[Discuss] 4K monitors

[Shirley Márquez Dúlcey]

A bit more info: the Dell is supposed to start shipping on January 23.
Lenovo plans to ship in April. ASUS also announced a $799 28" UHD
monitor due in "second quarter 2014". The Dell and Lenovo monitors are
limited to 30Hz refresh at 4K (fine for programming but not ideal for
gaming); the ASUS may do 60Hz but I haven't found a definite answer.
Dell is using a TN panel; I could not find info about the display
technology of the other two.

On Sat, Jan 11, 2014 at 12:08 AM, Shirley Márquez Dúlcey
<mark at buttery.org> wrote:
> It's a bit bigger than 24", but two 28" UHD (aka "4K", actually
> 3840x2160) monitors (Dell for $699 and Lenovo for $799) were announced
> at CES. Lenovo also announced something that is a 28" UHD monitor plus
> an Android touchscreen device ($1199). Not sure exactly when they will
> be available. Dell already has a 24" UHD monitor but it's a lot more
> expensive than the new 28" model.
>
> On Fri, Jan 10, 2014 at 11:58 PM, Robert Krawitz <rlk at alum.mit.edu> wrote:
>> On Fri, 10 Jan 2014 23:37:06 -0500, Tom Metro wrote:
>>> In this blog posting the author makes the case that 4K resolution is
>>> hardly needed for TVs, but makes for a great monitor for programmers:
>>>
>>> So will your next display be 4K? Have you upgraded already? Does it play
>>> well with Linux?
>>
>> If I could find a decent 24" display that's 4K I'd go for it.  If I
>> could find a 16:10 (3840x2400) 17" panel that I could retrofit into my
>> laptop, I'd go for it.  If the price weren't outrageous.
>>
>>> The author said that the ideal size for a computer monitor was 50" in
>>> his opinion. Do you feel that a screen that big actually gains you
>>> something? Beyond a certain size, when you are sitting only a few feet
>>> from the display, large portions of the display end up only being in
>>> your peripheral view.
>>
>> 50" is way too big when you're that close.  If you're 2' away from the
>> monitor, a 24" monitor subtends an angle of 60 degrees -- 30 degrees
>> off-axis in each direction -- which is reasonable.  A 50" monitor would
>> be something more than 90 degrees.
>>
>>> While you can of course move your eyes to focus on other parts, you may
>>> find that the small pitch text you work with in your code editor that
>>> works great when it is front-and-center, now is too small when it is off
>>> in the far corners of the screen.
>>>
>>> There is always good use for more screen space, but given the above, the
>>> high resolution across the full 39" inches might be wasted. Even the
>>> cost premium of using one big screen instead of multiple screens may not
>>> be justified, if you are only doing detailed work on a small portion of
>>> the screen space. Though if the premium isn't much, it's hard to be the
>>> cool factor of a giant display.
>>
>> Multiple screens have disadvantages, though:
>>
>> 1) The gap between the screens
>>
>> 2) A typical 2-monitor display increases horizontal resolution, but not
>>    vertical
>>
>> 3) The dot pitch is the same as with a conventional display
>>
>> If I had a screen with twice the resolution, I might not be able to use
>> the 6x10 fixed font that I currently use in emacs, but 7x12, 8x13, or
>> 9x15 might be perfectly usable.  They would be smaller than 6x10 on my
>> existing 1920x1200 displays, but more detailed, making for better
>> readability.  In practice, I'd go for the smallest font I could halfway
>> comfortably read, and just hope that I don't lose the remaining
>> nearsightedness in my left eye too quickly (my eyes differ a fair bit,
>> so I use my left eye for near vision and my right eye for distance
>> vision).
>>
>> --
>> Robert Krawitz                                     <rlk at alum.mit.edu>
>>
>> MIT VI-3 1987 - Congrats MIT Engineers 5 straight men's hoops tourney
>> Tall Clubs International  --  http://www.tall.org/ or 1-888-IM-TALL-2
>> Member of the League for Programming Freedom  --  http://ProgFree.org
>> Project lead for Gutenprint   --    http://gimp-print.sourceforge.net
>>
>> "Linux doesn't dictate how I work, I dictate how Linux works."
>> --Eric Crampton
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