I know zero people with a 8k display, I wouldn't call that a significant new feature.

I know people have made naive comments about computers for years, "why would you ever need more than 8MB of RAM?", etc

But I genuinely believe 4k is the upper limit where you stop seeing benefits in increased resolution for a monitor. Our eyes do have limits after all! I have pretty good vision and 4k is enough, and at that point I'd prefer focus on other aspects of picture quality like color accuracy and higher refresh rate.

It's already annoying enough how large a screenshot of your monitor comes out (just tested on my desktop and it came out to 10MB). 8k is unnecessary in the vast majority of cases.

> But I genuinely believe 4k is the upper limit where you stop seeing benefits in increased resolution for a monitor. Our eyes do have limits after all!

I think it depends on how big the monitor is. You're probably right for 27" monitors. But running a 43" TV as a monitor, the pixel density is quite a bit lower than I'd like.

But simultaneously you won't be looking at that giant monitor from the same distance, but much further away. So it really shouldn't make that much of a difference as long as the angular resolution checks out.

I've currently got a 32" one running 1080p, from a normal viewing distance I can't see any pixels at all. Going beyond that and having to render 4x as much already seems super gratuitous. 8K is just completely ridiculous unless you're projecting a DnD game board or something that will be viewed up close.

I and several other programmers I know use a 43" monitor an arms distance away.

I run it at native resolution, like it's 4 1080p monitors glued together with no bezel.

I can definitely tell reading text is exactly like reading from a 1080p monitor compared to my retina display macbook screen right next to it.

A 43" 8k monitor for $750 or so would be an insta-buy for me.

So many assumptions here! I use tooling to divide my 4K monitor into five rectangles: two across the top each taking up 1/4 of the screen, and three across the bottom each taking up 1/6 of the screen. Even with that, I have to layer some things, and am often actively working with three or more of the "virtual screens" at once.

I am old enough that I've started to wear reading glasses to counter my age-related presbyopia, but if I had an 8K monitor it would probably sit less than two feet from my face just as this 4k monitor does, and I would make use of every pixel.

> But simultaneously you won't be looking at that giant monitor from the same distance

I sit 16-20 inches away from my monitor. I don't really think I sit further from this monitor than smaller monitors I've had in the past. Or a laptop on a stand.

As other people point out, I use it like multiple monitors that are seamlessly glued together with a tiling window manager (MacOS so Rectangle).

> But simultaneously you won't be looking at that giant monitor from the same distance,

You might be if it had a higher pixel density. There are plenty of people who run 2, 3 or even 4 smaller monitors next to each other at close distances. That could potentially be replaced by one much larger 8k monitor in the future.

Do those same eye limits apply to printers? A 24” 4k screen is 180 PPI (according to Google). Can you tell the difference between a page of text and images laser printed at 200 dpi and 1200 dpi?

I think VR can definitely benefit from more pixels.

Agree. The closer the display is to the eyes, the more pixels are needed to make it convincing. I feel the tech is close though. The 2016 HTC Vive (1080 × 1200/eye) is quite pixelated, but the 2020 Index headset (1440 × 1600/eye) looks smooth and clear.

For the unvarnished truth about when resolution is good enough, look at what Apple calls Retina. 4K at 21-inch, 5k at 27-inches, 6k at 32-inches. The resolution for all those displays is good enough to stop individual pixel perception. That's the best idea of what's good enough.

> I know zero people with a 8k display, I wouldn't call that a significant new feature.

From what I understand, even 4k is usually a waste for a living room TV when viewed across the room from a couch. People just don't have the visual acuity to really tell the difference.

But I can easily tell the difference between 4k and 8k when a 43" TV is 16" away from me.

I get that companies want to make money so the new tech is going into big TVs. But at some level, it's very strange to me.

I have a 65" 4k TV and sit across the room from it. The difference from 1080p to 4k is definitely noticeable. It's not miles apart but the details are absolutely crisper and nicer.

I imagine the benefits of 8k only really start showing on 80"+ screens.

That's fair.

I've seen a number of resolution charts like the one here[1]. But I suppose I forgot how different peoples' setups can be.

Sometimes across the room is 6', sometimes it's 15'. And for sure, screen size and eyesight can make a big difference.

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1. https://www.rtings.com/tv/reviews/by-size/size-to-distance-r...

Right. Indeed my living room is not very big. I have made an error though, my TV is 55" - not 65".

Didn't the M1 MacBook have the much more basic issue of only supporting a single external monitor via HDMI?

The M1 Pro and M1 Max can have multiple display outputs. The M1, be it in the Macbook Air, Mac Mini or Macbook Pro could only ever have 2 display outputs. On laptops, one of those was permanently reserved for the built in display.

