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4K at anything below 43 inch is unusable for text without scaling. 27 inch 2K or 43 inch 4K are the sweet spots. Here's how you can check if your monitor need

4K at anything below 43 inch is unusable for text without scaling. 27 inch 2K or 43 inch 4K are the sweet spots. Here's how you can check if your monitor needs scaling: - Find out the DPI of your existing monitor and your desired monitor. For example, 24" 1080p is 91.79, and 27" 4K is 163.18 - Calculate the ratio: 91.79/163.18 = 0.5625 (this means that on the 27" 4K monitor everything is 56% of the size of the 1080p) - Now take a screenshot of your monitor (at 100% scaling) and resize it to 1920x1080*0.5625 = 1080x607. View the resized image at 100%. That text will be the same physical size as on a 4K 27" monitor set to 100%. Without scaling, most people would find text too small on both 27" at 32". You would need a display as big as 40" to get the same density as 1440p on 27" (~110 DPI). For most people, 27" requires 150% scaling and 32" requires 125%.

vetinari 6y ago
The point is to use scaling; fonts at @2X are much easier to look at than at @1X. Also, your DPI calculation are Windows and Linux specific - they assumed 96 dpi at @1X scale. Mac started with 72 dpi for @1X, so @2X is 144dpi. 27" 4K is slightly above that, thus perfectly usable at @2X scale. For Windows and Linux, it is better to use 150-175%.
- hashhar 6y ago
  Sorry, I should have said PPI (pixels per inch) - as calculated by dividing screen resolution by screen area. Thanks for catching that. The rest of the comment still remains.
  - vetinari 6y ago
    I assure you that 27" 4K at @2X (i.e. 200%) is perfectly fine... with macOS ;).
caymanjim 6y ago
> 27 inch 2K or 43 inch 4K are the sweet spots. 27" 2K is gross. Compared to 4K, it looks so pixelated that I feel like I'm back in the 90s. 27" 4K at native resolution is far too small for me to read, but it looks great at 150% scaling, or even 200% for some things.
- nickjj 6y ago
  > 27" 4K at native resolution is far too small for me to read, but it looks great at 150% scaling, or even 200% for some things. The problem is once you start scaling up you're losing real estate. 4k at 200% scaling gives you same real estate as 1080p. Sure the picture will look better but you're not gaining any improvements in being able to open and see more things at once. That and some apps can't handle scaling properly. Personally I find 25" 1440p at native scaling to be a good balance of real estate, sharpness and ease of reading anything comfortably (even low contrast status bars). With that set up you can open 4x 80 char side by side code windows in Vim, VSCode, etc.. You can also grab a really good 25" 1440p IPS panel monitor for around $300. I wrote a huge guide on picking monitors for developers at https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/how-to-pick-a-good-monitor-for-software-development https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/how-to-pick-a-good-monitor-fo....
  - sidpatil 6y ago
    > The problem is once you start scaling up you're losing real estate. Sure the picture will look better but you're not gaining any improvements in being able to open and see more things at once. Depending on what you're doing, that might be exactly what you want. I use my 27" 4k display to read PDFs zoomed in to fit two pages side-by-side onscreen. That way, the clarity of the rendering is good enough to be an alternative to print.
  - hashhar 6y ago
    Nice coincidence running into you here. I did come across your blog while researching! Thanks for that. I agree 100% about the real estate issue. Physically larger monitors with equivalent real-estate don't make much sense for me personally. I wish there were more 27" screens available since 25" looks too small to me and 32" requires some neck movement which I don't like.
- mirthflat83 6y ago
  27” 2k is acceptable, 27” 5k at 200% scaling is great. 27” 4k with 150% scaling ok.
kalleboo 6y ago
I use a 31 inch 4K display at native resolution and it's perfectly usable and text is perfectly readable, although when all my other displays are HiDPI/Retina, everything looks pretty chunky in comparison. My ideal monitor would probably be a 30 inch 8K display running at 2x scaled mode, but we're many years away from that being affordable.

vetinari 6y ago

The point is to use scaling; fonts at @2X are much easier to look at than at @1X. Also, your DPI calculation are Windows and Linux specific - they assumed 96 dpi at @1X scale. Mac started with 72 dpi for @1X, so @2X is 144dpi. 27" 4K is slightly above that, thus perfectly usable at @2X scale. For Windows and Linux, it is better to use 150-175%.

hashhar 6y ago
Sorry, I should have said PPI (pixels per inch) - as calculated by dividing screen resolution by screen area. Thanks for catching that. The rest of the comment still remains.
- vetinari 6y ago
  I assure you that 27" 4K at @2X (i.e. 200%) is perfectly fine... with macOS ;).

caymanjim 6y ago

> 27 inch 2K or 43 inch 4K are the sweet spots. 27" 2K is gross. Compared to 4K, it looks so pixelated that I feel like I'm back in the 90s. 27" 4K at native resolution is far too small for me to read, but it looks great at 150% scaling, or even 200% for some things.

nickjj 6y ago
> 27" 4K at native resolution is far too small for me to read, but it looks great at 150% scaling, or even 200% for some things. The problem is once you start scaling up you're losing real estate. 4k at 200% scaling gives you same real estate as 1080p. Sure the picture will look better but you're not gaining any improvements in being able to open and see more things at once. That and some apps can't handle scaling properly. Personally I find 25" 1440p at native scaling to be a good balance of real estate, sharpness and ease of reading anything comfortably (even low contrast status bars). With that set up you can open 4x 80 char side by side code windows in Vim, VSCode, etc.. You can also grab a really good 25" 1440p IPS panel monitor for around $300. I wrote a huge guide on picking monitors for developers at https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/how-to-pick-a-good-monitor-for-software-development https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/how-to-pick-a-good-monitor-fo....
- sidpatil 6y ago
  > The problem is once you start scaling up you're losing real estate. Sure the picture will look better but you're not gaining any improvements in being able to open and see more things at once. Depending on what you're doing, that might be exactly what you want. I use my 27" 4k display to read PDFs zoomed in to fit two pages side-by-side onscreen. That way, the clarity of the rendering is good enough to be an alternative to print.
- hashhar 6y ago
  Nice coincidence running into you here. I did come across your blog while researching! Thanks for that. I agree 100% about the real estate issue. Physically larger monitors with equivalent real-estate don't make much sense for me personally. I wish there were more 27" screens available since 25" looks too small to me and 32" requires some neck movement which I don't like.
mirthflat83 6y ago
27” 2k is acceptable, 27” 5k at 200% scaling is great. 27” 4k with 150% scaling ok.

kalleboo 6y ago

I use a 31 inch 4K display at native resolution and it's perfectly usable and text is perfectly readable, although when all my other displays are HiDPI/Retina, everything looks pretty chunky in comparison. My ideal monitor would probably be a 30 inch 8K display running at 2x scaled mode, but we're many years away from that being affordable.