about the Windows scaling method but I never use it and always run things at 100%.

IMO it does not make sense to buy an expensive 4K then adjust it so that it resolves in effect less than 4K. The whole point is to have tiny fonts so you can fit a ton on the screen. But not so tiny they are unusable.

Now with 5K.. the only monitors available are 27" which does not make any sense.
5120 × 2880 on a 27" screen results in sky-high PPI of 217. You cannot use it without a microscope or adjusting the scale from 100% to something higher. This goes in a 'what were they thinking' category. 5K needs at least 32 (with PPI of 183 which is identical to PPI you get with a 27" 4K).

5K would be *perfect* in a 37" format -- with PPI of 159. Huge and very usable. That should be the next step IMO.

Or even a 40" screen, 5K on it and your PPI is the same as "true" 4K on a 32". Or 147.
If I could buy a 5K 40" display, I would, assuming it would not cost $8700.

now Dell also has an 8K display they put in a 32" format. The resulting PPI is 275 and IMO unusable.

8K on a 40" results in a tiny 225 and 47" brings the PPI down to 187.

makes no sense to get involved with 8K unless you get into 47" and up screen sizes. 50" is 176 PPI which is as good as it gets compromise-wise.

 

[datum]

P.S. I intentionally did not bring any refresh values into this which are critical for gaming and moving things, I get it.

 

[Panel]

The resolution is great but not so fine you have to use Windows to adjust the scale, effectively making 4K monitors not 4K.

The whole point is to have tiny fonts so you can fit a ton on the screen. But not so tiny they are unusable.

I’ve seen people essentially have 1 of 2 separate reasons for using high resolution (4K and above) displays:

1. High resolution displays can be small and have a high DPI, thus making everything look sharper.

2. High resolution displays can be large, and essentially increase workspace drastically without adding more displays with irritating bezels.

What you are trying to so, judging by the two quotes above, is the latter, #2. However, I think you’re going towards a “worst of both worlds” type of selection. See, if it were me, and I wanted to get more desktop real estate, I’d stick with the same PPI as QHD, and just make the screen bigger. That would be a 40-43” display (or a TV). Same PPI, more space. At 100% 32”, the text would be way too tiny for me to read.

Now, the above is all hypothetical, because I don’t actually value large screen real estate. I like large screens, but I’m not a fan of a dozen floating windows. So I focus more on #1. If it were me, I’d get a 5K 27” display, then scale everything to 200% so that it would stay the same size, but get much crisper. If I really needed more screen real estate, I’d add a second screen. For me though, although the geek in me wants to, there isn’t much actual reason to waste money on a second or third screen.

 

[Armenius]

There is no such thing as "true" 4K. There is UHD 4K (3840x2160) and DCI 4K (4096x2160). Just as there is "Full HD" (1920x1080) and DCI 2K (2048x1080), which is why I laugh at anyone using "2K" to reference 2560x1440.

 

[datum]

. At 100% 32”, the text would be way too tiny for me to read.

Now, the above is all hypothetical, because I don’t actually value large screen real estate. I like large screens, but I’m not a fan of a dozen floating windows. So I focus more on #1. If it were me, I’d get a 5K 27” display, then scale everything to 200% so that it would stay the same size, but get much crisper. If I really needed more screen real estate, I’d add a second screen. For me though, although the geek in me wants to, there isn’t much actual reason to waste money on a second or third screen.

I have no issues with 4K 32" at 100%. I use web browsers or Netflix, etc. that can be zoomed to fit well into the 4K panorama.

OTOH, Built-in Windows utils aggravate me to no end on 32" 4K. Case in point, Disk Management. It's just way too tiny. It's not possible to increase its font. Unless you scale Windows itself. I run Windows disk management in the QHD monitor. So I heavily use both 4K and QHD. I really like QHD in the 27" format. I would not want to replace it with the 2nd 4K. Unless I scaled the 4K to something resembling QHD, but in which case the question is, why get 4K?

My 27" QHD looks tiny next to the 32" monitor. I wish my 27" NEC PA271W was the size of 32" but at the same 109 PPI it has now. Or slightly higher.

Dell did make an effort to make such a thing, it's called Dell 3008WFP. It is at 2560x1600, 30" in diameter, has an odd 16:10 ratio and the PPI is about 100, lower than standard QHD PPI but not bad and still better than 24" 1080p (91PPI). 3008WFP is not a bad monitor. It is old and not modern but you respect it. it was expensive when new.

but back to scaling, I don't really get the whole concept. Just buy the monitor that results in the resolution you will end up with after scaling. it's cheaper. Not just that but not all programs work well with scaling. If you like QHD, buy QHD. If you like 4K, buy 4K. But buying a very expensive (for now) 5K and then scaling it to 4K or something under 4K does not make any sense.

 

[kasakka]

IMO it does not make sense to buy an expensive 4K then adjust it so that it resolves in effect less than 4K. The whole point is to have tiny fonts so you can fit a ton on the screen. But not so tiny they are unusable.

Now with 5K.. the only monitors available are 27" which does not make any sense.
5120 × 2880 on a 27" screen results in sky-high PPI of 217. You cannot use it without a microscope or adjusting the scale from 100% to something higher. This goes in a 'what were they thinking' category. 5K needs at least 32 (with PPI of 183 which is identical to PPI you get with a 27" 4K).