Specifically you need the 14 or 16 inch M1 Pro for multiple display outputs. The M1 Pro 13 inch only supports one external display. Same with the M2 Pro 13 inch.

This is very confusing imo

I am referring to the M1 Pro the chip, not M1 Pro as in the Macbook Pro with the M1 chip. 14 and 16 inch Macbook Pros have the M1 Pro and M1 Max CPUs, whereas the plebian tier Macbook Pro 13 inch one has only the lowly M1 chip. I think whoever came up with this product strategy is a mastermind, deserves a raise from the perspective of shareholders and a slow and painful removal of their gonads from the perspective of people who bought the 13 inch MBP.

Regular M2 still has the same limitation of two total displays. Unless you use USB->HDMI adaptors that have their own display controllers.

This is crazy. Couldn't much weaker Intel chips do this years ago?

It's Apple approach to market segmentation: you want more than 1 external monitor? Buy macbook pro with M1/M2 Pro/Max, for a $1000 more.

Intel HD graphics introduced with Westmere (2010) supported dual displays, and then Ivy Bridge (2012) supported three displays on the iGPU.

AMD's Llano (2011) supported dual/triple(1) displays on release and Trinity(2012) brought support for up to four displays at once.

(1)You could do triple displays on Llano, but it took a particular set of boards using Dual-Link DVI to drive two monitors IIRC.

I'm over 40. I can't see all the pixels on a 4k display, let alone 8k. I'm still happy with my 2013 MBP w/ Retina.

I’m not sure if you’re aware of this, but alongside 3nm processes there’s a cutting edge technology called “glasses”…

Glasses help with focusing, but they don't help if your sensors (retinas) are just degrading.

Putting a very fancy lens on a 0.3MP sensor doesn't give you higher resolution photos.

GP didn't mention degrading retinas, just age. I'm over 50 and need glasses but, while acknowledging that life is a one-way journey, I just don't like people talking like ageing is necessarily this slide into decrepitude after 40.

> GP didn't mention degrading retinas, just age.

Retinas degrading is a factor of age.

The vast, vast majority of people in their 40s (wearing appropriate glasses if necessary) can tell the difference between an average monitor and a 4K display, which is the context of their comment.

It's not just about the resolution, it's about physical area.

My plan is to buy a 65" or 75" 8k TV and use it as computer monitor. I'll have a screen that is as big as my desk.

A display of that size will allow me to have my IDE, source control, terminals, log files, the app that I'm developing, my email, the CI dashboard all visible at the same time.

Of course I'll mainly use the bottom center of the huge display, but I think it will be a completely different experience when you no longer have to cmd-tab between apps but can just glance up/left/right to see what's going on.

> My plan is to buy a 65" or 75" 8k TV and use it as computer monitor. I'll have a screen that is as big as my desk.

How far away are you going to sit??

Normal desktop monitor viewing distance (at the back of an 80cm deep desk), but I'm going to use it at 1x scaling. 65" will probably make the text too small -- I think the ideal resolution would be an ~80" display, but 75" and 85" TVs would be wider than my desk.

Might take about 10 minutes to migrate your mouse from one corner to the other!

The mouse will have offspring and die before reaching the other side.

This is an interesting idea. You should write a blog post or something about your experience once you've settled in.

What you want is a curved ultrawide monitor like the Samsung Odyssey G9. I have one of them (49"). The curve is critical, because it allows the entire surface of the monitor to be basically the same distance from your eyes... meaning you can just glance to the side to use that app you placed in the corner. I have good vision but even for me a non-curved 49" ultrawide is unpleasant to use because the edges and corners are so far from your eyes. The 49" size is also large enough that it almost completely fills your field of view when seated normally.

A 75" TV is going to cost you a lot of money for a very ineffective display. It's so large that you'll probably have to physically move several feet to see the edges, meaning that realistically only about half the screen is usable.

The ultra-wide monitors sound nice, but they don't really offer that much space; it's basically just two 27" displays side by side.

I currently have two 27" and three 24" displays on my desk. I already physically move to focus on specific tasks (eg. I have email on a vertical monitor on the side, so when answering emails I'll roll over a bit to the side with my chair).

With a TV, I could have one big seamless area instead.

The one thing that does worry me about the TV is the lack of tilt at the top -- everything in the top half of the monitor will be hard to see because of the angle.

When I work with pen and paper, my entire desk is full of stuff, a dozen sheets and books, printouts and diagrams, all visible at a glance.

I don't see why I should limit myself to a much smaller area when working digitally.

Ultrawide 1440p unbearable font rendering. No thank you.