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> 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
by 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 agoNice 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.