I don’t get the need to maximize the desktop space. I feel 1440p at 100% scaling already has a lot of space, ultrawide even better. There is just no sense to run anything but very specific desktop software in full screen. I don’t do that for anything but image/3D software, DAW etc yet I often see people put their browser to fullscreen on big displays and then having a huge amount of whitespace because few websites make use of the space.

For me the benefit of 4K+ screens is mostly better text rendering. The way Apple has their 27" 5K screen scaled to have about 1440p desktop space makes it super sharp and even the smallest text readable. That said, 27" is too small. I’d rather sacrifice a little bit of text clarity for more size. 32-40" would be ideal for 4K at desktop viewing distances. Instead we have a big vacuum in exactly that size range with only ultrawide 1440p screens to fill it, especially if you want gaming features too.

You are right that 1440p is right in that area where you wish it was just a little bit sharper on a 27" display. I don’t like it at 32" so we could also use a resolution between 1440p and 4K.

 

[kasakka]

Dell did make an effort to make such a thing, it's called Dell 3008WFP. It is at 2560x1600, 30" in diameter, has an odd 16:10 ratio and the PPI is about 100, lower than standard QHD PPI but not bad and still better than 24" 1080p (91PPI). 3008WFP is not a bad monitor. It is old and not modern but you respect it. it was expensive when new.

I moved from that very model to the 27" 1440p ASUS PG278Q for the high refresh rate and Gsync. I felt the Dell was good but at the same time a bit too big and not sharp enough for its size.

 

[Snowdog]

I have no issues with 4K 32" at 100%. I use web browsers or Netflix, etc. that can be zoomed to fit well into the 4K panorama.

OTOH, Built-in Windows utils aggravate me to no end on 32" 4K. Case in point, Disk Management. It's just way too tiny. It's not possible to increase its font. Unless you scale Windows itself.

It sounds more like you have issues with every application that doesn't have the ability to zoom/increase font size built in. IOW you have problems with apps that don't have their own scaling.

Hence why nearly everyone ends up using Windows scaling on 32" 4K monitor.

Windows applications have been targeted at 96 PPI since way, way back, and much beyond that and most people start feeling things are too small, and start needing Windows Scaling, which is a broken mess, which doesn't work well with older software.

Which is why I have ZERO interest in 4K at 32". I would rather 1440p at that size. MUCH easier on the eyes without having to resort to scaling.

 

[datum]

There is no such thing as "true" 4K. There is UHD 4K (3840x2160) and DCI 4K (4096x2160). Just as there is "Full HD" (1920x1080) and DCI 2K (2048x1080), which is why I laugh at anyone using "2K" to reference 2560x1440.

It does not matter what the naming convention is. Almost all 4K units sold are actually 3840x2160. LG seems to be one of the few exceptions that's 4096. I heard of it being called "Cinema 4K". In any case, the PPI is higher. *That* is the point.

 

[kasakka]

It sounds more like you have issues with every application that doesn't have the ability to zoom/increase font size built in. IOW you have problems with apps that don't have their own scaling.

Hence why nearly everyone ends up using Windows scaling on 32" 4K monitor.

Windows applications have been targeted at 96 PPI since way, way back, and much beyond that and most people start feeling things are too small, and start needing Windows Scaling, which is a broken mess, which doesn't work well with older software.

Which is why I have ZERO interest in 4K at 32". I would rather 1440p at that size. MUCH easier on the eyes without having to resort to scaling.

Windows scaling works perfectly well on apps that are built to support it and don’t use custom UI which requires its own support. The problem is that Windows developers are completely shit at using the latest frameworks or considering usability and visuals compared to Mac developers where most apps scale and fit OS visually. Windows has all the legacy baggage to make scaling work poorly.

 

[datum]

I moved from that very model to the 27" 1440p ASUS PG278Q for the high refresh rate and Gsync. I felt the Dell was good but at the same time a bit too big and not sharp enough for its size.

My taste in resolution falls between 110PPI and 140PPI. Ideally between 120-130PPI.
I can kind of live with 109PPI for some apps. which is what QHD is @27".

That dell has 100PPI, a bit on the low side, yes.

I bought the 30" Dell for $75 and was happy with that. It made a nice gift for someone. I get it that it has been superseded numerous times.

 

[datum]

It sounds more like you have issues with every application that doesn't have the ability to zoom/increase font size built in. IOW you have problems with apps that don't have their own scaling.

Hence why nearly everyone ends up using Windows scaling on 32" 4K monitor.

Windows applications have been targeted at 96 PPI since way, way back, and much beyond that and most people start feeling things are too small, and start needing Windows Scaling, which is a broken mess, which doesn't work well with older software.

Which is why I have ZERO interest in 4K at 32". I would rather 1440p at that size. MUCH easier on the eyes without having to resort to scaling.

I completely get your point.

 

[datum]

1920x1080 looks really good on 17" or 18" screens, generating 130 and 122 PPI, respectively. I have an 18" laptop and I've wondered at times, what if, they made 18" with a QHD configuration and how it would look. The numbers say 160PPI, which is at the upper end of the scale, even shaper than 4K 32" units.


But it looks downright terrible on a 24" display, resulting in only 91PPI. They've even made 1080p 27" units that result in 81 PPI.

 

[Sprinter81]

I have been looking at refurbished samsung syncmaster 4:3 1600x1200. I currently own an Acer Predator 1440p. At one point had a 37inch Westinghouse LVM that this forum was raving about. While the world goes higher and higher, more cost and time I am looking at going back down.

Games take an army of programmers, a committee approval for mass appeal, a loan from Fort Knox and 5-6+ years of development.

No Thanks.