5 ms·

I know there is lot of gripe about the display not being 4k, but I personally love 2560x1600 on 16inch monitors. In Linux I can run this without any fractional

I know there is lot of gripe about the display not being 4k, but I personally love 2560x1600 on 16inch monitors. In Linux I can run this without any fractional scaling at 100% resolution. To account for small text, I can change font size by 1.1 or something similar via gnome-tweaks and similar font size adjustment for apps that don't honor gnome-tweaks setting. I know this is not ideal if you are coming from Mac, but this IMO leads to much more smoother experience and no blurry text anywhere. The same setting works if I am plugging into 32inch 4k display.

CoastalCoder 3y ago
As I get older, my vision gets worse. Even with decent(?) eye-glasses, I don't see the screen quite as clearly as when I was younger. I should probably invest a little time in determining what maximum screen resolution actually matters to me at various distances.
- tlamponi 3y ago
  Note that with a high enough resolution to enable 2x (or even 4x) scaling, text becomes much crisper as anti-aliasing isn't messing with the actual color that much anymore. So, a HiDPI display _might_ make things easier to read/view even for people with a worse vision like you.
  - CoastalCoder 3y ago
    Thanks, good point. I guess any conclusions I draw need to consider more than just the screen's native resolution. The software-based systems for rending fonts, and graphics in general, would also matter. As would the screen treatment (matte vs. glossy), since AFAIK all matte finishes add a little bit of blur.
  - zozbot234 3y ago
    Anti-aliasing should not be messing with the color at all. It shouldn't even be messing with brightness and contrast all that much; most common artifacts are due to performing anti-aliasing w/ an incorrect gamma for the display. Gamma-correct and pixel-perfect content makes even a low resolution 768p screen quite usable. And a 1080p screen is crisp enough already that individual pixels are not visible when looking at the whole screen. Anything higher than that is pure overkill.
    - vladvasiliu 3y ago
      How do you get this gamma-correct antialiasing in practice? I see this often on business 24" FHD displays. It's especially atrocious with light text on dark backgrounds. Bonus points for the current fashion of super-skinny fonts, which seem to have different colors for every vertical line.
    - fyrn_ 3y ago
      Font anti aliasing, or more specifically subpixel rendering absolutely changes color. It of course does so in a way that is ideally not perceptible, but it is there. Here's an example of an e rendered with subpixel rendering close up: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f3/Subpixel_e.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f3/Subpixel... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subpixel_rendering https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subpixel_rendering
- barbariangrunge 3y ago
  You measure your minimum resolving angle as a function of distance, then calculate what dpi that corresponds to. Except, since it’s an angle, distance matters here. So you add in what distance you’ll be from the display. But I forget what numbers to plug in. We learned that in graphics courses back in uni, and how 4K big screen displays are probably only beneficial as though you are getting super sampling antialiasing Edit: a quick google search returned: > The human eye has an angular resolution of about 1 arcminute (0.02 degrees or 0.0003 radians) which enables us to distinguish things that are 30 centimetres apart at a distance of 1 kilometre You just need some basic trig to do your calculation now, and to modify your resolving number based on some experiments based on your particular eyes
  - Dylan16807 3y ago
    It's more complicated than that. Angular resolution is where you can distinguish between one or two separate objects. You need an entire rod/cone/camera pixel in between to pick out the middle. But when it comes to viewing edges and lines, it's like using grayscale instead of black and white. Differences of position ten times as small can be distinguished. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperacuity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperacuity
- Stratoscope 3y ago
  I'm 71 and still actively programming. One thing I did years ago was to get a pair of single vision glasses set up for my eyes' distance from the laptop screen (about 20"). These changed my life. I use progressives for everyday activity, but at the computer I switch to the single vision. I have a triple-monitor setup: the 15" 4K display on my ThinkPad P1, and two 24" 4K monitors (currently LG, but I've used similar Dell and ViewSonic monitors in the past). The external monitors are mounted on Amazon Basics arms made by Ergotron. I prefer the Amazon Basics because they have a matte black finish instead of the silver finish of the Ergotron-branded arms. They are identical otherwise. One 24" monitor sits directly above the laptop display, with their left edges aligned. The other sits to the left of these in portrait mode. This is ideal for reading documentation, especially PDF files. I run the ThinkPad at 300% scaling and the larger monitors at 200%. All three are adjusted to be at about the same 20" distance from my eyes. The ThinkPad display is in the usual tipped-back laptop position. The horizontal monitor above it is closer to a straight up-and-down angle (but not quite). The portrait monitor is also tilted back a bit. The idea here is to have the "normal" for the center of each monitor point to my eyes. It's also important to keep the prescriptions updated for both the progressive and single vision lenses, especially if you are in your 40s when your vision changes more rapidly.
