10 ms·

Thank you, Apple! They put the "Retina" display in the iMac. This means people will buy it. Higher volume means whoever (LG, I think?) is manufacturing the s

Thank you, Apple! They put the "Retina" display in the iMac. This means people will buy it. Higher volume means whoever (LG, I think?) is manufacturing the screens will have to produce more, driving the cost down. That means they will sell variants. Then their competition will also sell competitive options because nobody will want 1080p on a computer screen anymore. Monitor technology has been stalled for years. This is going to be a gigantic kick in the pants to the industry!

w1ntermute 12y ago
I can't wait to see these available from off-brand Korean resellers. I wonder how much cheaper they'll be.
- RussianCow 12y ago
  The problem is, most GPUs can't drive that many pixels, which wasn't the case with the 1440p ones. So there is now a new set of issues with displays like these being used standalone.
- danboarder 12y ago
  Similar sized 4K UHD 60hz monitors have been available between $500-$600 for a while now, Monoprice for example: http://www.monoprice.com/Product?c_id=113&cp_id=11307&cs_id=1130703&p_id=12156&seq=1&format=2 http://www.monoprice.com/Product?c_id=113&cp_id=11307&cs_id=...
  - elif 12y ago
    Or if you want one from a more reputable manufacturer and retailer: http://www.amazon.com/Philips-28-Inch-Monitor-resolution-288P6LJEB/dp/B00K15LQZM/ http://www.amazon.com/Philips-28-Inch-Monitor-resolution-288...
    - brownbat 12y ago
      Is monoprice considered disreputable? I've been using them for years for inexpensive yet high quality cables, I thought their reputation was pretty well established. Maybe I missed a scandal out there somewhere.
      - CaveTech 12y ago
        I have nothing except good things to say about them, and have two of their UHD monitors.
      - nacs 12y ago
        I think the post is referring to UHD vs Phillips and not Monoprice vs Amazon. I've used Monoprice a few times in the past and they've been very good.
        aroch 12y ago
        CrystalPro is the "brand" here, UHD is the resolution UltraHD: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-high-definition_television https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-high-definition_televisi...
      - elif 12y ago
        i never said monoprice was disreputable. i said amazon was "more reputable" which i believe is true as they have in my experience the best return policy anywhere.
    - blackobelisk 12y ago
      monoprice is universally loved in my experience
  - astrange 12y ago
    Previous Monoprice monitors didn't even have backlight controllers: http://www.anandtech.com/show/7240/monoprice-zerog-slim-27-ips-monitor-review/2 http://www.anandtech.com/show/7240/monoprice-zerog-slim-27-i... In the cheapest LCD monitors, the brightness control just changes pixel values and doesn't affect the backlight. Hope this one's better, since the claimed brightness of 350 cd/m^2 is far too bright (you should have less than 120 cd/m^2 in a dark room) and is probably bad for your health. I'd guess they've fixed it, but there's no way you could tell from their "tech specs", which just list the same huge numbers (1.07 billion colors!) as every other manufacturer's LCD. It's a little worrying to see a Contrast control, too, since that makes no physical sense.
    - MrDosu 12y ago
      Brightness is not even close to being enough on modern displays. Looking at a 700nit display outside is still at most only half as bright as looking at a sheet of paper in the same light conditions. 350nit is nowhere near being bad for your health. I can only recommend to try out a high luminance display.
- progman 12y ago
  I hope some of those displays will be as matte as the old TFTs. I won't buy even an 8K display if it is glossy. For the same reason I won't buy the 5k imac.
tracker1 12y ago
The main concern with consumer adoption of separate 4k/5k+ screens will be dual-link dvi and hdmi 2... since standard hdmi can only drive 4k at 30hz refresh.
- joenathan 12y ago
  I just bought a GTX 980 because it supports HDMI 2.0, I am now running my HTPC at 4096x2160 @ 60hz over HDMI. As of right now the only graphics cards you can buy that support HDMI 2.0 are the GTX 970 & 980.
  - darkstar999 12y ago
    What display/tv are you using?
    - joenathan 12y ago
      LG 65UB9500 with WebOS, it's a pretty great TV, I really like the WebOS interface.
  - bas 12y ago
    Where did you find a GTX 980 in stock?
    - MetaCosm 12y ago
      If you are lucky enough to live near a MicroCenter -- they seem to have gotten good stocks and still have a few kicking about.
      - soylentcola 12y ago
        Yeah, that's what I plan on doing this weekend. Wasn't planning to upgrade my GTX680 for a while as it was plenty for GPU acceleration in Adobe apps and for gaming at 2560x1440 but the Rift pushes it to its limit in several applications. Thought about just getting another 680 to put in SLI but my stupid past self didn't buy an SLI motherboard and it's not worth the hassle to buy another mobo, another 680, and rebuild the thing now that the 980's are out.
Nux 12y ago
