I use it at the max
That doesn't look quite as good, but it is still incomparably better than a low-res screen.
But I mostly use a 27" 5K desktop monitor (a Dell UP2715K, which I believe uses the same panel as the high-res 27" iMac). This is fucking the best. I used to have a pair of 24" 4K monitors, which seemed good at the time, but this is massively better.
It looks a lot better than the "retina" 15" MBP, so I think that goes to show that we still need even more pixel density before the diminishing returns really start kicking in...
At the same time, though, I am 41, and my eyesight has noticeably deteriorated (though not so much that they will give me glasses). It might be that the youth of today really need an 8K or higher resolution at 27".
But even my old-ass eyes can tell you that a 4K 27" monitor sucks. 4K is only good up to about 21" and then you start to again see the pixels. 5K really is a major step up, even though the cable is forked at the ends so it can have 2 mini-DP connectors...
wow 5k have significant differences from 4k? maybe i should try that. but again, the forked dp cables means current (mobile at least) graphical power is still sorely lacking. and i'm still waiting for the 5k to be more available and being more affordable.
Intuitively, I expected 5K at 27" to be roughly the same as 4K at 24". But, nope. It's dramatically better than 4K at 24". I had them side by side in a 3-monitor setup for a time, but within about 30 seconds I though, ugh, I can't even stand to LOOK at these barbaric 4Ks ever again! and I unloaded them on craigslist.
But don't take my word for it; every Apple store has a 5K 27" iMac on display.
It doesn't actually look crisper to my eye than a "retina" MacBook Pro -- the huge difference, though, is that the 17" 5K panel is awesome at its native resolution. On the MBP you definitely need to use the "scaling" feature, which while much better than the sad old low-res generations of displays, nevertheless does add some fuzziness.
5K at 27" is the best thing readily available today, and I am not sure it needs to get much better than this (if at all) for the resolution of my eyeballs.
Spending $1500 for a computer monitor does kind of suck though, so yeah there's that, still... :-/
Yeah. The cost is still prohibitively expensive to have a desktop-sized display. I mean, FHD took years to be the standard (although i prefer 16:10). We'll have 8k computer displays released before 5k becomes the standard.
Some people cannot perceive the difference. What I think is interesting is that others think they can't see any difference, but in fact they can, if you actually test them (we did this at work a couple years ago). But they don't care at all.
And then others (like me) cannot stand to use a low-res screen. It works but it's like driving a car with a filthy windshield covered in grime and birdshit.