  - CoastalCoder 3y ago
    I appreciate the tip. I am using single-prescription lenses, and I update them every 1-2 years (via Koch Eye Associates). I order lenses at the specific focal distance of my monitors. For some reason, in recent years my eyes never feel comfortable with the updated lenses. Not sure if my eyes are getting less forgiving w.r.t. focal distance, or if something is goofy about the lenses that Koch is selling me. I think my next step is to try another optometrist / glasses-vendor. Another possibility is that I'm using a big monitor, so the distance from my eyes to the screen-center is pretty different from the distance to the screen-edge. I may just need to try smaller screens or (yuck) curved screens.
    - Stratoscope 3y ago
      > Another possibility is that I'm using a big monitor, so the distance from my eyes to the screen-center is pretty different from the distance to the screen-edge. You may be on to something there! About 10 years ago I visited the Google office in Washington, DC to finish up my work on the 2012 general election map. They had a 32" monitor for me to use, and when I put it at the same 20" distance as my laptop screen I had exactly the same problem. The difference in distance from center to edge was too much for me to keep it all in focus.
tlamponi 3y ago
> 2560x1600 on 16inch monitors. Yeah, that's 188.68 PPI. And while more can be nicer, anything above 150 PPI is IMO fine enough. For a real big improvement one would need 3840x2400 (WQUXGA) here, that'd give one 283.02 PPI and thus a nice 2x scaling could be used, resulting in crisper text/lines. But IMO that would be overkill and quite likely not be able to provide 165 HZ, or the GPU couldn't actually drive it at full HZ.
- barbariangrunge 3y ago
  I prefer 4k normally, but on Linux I prefer this. It ends up like a slightly less crisp 4k with 1.5x scaling, and everything works nicely even if your fractional scaling isn’t behaving
- tjoff 3y ago
  The problem is that 2x scaling is too much. Then you'd get the real-estate of a 1080p screen which isn't suitable for such a screen.
  - tlamponi 3y ago
    Yes, which is plenty on 16" – after all one still gets 141 PPI resolution, that's more than one would get from 4k on a 32", which has 137.68 PPI. ps. check out https://www.sven.de/dpi/ https://www.sven.de/dpi/ for a simple but nice DPI calculation app.
    - tjoff 3y ago
      It really isn't, coming from a 13" laptop with 1080p... And how it is relevant to compare to a 32" screen I don't know, because you hardly use that display on your lap.
      - tlamponi 3y ago
        > It really isn't, coming from a 13" laptop with 1080p... For you maybe, but I know people that are happy with that and some even find 1080p on 13" too crammed, just different taste and applications... I actually had to help out on a 1366x768 15" laptop recently, that was borderline brutal even for me, I completely forgot how one could notice every pixel as such distinct unit back then. So, if you're not one of them you simply don't scale 2x and get more screen estate, or naturally check if there's another model that provides 5k+. > And how it is relevant to compare to a 32" screen I don't know, because you hardly use that display on your lap. Yeah, I almost never use a laptop on my lap, literally that is, and I really didn't think we're constraint to discuss around that axiom ^^ But I think you're mostly looking after (virtual) pixels to be used, while I might favor a higher PPI even though scaling it would give me lower pixel amount to work with.
bdcravens 3y ago
I don't even like 4K on larger monitors. Running 2560x1440 on my 32" displays. (I don't game, and I use my 4K TV for any entertainment video)
- dontlaugh 3y ago
  Don’t the very obvious pixels make text hard to read for you? I find 27” is just slightly too big for only 4k.
  - bdcravens 3y ago
    I don't see any pixelation, even when I zoom as large as the browser will go (and likewise in VS Code)
    - bbbobbb 3y ago
      Right, the pixels are visible when the text is smaller, not when you zoom in.
      - bdcravens 3y ago
        I guess that's the good think about getting older (I'm 46) - I need larger text than I did 20 years ago, so that issue isn't one I deal with. Still, at standard OS sizes I can't detect pixelation, even when I compare my 32 inch display next to the laptops I have (16" MBP, 13" MBA)
ksec 3y ago
>2560x1600 on 16inch monitors. 2560x1600 is what Apple used to do on a 13.3 MacBook Pro or MacBook Air, at roughly about 226PPI. That is what used to be the standard for Retina on Mac. At roughly 180PPI. Unless you view it from 19" distance it doesn't quite fit the definition of Retina from Apple. But may be it is the sort of Good enough scenario for many. Interestingly even ~220PPI should leave plenty of room for Mac usage. But Apple decided to pump it up to ~260 for reason I still haven't quite figure out, nor have I seen anyone on the internet gave any plausible explantation. ( Most likely because no one gives a damn about technical details any more. ). I much rather they drive the 120Hz refresh rate rather than pixel count.