Not so sure about this. We still mostly have laptops with shit 1366x768 monitors despite "retina" or at least "full hd" screens being around for quite a while...
- wlesieutre 12y ago
  I bet it's a bigger deal for external monitors. A ton of people buy laptops just saying "Oh, 15 inch screen for cheap, that sounds perfect!" But the sort of consumer who buys an external monitor tends to know what "resolution" means. There's demand for better ones because nobody buys a 27" 1366x768 display. Given that Dell's 5k 27" screen is priced similarly to these iMacs, I think the economies of scale could help push some prices down.
  - deong 12y ago
    Plenty of people seem to buy 27" 1080p displays though, which is arguably worse than 768 on the 13-14" screen of a typical cheap laptop.
- theintern 12y ago
  I like small laptops and this is the bane of my life, there are so few powerful small laptops out there with good screen resolutions.
  - blt 12y ago
    I feel like laptop resolution progress stalled in the early 2000s. Maybe mass knowledge of 1080p HD set us back. I guess consumers started thinking "1920 x 1080 is really good resolution" so they were willing to accept lower resolutions as "good enough" for a long time. I had a 1400 x 1050 14" Dell laptop in 2005 but it wasn't until the Retina Macbook Pro in 2012 that laptop resolutions got significantly better. 768 is an absurdly bad vertical resolution. Many serious content creation apps do not work well at all at such a low resolution.
    - epochwolf 12y ago
fuzzythinker 12y ago
I'm still waiting for a good non-retina ~30" 3k monitor. I'm currently using a 2560x1440 (HP zr2740w), and horizontal space is a little tight for dual windows. Retina doesn't really matter for me (I got the retina MBP, but using it for 1680). The only options seems to be the ones linked below, but there aren't any reviews on the 2880 ones, and the 3440 is too wide and only 1440 high, not ideal for dual windows. 1. http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00KG5LWM4 http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00KG5LWM4 - eq278c, 27"@2880x1620 = 122ppi, $765 2. http://www.amazon.com/AURIA-EQ308C-30-2880-1620/dp/B00KG5LSBE http://www.amazon.com/AURIA-EQ308C-30-2880-1620/dp/B00KG5LSB... - eq308c, 30"@2880x1620 = 110ppi, $1075 3. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00JR6GCZA http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00JR6GCZA - LG 34UM95, 34"@3440x1440 = 110ppi, $999
- danboarder 12y ago
  Monoprice is selling UHD 4K 3840x2160 60hz for $500-600... I've seen similar ones from Samsung on Amazon. http://www.monoprice.com/Product?c_id=113&cp_id=11307&cs_id=1130703&p_id=12156&seq=1&format=2 http://www.monoprice.com/Product?c_id=113&cp_id=11307&cs_id=...
  - fuzzythinker 12y ago
    I want 3k, not 4k. I haven't heard any 4k monitors that can downsize to 3k w/o aliasing and/or without first upscaling to a higher resolution. EDIT: 4k on ~30" is too high resolution. 4k on ~40" is too big/wide. Also, for the same price, you can get the same 28" 4k Samsung monitor from Amazon (search for samsung u28d590d).
    - zanny 12y ago
      > 4k on ~30" is too high resolution. What?
      - nordsieck 12y ago
        He's saying that OS controls don't scale well on the desktop.
KobaQ 12y ago
Sitting in front of a Dell U2713HM being perfectly happy. Sharpness, fontsize, movies ... seems all perfectly. But OK, ask me again when I will have been using these resolution monsters for a week :-). If ever, I wish :-).
- calinet6 12y ago
  My dual 2412Ms (noticeably less resolution than yours, but still) sit beside a 15" Retina MBP. It is painful to switch between the screens. First world problems, but the good kind.
- ck2 12y ago
  Same here, plus brightness near zero with no flicker because no PWM Many of these new monitors use PWM for brightness which gives headaches
libso 12y ago
And I assume you also mean content providers will also be forced to shoot their videos in 4k/5k resolution? (I don't think so) I understand this is a big + for monitors. I have used Dell ultra-sharp 32" @ 3840x2160 with display port and it's fantastic. Larger workspace, better gaming, better multitasking!
- michaelgrafl 12y ago
  I don't care that much about video. Full HD is plenty fine with me. I care a lot about text, because that's what I consume almost exclusively day in day out at work and in my spare time when I sit in front of a screen. And nothing profits more from high contrast and high pixel density than text rendering. I just inherited a Dell XPS 13 with a really nice Full HD screen from a coworker who quit. I've got running Ubuntu on it with a scaling factor of 1.5. Not quite Retina, but pretty sweet nonetheless. I was going to use it with an external screen, but after getting used to this laptop I couldn't stand looking at the external screen anymore and got rid of it. Work (programming and writing) is a lot more fun with this setup. My spouse just got a 13 inch Retina MBP. She's pretty stoked as well. Even her half blind mom can see the difference. High resolution screens are great and as sooner they become standard the better.

w1ntermute 12y ago

I can't wait to see these available from off-brand Korean resellers. I wonder how much cheaper they'll be.

