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a1369209993

> nobody will actively dislike a 4K monitor

In addition to what thomaslord said [ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23554382 ], 4K monitors tend to be widescreen. 1280x1024 user here; you'll take my aspect ratio when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.

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I also found that the 16:10 is a better ratio, than 16:9, when working with code.

I wish there would be more 1920x1200 or 2560x1600 displays...

Lacking those options at reasonable prices leaves me with the option of using rotated 2K monitors, though 27" ones are uncomfortably tall and 24-25" ones are a little too high in pixel density.

Huawei's Matebook's 3K (3000x2000) display with its 3:2 (1.5) ratio at almost 14" size is an amazing sweet spot though. I wish they would have it in 28" size for desktop use :)

In the end I'm working on 27" 2K and 5K iMacs for about a decade now and I see it as a good compromise, despite the aspect ratio, but I quite like my 30" HP ZR30w with its 2560x1200 resolution. Unfortunately its backlight is getting old and uneven :(

ah, and one solution to the font sharpness issue is to use bitmap fonts, indeed. I haven't found good ones though which are available at 16px or above sizes, which are necessary for 2K or 4K displays. Also they are typically quite wide and don't have narrow options.

I found an interesting middle ground though. The old AmigaOS Topaz font as TTF :D http://www.geekometry.com/2013/11/amiga-topaz-truetype-font-...

Joking aside, the narrower variants of the Input font looks pretty good with anti-aliasing: https://input.fontbureau.com/preview/

Speaking of 3:2 ratio, we have to mention the Microsoft Surface line of tablets, laptops and convertibles.

Definitely overpriced for a developer machine, but there is also the Surface Studio 2, with its 4500 x 3000, 28 inch, 192 DPI display, 192 being exactly 2x the "standard" 96 DPI.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surface_Studio_2

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Surface

I have a 1920x1200 at home, 16:10 instead of the usual 16:9. I feel the same way, I won't be upgrading that monitor until it dies. That little bit of extra vertical space is so welcome.

What if I gave you more vertical pixels? Would that be okay? 1280x1440 maybe? Just a few more.

Nope, bad aspect ratio. Let me know if you find a 1920x1536, though. (1600x1280 would also be nice, and a 2560x2048 would be a 4K monitor that's actually useful, although thomaslord's objections still apply.)

Edit: actually, wouldn't 1440x1280 (aspect ratio 1.125, which is even less than my usual 1.25) be a better use of such a LCD panel, rather than a obviously-useless 1280x1440 (with a aspect ratio less than one)?

Maybe. I did use 1280x1024 for a year or two back in the day. Mostly I have found vertical pixels to be more prized for reading, software dev, etc.

Why do you care about aspect ratio so much?

OCD

Yeah, pretty much. Also, standard video aspect ratios like 1280x720 fit the full width of the monitor with space above and below for toolbars and video player UI, which is... basically impossible to convey how frustrating it is to watch video on a widescreen monitor when you've tried a proper one for comparison. Any kind of fullscreen (ie maximized window) games or multimedia is similar.

I understand the bit about a video players, but you're not going to want to play a game in anything except exclusive fullscreen due to the massive input latency incurred when using windowed or borderless windowed.

Depends on the games you're playing, honestly. That "massive" latency is about 30ms from what I can find, which you're not really going to notice when playing a game like civilization or hearthstone.

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