CoastalCoder 3y ago

As I get older, my vision gets worse. Even with decent(?) eye-glasses, I don't see the screen quite as clearly as when I was younger. I should probably invest a little time in determining what maximum screen resolution actually matters to me at various distances.

tlamponi 3y ago
Note that with a high enough resolution to enable 2x (or even 4x) scaling, text becomes much crisper as anti-aliasing isn't messing with the actual color that much anymore. So, a HiDPI display _might_ make things easier to read/view even for people with a worse vision like you.
- CoastalCoder 3y ago
  Thanks, good point. I guess any conclusions I draw need to consider more than just the screen's native resolution. The software-based systems for rending fonts, and graphics in general, would also matter. As would the screen treatment (matte vs. glossy), since AFAIK all matte finishes add a little bit of blur.
- zozbot234 3y ago
  Anti-aliasing should not be messing with the color at all. It shouldn't even be messing with brightness and contrast all that much; most common artifacts are due to performing anti-aliasing w/ an incorrect gamma for the display. Gamma-correct and pixel-perfect content makes even a low resolution 768p screen quite usable. And a 1080p screen is crisp enough already that individual pixels are not visible when looking at the whole screen. Anything higher than that is pure overkill.
  - vladvasiliu 3y ago
    How do you get this gamma-correct antialiasing in practice? I see this often on business 24" FHD displays. It's especially atrocious with light text on dark backgrounds. Bonus points for the current fashion of super-skinny fonts, which seem to have different colors for every vertical line.
  - fyrn_ 3y ago
    Font anti aliasing, or more specifically subpixel rendering absolutely changes color. It of course does so in a way that is ideally not perceptible, but it is there. Here's an example of an e rendered with subpixel rendering close up: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f3/Subpixel_e.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f3/Subpixel... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subpixel_rendering https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subpixel_rendering
barbariangrunge 3y ago
You measure your minimum resolving angle as a function of distance, then calculate what dpi that corresponds to. Except, since it’s an angle, distance matters here. So you add in what distance you’ll be from the display. But I forget what numbers to plug in. We learned that in graphics courses back in uni, and how 4K big screen displays are probably only beneficial as though you are getting super sampling antialiasing Edit: a quick google search returned: > The human eye has an angular resolution of about 1 arcminute (0.02 degrees or 0.0003 radians) which enables us to distinguish things that are 30 centimetres apart at a distance of 1 kilometre You just need some basic trig to do your calculation now, and to modify your resolving number based on some experiments based on your particular eyes
- Dylan16807 3y ago
  It's more complicated than that. Angular resolution is where you can distinguish between one or two separate objects. You need an entire rod/cone/camera pixel in between to pick out the middle. But when it comes to viewing edges and lines, it's like using grayscale instead of black and white. Differences of position ten times as small can be distinguished. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperacuity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperacuity
Stratoscope 3y ago
I'm 71 and still actively programming. One thing I did years ago was to get a pair of single vision glasses set up for my eyes' distance from the laptop screen (about 20"). These changed my life. I use progressives for everyday activity, but at the computer I switch to the single vision. I have a triple-monitor setup: the 15" 4K display on my ThinkPad P1, and two 24" 4K monitors (currently LG, but I've used similar Dell and ViewSonic monitors in the past). The external monitors are mounted on Amazon Basics arms made by Ergotron. I prefer the Amazon Basics because they have a matte black finish instead of the silver finish of the Ergotron-branded arms. They are identical otherwise. One 24" monitor sits directly above the laptop display, with their left edges aligned. The other sits to the left of these in portrait mode. This is ideal for reading documentation, especially PDF files. I run the ThinkPad at 300% scaling and the larger monitors at 200%. All three are adjusted to be at about the same 20" distance from my eyes. The ThinkPad display is in the usual tipped-back laptop position. The horizontal monitor above it is closer to a straight up-and-down angle (but not quite). The portrait monitor is also tilted back a bit. The idea here is to have the "normal" for the center of each monitor point to my eyes. It's also important to keep the prescriptions updated for both the progressive and single vision lenses, especially if you are in your 40s when your vision changes more rapidly.
- CoastalCoder 3y ago
  I appreciate the tip. I am using single-prescription lenses, and I update them every 1-2 years (via Koch Eye Associates). I order lenses at the specific focal distance of my monitors. For some reason, in recent years my eyes never feel comfortable with the updated lenses. Not sure if my eyes are getting less forgiving w.r.t. focal distance, or if something is goofy about the lenses that Koch is selling me. I think my next step is to try another optometrist / glasses-vendor. Another possibility is that I'm using a big monitor, so the distance from my eyes to the screen-center is pretty different from the distance to the screen-edge. I may just need to try smaller screens or (yuck) curved screens.
  - Stratoscope 3y ago
    > Another possibility is that I'm using a big monitor, so the distance from my eyes to the screen-center is pretty different from the distance to the screen-edge. You may be on to something there! About 10 years ago I visited the Google office in Washington, DC to finish up my work on the 2012 general election map. They had a 32" monitor for me to use, and when I put it at the same 20" distance as my laptop screen I had exactly the same problem. The difference in distance from center to edge was too much for me to keep it all in focus.