RussianCow 12y ago
The problem is, most GPUs can't drive that many pixels, which wasn't the case with the 1440p ones. So there is now a new set of issues with displays like these being used standalone.
danboarder 12y ago
Similar sized 4K UHD 60hz monitors have been available between $500-$600 for a while now, Monoprice for example: http://www.monoprice.com/Product?c_id=113&cp_id=11307&cs_id=1130703&p_id=12156&seq=1&format=2 http://www.monoprice.com/Product?c_id=113&cp_id=11307&cs_id=...
- elif 12y ago
  Or if you want one from a more reputable manufacturer and retailer: http://www.amazon.com/Philips-28-Inch-Monitor-resolution-288P6LJEB/dp/B00K15LQZM/ http://www.amazon.com/Philips-28-Inch-Monitor-resolution-288...
  - brownbat 12y ago
    Is monoprice considered disreputable? I've been using them for years for inexpensive yet high quality cables, I thought their reputation was pretty well established. Maybe I missed a scandal out there somewhere.
    - CaveTech 12y ago
      I have nothing except good things to say about them, and have two of their UHD monitors.
    - nacs 12y ago
      I think the post is referring to UHD vs Phillips and not Monoprice vs Amazon. I've used Monoprice a few times in the past and they've been very good.
      - aroch 12y ago
        CrystalPro is the "brand" here, UHD is the resolution UltraHD: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-high-definition_television https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-high-definition_televisi...
    - elif 12y ago
      i never said monoprice was disreputable. i said amazon was "more reputable" which i believe is true as they have in my experience the best return policy anywhere.
  - blackobelisk 12y ago
    monoprice is universally loved in my experience
- astrange 12y ago
  Previous Monoprice monitors didn't even have backlight controllers: http://www.anandtech.com/show/7240/monoprice-zerog-slim-27-ips-monitor-review/2 http://www.anandtech.com/show/7240/monoprice-zerog-slim-27-i... In the cheapest LCD monitors, the brightness control just changes pixel values and doesn't affect the backlight. Hope this one's better, since the claimed brightness of 350 cd/m^2 is far too bright (you should have less than 120 cd/m^2 in a dark room) and is probably bad for your health. I'd guess they've fixed it, but there's no way you could tell from their "tech specs", which just list the same huge numbers (1.07 billion colors!) as every other manufacturer's LCD. It's a little worrying to see a Contrast control, too, since that makes no physical sense.
  - MrDosu 12y ago
    Brightness is not even close to being enough on modern displays. Looking at a 700nit display outside is still at most only half as bright as looking at a sheet of paper in the same light conditions. 350nit is nowhere near being bad for your health. I can only recommend to try out a high luminance display.
progman 12y ago
I hope some of those displays will be as matte as the old TFTs. I won't buy even an 8K display if it is glossy. For the same reason I won't buy the 5k imac.

tracker1 12y ago

The main concern with consumer adoption of separate 4k/5k+ screens will be dual-link dvi and hdmi 2... since standard hdmi can only drive 4k at 30hz refresh.

joenathan 12y ago
I just bought a GTX 980 because it supports HDMI 2.0, I am now running my HTPC at 4096x2160 @ 60hz over HDMI. As of right now the only graphics cards you can buy that support HDMI 2.0 are the GTX 970 & 980.
- darkstar999 12y ago
  What display/tv are you using?
  - joenathan 12y ago
    LG 65UB9500 with WebOS, it's a pretty great TV, I really like the WebOS interface.
- bas 12y ago
  Where did you find a GTX 980 in stock?
  - MetaCosm 12y ago
    If you are lucky enough to live near a MicroCenter -- they seem to have gotten good stocks and still have a few kicking about.
    - soylentcola 12y ago
      Yeah, that's what I plan on doing this weekend. Wasn't planning to upgrade my GTX680 for a while as it was plenty for GPU acceleration in Adobe apps and for gaming at 2560x1440 but the Rift pushes it to its limit in several applications. Thought about just getting another 680 to put in SLI but my stupid past self didn't buy an SLI motherboard and it's not worth the hassle to buy another mobo, another 680, and rebuild the thing now that the 980's are out.

