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I've been using two 28" 4k 144hz monitors for a few months. Windows, Cleartype, at 150% scaling. It's only the rare old program that looks terrible (blurry text

I've been using two 28" 4k 144hz monitors for a few months. Windows, Cleartype, at 150% scaling. It's only the rare old program that looks terrible (blurry text). I don't know why on earth one would use 200% scaling with a 4k desktop monitor; you're effectively making it a 1080p monitor and losing many advantages of better resolution.

mirrorlake 5y ago
Speaking only for myself: bad vision. Even though I'm capable of reading small text with my glasses, small text still makes me feel as if I have to squint which leads to headaches. I permanently switched to larger fonts / larger zoom levels 5-6 years ago and never looked back.
javipas 5y ago
As the author says, that 150% is not that good for the quality of text fonts showed on screen. I've been using a Dell UP2715K (27", 5K) for a few years and I've always used it at 200% scaling as the piece suggests. The texts are crystal clear, it's almost like seeing not a screen, but a sticker: everything is so well defined and precise. Maybe that's because my eyesight is not that good lately. Even considering that, I really can perceive a 150% scaling on a 4K monitor when I see it. It isn't that bad and sure you can work with that, but man, do try 5K at 200% and then tell me about it. It's a real tragedy there are not more 5K displays. The Apple Studio Display is expensive and a little absurd with that webcam and the A13 chip, but at least you can enjoy that resolution. I wonder if display makers will consider this someday and stop selling so much gaming models and so little 'work' models.
zajio1am 5y ago
28" 4k has ~158 dpi, so it makes sense to use 150% scaling for it, considering that canonical dpi is 96. But it is important to consider disadvantages of 150% scaling in general. While text and vector graphics could be rendered properly, there are plenty of non-photo bitmap graphics, which has to be scaled. And scaling it by 2 keeps it sharp, while scaling it by 1.5 makes it blurry. Therefore it makes sense to buy either low-dpi monitors (with dpi ~100) or high-dpi monitors (with dpi ~200, and run it with scale 2), but 28" 4k is just in uncanny valley of dpi, that is too high for scale 1, too low for scale 2 and matching scale 1.5 is blurry.

mirrorlake 5y ago

Speaking only for myself: bad vision. Even though I'm capable of reading small text with my glasses, small text still makes me feel as if I have to squint which leads to headaches. I permanently switched to larger fonts / larger zoom levels 5-6 years ago and never looked back.

javipas 5y ago

As the author says, that 150% is not that good for the quality of text fonts showed on screen. I've been using a Dell UP2715K (27", 5K) for a few years and I've always used it at 200% scaling as the piece suggests. The texts are crystal clear, it's almost like seeing not a screen, but a sticker: everything is so well defined and precise. Maybe that's because my eyesight is not that good lately. Even considering that, I really can perceive a 150% scaling on a 4K monitor when I see it. It isn't that bad and sure you can work with that, but man, do try 5K at 200% and then tell me about it. It's a real tragedy there are not more 5K displays. The Apple Studio Display is expensive and a little absurd with that webcam and the A13 chip, but at least you can enjoy that resolution. I wonder if display makers will consider this someday and stop selling so much gaming models and so little 'work' models.

zajio1am 5y ago

28" 4k has ~158 dpi, so it makes sense to use 150% scaling for it, considering that canonical dpi is 96. But it is important to consider disadvantages of 150% scaling in general. While text and vector graphics could be rendered properly, there are plenty of non-photo bitmap graphics, which has to be scaled. And scaling it by 2 keeps it sharp, while scaling it by 1.5 makes it blurry. Therefore it makes sense to buy either low-dpi monitors (with dpi ~100) or high-dpi monitors (with dpi ~200, and run it with scale 2), but 28" 4k is just in uncanny valley of dpi, that is too high for scale 1, too low for scale 2 and matching scale 1.5 is blurry.