> At what point does the law of diminishing returns kick in? Well, diminishing returns have already begun by the time you get to the sunlit uplands of about 10

> At what point does the law of diminishing returns kick in? Well, diminishing returns have already begun by the time you get to the sunlit uplands of about 1024 × 768 (non-interlaced! in 16-bit colour!). Every further step up feels somewhat incremental in comparison. But are further steps worthwhile? Yes. There's a reason why people use maps and papers printed in 600dpi and above, then spread several of them out at the same time on a big table. Can you display this chart http://xkcd.com/657/large/ http://xkcd.com/657/large/ so that all of the text is clearly legible, and without having to scroll or zoom? Can you display this chart and two long excerpts from LOTR side-by-side so that all of the text is clearly legible and you can move between all three just by moving your eyes, without scrolling or zooming inside any window or moving, resizing or tabbing between windows? If not, then your monitor isn't as high-detail as it should be and/or doesn't cover as much of your visual field as it should. And that test doesn't come all that close to testing the upper limits of what you can usefully do with progressively-better displays.