Nux 12y ago

Not so sure about this. We still mostly have laptops with shit 1366x768 monitors despite "retina" or at least "full hd" screens being around for quite a while...

wlesieutre 12y ago
I bet it's a bigger deal for external monitors. A ton of people buy laptops just saying "Oh, 15 inch screen for cheap, that sounds perfect!" But the sort of consumer who buys an external monitor tends to know what "resolution" means. There's demand for better ones because nobody buys a 27" 1366x768 display. Given that Dell's 5k 27" screen is priced similarly to these iMacs, I think the economies of scale could help push some prices down.
- deong 12y ago
  Plenty of people seem to buy 27" 1080p displays though, which is arguably worse than 768 on the 13-14" screen of a typical cheap laptop.
theintern 12y ago
I like small laptops and this is the bane of my life, there are so few powerful small laptops out there with good screen resolutions.
- blt 12y ago
  I feel like laptop resolution progress stalled in the early 2000s. Maybe mass knowledge of 1080p HD set us back. I guess consumers started thinking "1920 x 1080 is really good resolution" so they were willing to accept lower resolutions as "good enough" for a long time. I had a 1400 x 1050 14" Dell laptop in 2005 but it wasn't until the Retina Macbook Pro in 2012 that laptop resolutions got significantly better. 768 is an absurdly bad vertical resolution. Many serious content creation apps do not work well at all at such a low resolution.
  - epochwolf 12y ago

fuzzythinker 12y ago

I'm still waiting for a good non-retina ~30" 3k monitor. I'm currently using a 2560x1440 (HP zr2740w), and horizontal space is a little tight for dual windows. Retina doesn't really matter for me (I got the retina MBP, but using it for 1680). The only options seems to be the ones linked below, but there aren't any reviews on the 2880 ones, and the 3440 is too wide and only 1440 high, not ideal for dual windows. 1. http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00KG5LWM4 http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00KG5LWM4 - eq278c, 27"@2880x1620 = 122ppi, $765 2. http://www.amazon.com/AURIA-EQ308C-30-2880-1620/dp/B00KG5LSBE http://www.amazon.com/AURIA-EQ308C-30-2880-1620/dp/B00KG5LSB... - eq308c, 30"@2880x1620 = 110ppi, $1075 3. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00JR6GCZA http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00JR6GCZA - LG 34UM95, 34"@3440x1440 = 110ppi, $999

danboarder 12y ago
Monoprice is selling UHD 4K 3840x2160 60hz for $500-600... I've seen similar ones from Samsung on Amazon. http://www.monoprice.com/Product?c_id=113&cp_id=11307&cs_id=1130703&p_id=12156&seq=1&format=2 http://www.monoprice.com/Product?c_id=113&cp_id=11307&cs_id=...
- fuzzythinker 12y ago
  I want 3k, not 4k. I haven't heard any 4k monitors that can downsize to 3k w/o aliasing and/or without first upscaling to a higher resolution. EDIT: 4k on ~30" is too high resolution. 4k on ~40" is too big/wide. Also, for the same price, you can get the same 28" 4k Samsung monitor from Amazon (search for samsung u28d590d).
  - zanny 12y ago
    > 4k on ~30" is too high resolution. What?
    - nordsieck 12y ago
      He's saying that OS controls don't scale well on the desktop.

KobaQ 12y ago

Sitting in front of a Dell U2713HM being perfectly happy. Sharpness, fontsize, movies ... seems all perfectly. But OK, ask me again when I will have been using these resolution monsters for a week :-). If ever, I wish :-).

calinet6 12y ago
My dual 2412Ms (noticeably less resolution than yours, but still) sit beside a 15" Retina MBP. It is painful to switch between the screens. First world problems, but the good kind.
ck2 12y ago
Same here, plus brightness near zero with no flicker because no PWM Many of these new monitors use PWM for brightness which gives headaches

libso 12y ago

And I assume you also mean content providers will also be forced to shoot their videos in 4k/5k resolution? (I don't think so) I understand this is a big + for monitors. I have used Dell ultra-sharp 32" @ 3840x2160 with display port and it's fantastic. Larger workspace, better gaming, better multitasking!

michaelgrafl 12y ago
I don't care that much about video. Full HD is plenty fine with me. I care a lot about text, because that's what I consume almost exclusively day in day out at work and in my spare time when I sit in front of a screen. And nothing profits more from high contrast and high pixel density than text rendering. I just inherited a Dell XPS 13 with a really nice Full HD screen from a coworker who quit. I've got running Ubuntu on it with a scaling factor of 1.5. Not quite Retina, but pretty sweet nonetheless. I was going to use it with an external screen, but after getting used to this laptop I couldn't stand looking at the external screen anymore and got rid of it. Work (programming and writing) is a lot more fun with this setup. My spouse just got a 13 inch Retina MBP. She's pretty stoked as well. Even her half blind mom can see the difference. High resolution screens are great and as sooner they become standard the better.