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Why is it that pretty much all displays in the PC world have such dismal pixel densities (< 226 ppi)? It would be nice to be able to shop for a new desktop disp

Why is it that pretty much all displays in the PC world have such dismal pixel densities (< 226 ppi)? It would be nice to be able to shop for a new desktop display without having to give up Retina in macOS.

howinteresting 3y ago
Most people buying high-end monitors prioritize high refresh rates over pixel densities.
- api 3y ago
  Gamers do. For coding I prefer high contrast and clarity. I’m disappointed there haven’t been any huge genuine OLED screens. MicroLED could be nice too.
  - howinteresting 3y ago
    Right, and most people buying high-end monitors are gamers.
    - addisonl 3y ago
      Interesting, I’d assume it’s professionals in the video/photography/production space spending the serious money on high end displays. Where are you getting your data?
      - jccalhoun 3y ago
        Well there's "high end" consumer and then there's "high end" professional which is a few times higher in price
  - kitsunesoba 3y ago
    Yeah the extra frames do nothing in my text editor. The only part of your typical gaming display I want in a work/daily driver monitor is adaptive sync to reduce video judder and to allow the GPU to idle even more deeply when nothing is being redrawn (which is part of why M-series 14/16” MBPs get great battery life: their screens can go down as far as 1hz). I won’t turn down a higher peak framerate if it comes without cost to the rest of the monitor’s functionality of course, but it’s not worth trading anything away for.
- Clamchop 3y ago
  High refresh rates seem to have gotten quite cheap. In addition to refresh rates, the high end is concerned with HDR, resolution, color reproduction, curve, and width, depending on the professional segment being targeted. The products exist but they're not as numerous as I'd expect (certainly not outside of the Apple ecosystem), and it's an eye-watering leap as far as prices go, hundreds of dollars at one end and multiple thousands at the other with very little in between.
  - sedatk 3y ago
    My experience is that HDR is rarely worth it on a computer monitor because OLED is so rare. FALD or other non-OLED HDR displays don't get near a decent OLED TV's HDR performance.
hedora 3y ago
I think part of the reason is that high DPI support was completely broken under windows for at least a decade after it was working fine in MacOS and Linux (pre-wayland and the rise of "HiDPI support"). Most PC's are targeting windows, and stuff would be unreasonably small if you plugged in a midrange monitor from the early 2000's. So, monitor manufacturers stopped offering monitors with reasonable DPI.
mkozlows 3y ago
Because they're expensive. It's the same reason that phones have higher DPI than laptops/tablets do -- what's economical on a 6" screen isn't on a 13", and what's economical on 13" isn't on 27." (Why? Yields. A 6" phone screen is like 12 square inches. A 27" desktop monitor is over 300 square inches. If you have a 98% yield of phone screens without defects, that implies only one defect per ~600 square inches, which means that at a handwave level, you'd have a 50% yield of desktop monitors with that same tech. "We have to throw away half the screens we make as junk" is a lot worse than "we have to throw away 2% of them.")
- Dylan16807 3y ago
  The missing factor here is how pixel density affects yields. How does that scale for a same-size screen at 1080, 4k, 8k? And smaller defects are better when you do sell off the imperfect panels.
Sohcahtoa82 3y ago
Because people have switched to larger screens (32+ inch) that they place farther away, lowering the need for pixel density. I'm on a 4K 27" monitor. That's a PPI of 163. I don't feel it's dismal, and I sit relatively close to my monitor.
- seanmcdirmid 3y ago
  I’m using a 4K 28” (I didn’t think there were any 4K 27” given the geometry), and it’s ok but I would really prefer a 5K 27”, those are just more clear although not incredibly so. But they are so expensive to get outside of an iMac. I recently bought my wife a 24” 4K, which has a similar density to the 27” 5K, and her screen looks much better than my 28” 4K.
  - imwally 3y ago
    Which 24” 4K did you get her? There doesn’t seem to be many on the market?
- glowingly 3y ago
  I have followed this approach as well. I use a larger display from further away. I did get a deeper desk to enable this in my current setup. Previously, I mounted my monitor on the wall and moved the desk out ~10" (~25cm). Either way gives me a greater range of suitable monitors, and they are all cheaper than going for unicorn displays.
wmf 3y ago
Apple defines 218 DPI as Retina BTW.

