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I think it depends what you use them for. Personally, since I use my external monitor for coding, I'd rather optimize for PPI. I love reading code on my MacBook

I think it depends what you use them for. Personally, since I use my external monitor for coding, I'd rather optimize for PPI. I love reading code on my MacBook's Retina screen, which is about 218 PPI, and I definitely notice the difference when reading code on non-retina. Unfortunately it's extremely expensive to get the equivalent of Retina PPI in an external monitor. But you can still get decent readability even without Retina PPI if you avoid issues like display scaling. Here's a great blog post [0] about the tradeoffs of screen size, resolution, pixel density, and the "zone of despair" where display scaling causes problems. [0] https://bjango.com/articles/macexternaldisplays2/ https://bjango.com/articles/macexternaldisplays2/

hypertexthero 3y ago
Thanks for that link! My 27in screen is in the “Good for non-retina” space at 109ppi in its native 2560x1440 resolution, which I find to be a sweet-spot for gaming and desktop use.
aramndrt 3y ago
That is, retina or below 110 PPI? Is it really so bad that a 1440p 27-inch is preferable to a 4K 27-inch? Do you have firsthand experience? I've read mixed reports.
- chatmasta 3y ago
  I do have personal experience, at least in following the advice of that blog post. After reading it, I bought the Dell S2722DZ which is 27" 2560x1440 for 108PPI. It's a decent monitor and I haven't had any issues with scaling, i.e. the "native resolution" of the monitor works with the output of the OS and there's no need to waste CPU/RAM on scaling the pixels. The text isn't as crisp as on a Retina, but it's way better than the previous cheapo monitor I had. Not sure my opinion counts for much though, since I didn't try any monitor in "the red zone" and thus have nothing to compare it to. This Dell model does have a 1px column of dead (?) pixels that appears sometimes, but if I squeeze it then it goes away. I think it's due to some loose wire in the paneling... but it's not too big of a deal, and regardless, it's unrelated to PPI or scaling or whatever.

hypertexthero 3y ago

Thanks for that link! My 27in screen is in the “Good for non-retina” space at 109ppi in its native 2560x1440 resolution, which I find to be a sweet-spot for gaming and desktop use.

aramndrt 3y ago

That is, retina or below 110 PPI? Is it really so bad that a 1440p 27-inch is preferable to a 4K 27-inch? Do you have firsthand experience? I've read mixed reports.

chatmasta 3y ago
I do have personal experience, at least in following the advice of that blog post. After reading it, I bought the Dell S2722DZ which is 27" 2560x1440 for 108PPI. It's a decent monitor and I haven't had any issues with scaling, i.e. the "native resolution" of the monitor works with the output of the OS and there's no need to waste CPU/RAM on scaling the pixels. The text isn't as crisp as on a Retina, but it's way better than the previous cheapo monitor I had. Not sure my opinion counts for much though, since I didn't try any monitor in "the red zone" and thus have nothing to compare it to. This Dell model does have a 1px column of dead (?) pixels that appears sometimes, but if I squeeze it then it goes away. I think it's due to some loose wire in the paneling... but it's not too big of a deal, and regardless, it's unrelated to PPI or scaling or whatever.