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There are tons of expensive monitors available that cater to the professional market. The whole premise is not based in reality. Apple simply has the highest mi

There are tons of expensive monitors available that cater to the professional market. The whole premise is not based in reality. Apple simply has the highest mindshare among average products.

pembrook 6y ago
There’s literally no good monitors with the proper resolution for MacOS outside of the fragile LG ultrafine line. It doesn’t matter how much money you throw at the problem, nobody is making 27” 5k displays right now.
- em500 6y ago
  What does "proper resolution for MacOS" mean in this case? There are tons of 27" 4k that work fine in macOS in Retina mode and matches the medium tier iMac (their low end today is still 21.5" 1080p). Unless you declare everything below 5k subpar, I don't see where you're coming from.
  - ascagnel_ 6y ago
    I don't have the exact numbers in front of me at the moment, but a 27" 4K monitor will not match the pixel pitch of every other Mac -- screen elements appear larger when both are set at the same scaled resolution.
    - ptoomey3 6y ago
      Yeah, to match the dot pitch apple is designing for, the 4K monitor would have to be more like 22 inches instead of 27. We know this since the 4K iMac is a 21.5 inch screen.
  - Joeri 6y ago
    This article from 2016 explains the problem: https://bjango.com/articles/macexternaldisplays/ https://bjango.com/articles/macexternaldisplays/ Basically, the ideal PPI of mac displays is a multiple of 110 PPI. So, for retina quality you need a display of roughly 220 PPI, which is what you get from 5K at 27 inch. A 27 inch 4K display is around 160 PPI. If you use that in 2x mode, things will appear too large. If you set it to scaled mode to make things appear the proper size, there are display artifacts (like shimmering when scrolling). In fairness, it's not super obvious unless you know what to look for. But if you're already spending money on a high end screen, why should you have to compromise?
    - em500 6y ago
      That seems pretty outdated information, given that the OOTH default Retina scaling in MacBooks have been non-2x fractional since 2016 (1400x900 for the 13-inch's 2560×1600, 1680×1050 for the 15-inch 2800x1800).
- whichdan 6y ago
  I never thought I'd want a 16:10 monitor until I had to deal with all of my apps getting resized every time I unplug my MBP
- greedo 6y ago
  What's extremely frustrating is that Apple makes an excellent 27" 5K monitor in a nice housing for $1800. The only problem is that it comes with an iMac... So clearly, Apple could sell a monitor for about $1600, that would be perfectly compatible with Mac Pros, mac mini and as a secondary monitor for all the various MacBooks.
  - leadingthenet 6y ago
    I genuinely don’t understand why they stopped doing that...
    - prewett 6y ago
      Maybe it's related to the reason why you can't use the 5k iMac as an external monitor. I can't remember where I found the sources, but the problem was that they essentially needed to video cards to drive the thing and making sure that both sides of the output looked identical was tricky and not something that an external source would be able to do.
      - greedo 6y ago
        IIRC it was an issue with the video connection. Nothing at the time could provide enough bandwidth to support 5K, so Apple had to cobble something together. With USB-C and TB3, that's no longer an issue.
  - jonfw 6y ago
    iMac is due for a refresh soon, and I'm hoping that this means an M1 iMac that can serve as a Thunderbolt Display

There are tons of expensive monitors available that cater to the professional market. The whole premise is not based in reality. Apple simply has the highest mindshare among average products.

pembrook 6y ago

There’s literally no good monitors with the proper resolution for MacOS outside of the fragile LG ultrafine line. It doesn’t matter how much money you throw at the problem, nobody is making 27” 5k displays right now.

em500 6y ago
What does "proper resolution for MacOS" mean in this case? There are tons of 27" 4k that work fine in macOS in Retina mode and matches the medium tier iMac (their low end today is still 21.5" 1080p). Unless you declare everything below 5k subpar, I don't see where you're coming from.
- ascagnel_ 6y ago
  I don't have the exact numbers in front of me at the moment, but a 27" 4K monitor will not match the pixel pitch of every other Mac -- screen elements appear larger when both are set at the same scaled resolution.
  - ptoomey3 6y ago
    Yeah, to match the dot pitch apple is designing for, the 4K monitor would have to be more like 22 inches instead of 27. We know this since the 4K iMac is a 21.5 inch screen.
- Joeri 6y ago
  This article from 2016 explains the problem: https://bjango.com/articles/macexternaldisplays/ https://bjango.com/articles/macexternaldisplays/ Basically, the ideal PPI of mac displays is a multiple of 110 PPI. So, for retina quality you need a display of roughly 220 PPI, which is what you get from 5K at 27 inch. A 27 inch 4K display is around 160 PPI. If you use that in 2x mode, things will appear too large. If you set it to scaled mode to make things appear the proper size, there are display artifacts (like shimmering when scrolling). In fairness, it's not super obvious unless you know what to look for. But if you're already spending money on a high end screen, why should you have to compromise?
  - em500 6y ago
    That seems pretty outdated information, given that the OOTH default Retina scaling in MacBooks have been non-2x fractional since 2016 (1400x900 for the 13-inch's 2560×1600, 1680×1050 for the 15-inch 2800x1800).
whichdan 6y ago
I never thought I'd want a 16:10 monitor until I had to deal with all of my apps getting resized every time I unplug my MBP
greedo 6y ago
What's extremely frustrating is that Apple makes an excellent 27" 5K monitor in a nice housing for $1800. The only problem is that it comes with an iMac... So clearly, Apple could sell a monitor for about $1600, that would be perfectly compatible with Mac Pros, mac mini and as a secondary monitor for all the various MacBooks.
- leadingthenet 6y ago
  I genuinely don’t understand why they stopped doing that...
  - prewett 6y ago
    Maybe it's related to the reason why you can't use the 5k iMac as an external monitor. I can't remember where I found the sources, but the problem was that they essentially needed to video cards to drive the thing and making sure that both sides of the output looked identical was tricky and not something that an external source would be able to do.
    - greedo 6y ago
      IIRC it was an issue with the video connection. Nothing at the time could provide enough bandwidth to support 5K, so Apple had to cobble something together. With USB-C and TB3, that's no longer an issue.
- jonfw 6y ago
  iMac is due for a refresh soon, and I'm hoping that this means an M1 iMac that can serve as a Thunderbolt Display