Until recently, I used a 40" 4K monitor. For whatever reason, TVs handle input switching much, much more smoothly than monitors do: If I have two machines hooked up to different inputs of a monitor, and reboot the one I'm working on, the monitor will often spontaneously choose to show me the other input. A TV in the same situation will happily show "no signal" and stay where you told it to stay. I've only tried two brands of monitor (Planar and Philips), admittedly, but they behave identically in ignoring the manually-set input if some other input seems more interesting. :/ I had been using a Philips 40" 4K monitor for a couple years, and the frustration with input switching drove me to the same Spectre TV from the article, which is frankly worse in every picture-quality-related metric than the Philips, but doesn't instantly switch inputs when signal is interrupted, or blank and reblank the screen 2-12 times when it hasn't been on for a while.
Well, that went a bit off track.
Also, if you want a fantastic site to compare tvs/monitors apples to apples, you can't beat rtings.com. They grade every device on the same rubric so it is easy to compare and contrast. You can even tell it which qualities you care about most (or what use case) and they rate them accordingly.
Under Linux, situation is not as bad, since you can persuade xft to optimize font rasterization for readability. OSX makes the choice towards glyph shape fidelity, though, even at lower point sizes, which results in horrible anti-aliasing blur.
The DPI looks like 1080 on a 21" years ago again, but the real estate is enomorous and I certainly don't mind it. Sure pictures/movies on 40" is not as pixel rich as a 32" 4K or 27" 4K, but you'd have to mount multiple to match the real estate of a 43" monitor.
It's true though the scaling makes text larger but not reducing DPI as the picture looks much better on a 27"/32" than the 43". But without scaling, my aging eyes can handle anything greater than 110 PPI. https://www.sven.de/dpi/
This wouldn't be an option for me. Although I do usually work at my home office, I also need to be able to use a laptop on its own when I'm traveling or just want to get out for a while. So that determines the 20" focus distance I need.
With single vision prescription glasses tuned for that distance, my eyes don't have to do any of the optical accommodation you mention. My glasses are set up to let my eyes be relaxed at 20"; there's no strain of my eye muscles trying to adjust to a different distance.
There was a site I was reading some time ago that mentioned with glasses, the geometry of your eyes converging on point nearby (ie slightly 'cross-eyed') doesn't correspond with the eye muscles relaxed, for focusing at 'infinity'. The 'control systems' are likely coupled. I've used glasses with smaller screens, and I've noticed my eyes behaving a bit strange (perhaps seemed harder to focus) when alternating between glasses/no glasses. No idea if there are any other consequences. Maybe it's fine.
The 40" had total crap quality but still had some advantages in terms of usable screen real estate.
There are a bunch of 40+ real monitors now though: Dell P4317Q, AOC C4008VU8, LG 43UD79-B, Philips BDM4037UW - they are all using the same panels as TVs I assume, but hopefully the higher quality ones, and their electronics will be designed for computer use.
This is like a reading prescription, but adjusted for a farther distance. Reading glasses are typically adjusted for a 16" focal distance. That's much closer than you would use a computer. If you use a laptop on its own without an external monitor, that's usually about 20".
I took my ThinkPad to my optometrist the first time I did this, so we could be sure of the correct distance. When I saw how crisp and clear my screen was with the prescription, compared to the blurry mess I'd been suffering with... if I may indulge in a pun, it brought tears to my eyes.
The first thing you'll want to do with a new TV is to take it out of that mode. The "correct" mode depends on the TV and some internet searching can help you out, but putting it in the cinema/movie mode is at least a first good guess.
Finally, of course, you need to feed the 4K monitor a good 4K signal, or the 4K monitor isn't going to look any better. And as the article mentions, that's sometimes easier said than done, because HDMI can't always handle it.
If after all that, you can't tell the difference at all between 4K and 1080P at point blank range on a monitor setup like that, you may have eye issues, yes, absolutely. And you may still find that you don't much care about 4K. I've got 4K on my laptop, which is nice in a couple of ways, but in general I'm really rather "meh" on it for development work. I've got two 1080P monitors at work and prefer that to a 4K setup. But I also don't care about pixelization very much compared to a lot of people, and never have. I used to read books on my 160x160 monochrome Palm Pilot, and I guess everything looks good after spending my formative years on a Commodore 64 with a 1980s vintage television. But I do at least see the difference and can easily understand why others have other opinions.