tlamponi 3y ago

> 2560x1600 on 16inch monitors. Yeah, that's 188.68 PPI. And while more can be nicer, anything above 150 PPI is IMO fine enough. For a real big improvement one would need 3840x2400 (WQUXGA) here, that'd give one 283.02 PPI and thus a nice 2x scaling could be used, resulting in crisper text/lines. But IMO that would be overkill and quite likely not be able to provide 165 HZ, or the GPU couldn't actually drive it at full HZ.

barbariangrunge 3y ago
I prefer 4k normally, but on Linux I prefer this. It ends up like a slightly less crisp 4k with 1.5x scaling, and everything works nicely even if your fractional scaling isn’t behaving
tjoff 3y ago
The problem is that 2x scaling is too much. Then you'd get the real-estate of a 1080p screen which isn't suitable for such a screen.
- tlamponi 3y ago
  Yes, which is plenty on 16" – after all one still gets 141 PPI resolution, that's more than one would get from 4k on a 32", which has 137.68 PPI. ps. check out https://www.sven.de/dpi/ https://www.sven.de/dpi/ for a simple but nice DPI calculation app.
  - tjoff 3y ago
    It really isn't, coming from a 13" laptop with 1080p... And how it is relevant to compare to a 32" screen I don't know, because you hardly use that display on your lap.
    - tlamponi 3y ago
      > It really isn't, coming from a 13" laptop with 1080p... For you maybe, but I know people that are happy with that and some even find 1080p on 13" too crammed, just different taste and applications... I actually had to help out on a 1366x768 15" laptop recently, that was borderline brutal even for me, I completely forgot how one could notice every pixel as such distinct unit back then. So, if you're not one of them you simply don't scale 2x and get more screen estate, or naturally check if there's another model that provides 5k+. > And how it is relevant to compare to a 32" screen I don't know, because you hardly use that display on your lap. Yeah, I almost never use a laptop on my lap, literally that is, and I really didn't think we're constraint to discuss around that axiom ^^ But I think you're mostly looking after (virtual) pixels to be used, while I might favor a higher PPI even though scaling it would give me lower pixel amount to work with.

bdcravens 3y ago

I don't even like 4K on larger monitors. Running 2560x1440 on my 32" displays. (I don't game, and I use my 4K TV for any entertainment video)

dontlaugh 3y ago
Don’t the very obvious pixels make text hard to read for you? I find 27” is just slightly too big for only 4k.
- bdcravens 3y ago
  I don't see any pixelation, even when I zoom as large as the browser will go (and likewise in VS Code)
  - bbbobbb 3y ago
    Right, the pixels are visible when the text is smaller, not when you zoom in.
    - bdcravens 3y ago
      I guess that's the good think about getting older (I'm 46) - I need larger text than I did 20 years ago, so that issue isn't one I deal with. Still, at standard OS sizes I can't detect pixelation, even when I compare my 32 inch display next to the laptops I have (16" MBP, 13" MBA)

ksec 3y ago

>2560x1600 on 16inch monitors. 2560x1600 is what Apple used to do on a 13.3 MacBook Pro or MacBook Air, at roughly about 226PPI. That is what used to be the standard for Retina on Mac. At roughly 180PPI. Unless you view it from 19" distance it doesn't quite fit the definition of Retina from Apple. But may be it is the sort of Good enough scenario for many. Interestingly even ~220PPI should leave plenty of room for Mac usage. But Apple decided to pump it up to ~260 for reason I still haven't quite figure out, nor have I seen anyone on the internet gave any plausible explantation. ( Most likely because no one gives a damn about technical details any more. ). I much rather they drive the 120Hz refresh rate rather than pixel count.