Hacker News Reader

Comment by aulin | Hacker News Reader

Ok, I understand it cannot be comparable with a 5k iMac. But is text good enough? with €5k+ I can build a pretty serious linux rig with a couple of 4k monitors and keep the macbook air m1 just for mobile use. It's a shame that my 10+ years old macbook pro with High Sierra can render text better on any external monitor than my brand new air m1.

View on HN

I have a 4k 27" LG monitor and it is awesome with my Mac. I use it with 150% scale and the font is ultra sharp, best monitor I've ever seen so far

Please check your eyesight. I can easily tell the difference between a 220ppi and a 280ppi display when viewing text even at one meter viewing distance. 4k@27'' is only 163ppi. And my eyesight is not even what it used to be.

To me, 163ppi looks more similar to how old ~100ppi displays looked that to my 224ppi iMac.

Have they fixed the performance issues with non-integer scaling?

In my opinion, text rendering on 4k@27'' is nowhere near sharp enough. In my experience there isn't a continuum from low-dpi to high-dpi, but rather there's a sharp transition where text suddenly becomes sharp and 4k@27'' is below that line.

In fact, once you see these new 280dpi displays, even 5k@27'' barely makes the cut. I wish it were sharper.

Angular resolution is much more important than the actual surface DPI. Depending on you viewing distances and the quality of your vision 4K on a 14" laptop is needed or 1080p on a 27" screen is more than enough. Your requirements are extreme compared to most.

Yes, angular resolution is all that matters, which is why books, which are supposed to be used closer than any screen have been at least 300dpi since we have invented phototypesetting.

We can discuss how much angular resolution is enough but we clearly don't need 300dpi for a billboard. To get the same font quality when looking at a phone, laptop or external screen a different dpi will be needed.

Here's Apple's range of Retina displays:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retina_display#Models

The DPI difference between highest (iPhone 12) and lowest (Pro Display XDR) is 2.2x. The angular resolution difference at typical viewing distance between those two screens is 1.1x. Clearly the angular resolution at typical viewing distance is a much better definition of what's good enough resolution than the DPI.

Yes, and with the exception of a discontinued LG monitor, and a $4k Dell display that doesn't work on macOS, nor on Linux with OSS drivers, no external non-Apple display can provide the required angular resolution.

That totally depends on what angular resolution you require and what distance you are comfortable with. Using that list Apple's Retina concept starts at 57 and 4K 27" is ~60. And even that is assuming you place a 27" screen the same distance away from your eyes as a 24" or even 21" screen as all the iMacs use the same viewing distance.

But I'm glad we got over the idea that 220dpi is a magical number. Otherwise not even the iMac or the Apple Pro XDR displays counted as HiDPI.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com