Enough screen real estate that you don’t feel pressured to add another monitor, high enough DPI to look good, low enough to not need scaling, connects to USB C MBP with one wire for video, charging, and a USB 3.0 hub.
IMO the perfect monitor.
Plays nice with my PC and 2015 macbook pro.
Very happy.
>It’s a 38” 21:9
>I had a 34 inch with a second 27”, but a single 38” hits the sweet spot of not needing another monitor.
For a short while I had the second screen with the 38” screen but it was just overkill (the 38” alone is enough to cover a large portion off the usable area of my desk, so the 27” mostly just sat out of view)
I had a 34 inch with a second 27” monitor, but a single 38” hits the sweet spot of not needing another monitor
Obviously, different people will have different tastes here.
Of course if I take off my glasses, then every monitor looks the same. But with proper correction, my vision is better than 20/20.
With my prescription computer glasses, the difference between low DPI and high DPI is like night and day. I can see every pixel on a low DPI monitor, while high DPI monitors look beautiful to me.
Please, everyone: do yourself a huge favor and get your vision checked and get some single vision prescription glasses if they are called for. It's hard to overstate the difference this will make in your quality of life.
Edit: Not sure why you were downvoted for a reasonable comment. It's true that your vision will get worse as you get older. Even if nothing else goes wrong, you lose your ability to focus your eyes dynamically. The lenses harden up and lock into a specific focal distance.
However, many of these vision changes are correctable. Progressive lenses are a great solution for "out and about" use. You can look up and down to see far and near things. They aren't very good for computer use, and that's where the single vision lenses come in.
It is a minor nuisance to switch back and forth between the computer glasses and the progressives, but being able to see clearly makes it all worth it.
Coding without seeing pixels in font rendering is just bliss, it is too hard to go back.
Though I’m dreading the day I have to get varifocals.
One big consideration for me: I'm 65, so my eyes are not able to focus back and forth to different distances like a younger person.
My solution is a pair of single vision prescription lenses, adjusted to the distance to my monitor(s). I need to be able to use the laptop all on its own, so that determines the focus distance: about 20".
Because of that, I also place any secondary monitor at about the same distance from my eyes, otherwise it would be out of focus. I can't go changing glasses to look at a different monitor. :-)
A 24" 4K display works nicely for this, and as I mentioned it's small enough to work really well in portrait mode.
So I have two recommendations for any programmer. If you haven't used a portrait mode monitor, try it out alongside your laptop display. It's a very practical setup.
But more importantly, if you find yourself gravitating toward lower-DPI monitors, it may be time for a vision check and a good pair of single vision prescription glasses adjusted for your monitor distance (again, about 20" if you ever need to use a laptop by itself). I put off doing this for years - I always thought of myself as the kind of person who "didn't need glasses."
When I finally got the prescription lenses, it was a real eye-opener - pun intended!
I'm much happier with the high-DPI displays in my ThinkPad Yoga 460 WQHD and MacBook Pro Retina 15".
I don't like pixels, and I don't want to see them any more. I want to see the text and graphics I'm working on, not pixels.
So when I wanted a second monitor to go with those machines, I got a 24" 4K display. At 187 pixels per inch, it's a reasonably close match to the 210-220 pixels per inch on the laptops.
I use this monitor in portrait mode next to the laptop display. A portrait mode monitor combined with the laptop monitor is great. I've got a wide screen when I want it, and a tall screen when I want that. It's ideal for reading documentation and especially PDF files, because an entire page fits on the portrait screen. Larger monitors are not very practical in portrait mode.
I'm not concerned with cramming the maximum amount of stuff on my screen. I run the monitors at 225% scaling in Windows, and the default Retina scaling in macOS. So text is about the same size it would be on a lower-DPI monitor, just much sharper and crisper.
After I got my first taste of high DPI with that MacBook, I swore I'd never go back to a low DPI display. It is so nice to not have to look at pixels any more.