howinteresting 3y ago

Most people buying high-end monitors prioritize high refresh rates over pixel densities.

api 3y ago
Gamers do. For coding I prefer high contrast and clarity. I’m disappointed there haven’t been any huge genuine OLED screens. MicroLED could be nice too.
- howinteresting 3y ago
  Right, and most people buying high-end monitors are gamers.
  - addisonl 3y ago
    Interesting, I’d assume it’s professionals in the video/photography/production space spending the serious money on high end displays. Where are you getting your data?
    - jccalhoun 3y ago
      Well there's "high end" consumer and then there's "high end" professional which is a few times higher in price
- kitsunesoba 3y ago
  Yeah the extra frames do nothing in my text editor. The only part of your typical gaming display I want in a work/daily driver monitor is adaptive sync to reduce video judder and to allow the GPU to idle even more deeply when nothing is being redrawn (which is part of why M-series 14/16” MBPs get great battery life: their screens can go down as far as 1hz). I won’t turn down a higher peak framerate if it comes without cost to the rest of the monitor’s functionality of course, but it’s not worth trading anything away for.
Clamchop 3y ago
High refresh rates seem to have gotten quite cheap. In addition to refresh rates, the high end is concerned with HDR, resolution, color reproduction, curve, and width, depending on the professional segment being targeted. The products exist but they're not as numerous as I'd expect (certainly not outside of the Apple ecosystem), and it's an eye-watering leap as far as prices go, hundreds of dollars at one end and multiple thousands at the other with very little in between.
- sedatk 3y ago
  My experience is that HDR is rarely worth it on a computer monitor because OLED is so rare. FALD or other non-OLED HDR displays don't get near a decent OLED TV's HDR performance.

hedora 3y ago

I think part of the reason is that high DPI support was completely broken under windows for at least a decade after it was working fine in MacOS and Linux (pre-wayland and the rise of "HiDPI support"). Most PC's are targeting windows, and stuff would be unreasonably small if you plugged in a midrange monitor from the early 2000's. So, monitor manufacturers stopped offering monitors with reasonable DPI.

mkozlows 3y ago

Because they're expensive. It's the same reason that phones have higher DPI than laptops/tablets do -- what's economical on a 6" screen isn't on a 13", and what's economical on 13" isn't on 27." (Why? Yields. A 6" phone screen is like 12 square inches. A 27" desktop monitor is over 300 square inches. If you have a 98% yield of phone screens without defects, that implies only one defect per ~600 square inches, which means that at a handwave level, you'd have a 50% yield of desktop monitors with that same tech. "We have to throw away half the screens we make as junk" is a lot worse than "we have to throw away 2% of them.")

Dylan16807 3y ago
The missing factor here is how pixel density affects yields. How does that scale for a same-size screen at 1080, 4k, 8k? And smaller defects are better when you do sell off the imperfect panels.

Sohcahtoa82 3y ago

Because people have switched to larger screens (32+ inch) that they place farther away, lowering the need for pixel density. I'm on a 4K 27" monitor. That's a PPI of 163. I don't feel it's dismal, and I sit relatively close to my monitor.

seanmcdirmid 3y ago
I’m using a 4K 28” (I didn’t think there were any 4K 27” given the geometry), and it’s ok but I would really prefer a 5K 27”, those are just more clear although not incredibly so. But they are so expensive to get outside of an iMac. I recently bought my wife a 24” 4K, which has a similar density to the 27” 5K, and her screen looks much better than my 28” 4K.
- imwally 3y ago
  Which 24” 4K did you get her? There doesn’t seem to be many on the market?
glowingly 3y ago
I have followed this approach as well. I use a larger display from further away. I did get a deeper desk to enable this in my current setup. Previously, I mounted my monitor on the wall and moved the desk out ~10" (~25cm). Either way gives me a greater range of suitable monitors, and they are all cheaper than going for unicorn displays.

wmf 3y ago

Apple defines 218 DPI as Retina BTW.