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Comment by darkteflon | Hacker News Reader

Sure, I have an Innocn PU15-PRE. Just to reiterate that a 15.6” 4K is definitely the way to go. I also tried 14” 4K and 1440p panels but - on account of the way scaling and font rendering works in MacOS - they’re a big step down. Even moreso if you’re doing anything graphically intensive - you’ll want to use non-native scaling on a 14” 4K which is expensive for the GPU. The 15.6” panel doesn’t have this problem because the “effective 1080p resolution” divides cleanly into the native 4K panel resolution.

I spent ages working through this.

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> I also tried 14” 4K and 1440p panels but - on account of the way scaling and font rendering works in MacOS - they’re a big step down

You can probably fix this with BetterDisplay (formerly known as BetterDummy?). I used it with my 3440x1440 monitor. https://github.com/waydabber/BetterDisplay

But limits the output to 60hz and I get random flickering when reconnecting 60% of the time. However the devs of that app have been super active and it has improved a lot in just a few months so I’m sure it’s temporary.

I tried it - it’s okay, but a bit flaky - especially disconnect/re-connect. While it does _improve_ font rendering on sub-Retina displays, it’s still nowhere near as nice as font rendered on a display recognised as Retina-capable by MacOS - which any 4K display is. It’s particularly noticeable in the setup described above, as your eyes are constantly moving between the in-built Retina display and your external display.

It might be a good solution if you already have an, eg, 1440p display and want better font rendering, but if you’re putting together a setup from scratch, MacOS just works hassle-free with 4K displays. You’ve got to stare at these things for hours every day, so.

I was looking for a stand, but couldn't find one that's portable, what are you using?

I use a small [Neewer tripod](https://amzn.asia/d/dhkt0hd) connected to an Swfoto Arca-Swiss tablet holder (link below in this thread).

Aw man, not your fault, but the Amazon app does not handle the switch from US to Japan store smoothly at all

https://www.amazon.com/Neewer-Portable-Desktop-Mini-Tripod/d...

amazon.com link to what I believe is the same product.

Same here - a photo would be great! I want a portal monitor but it has to be at eyeheight. Otherwise I will use a crappy laptop raiser thing.

Yep, this is at eye height. For me this solution is better than using a laptop raiser because: you get two displays instead of one, and in a setup no wider than a laptop, and you don’t need to pack an external keyboard, mouse and/or trackpad. Plus a tripod and portable display packs way better than most laptop raisers I’ve seen.

The upper display becomes your main display, the lower one your secondary. You still have to look down sometimes at the secondary but that is vastly better than craning your neck the whole time.

Edit: [Pic](https://imgur.com/a/sdLmYJG). Bad photo but you get the idea. In reality, both those panels are perfectly angled for viewing when I’m sitting down in front of them, with no overlap.

That’s great that you guys are into this. I feel like I cracked the code with this one. I told my irl friends and they just shrugged.

This is EXCELLENT, I've been looking for this the last +10 years

Thanks for sharing!

Sibling, stoked to hear that! Enjoy glorious pain-free travel productivity.

I often use it at home, too - just to get out of the home office from time to time. Can work from the kitchen table without compromise. Takes less than a minute to set up.

How do you mount it to a tripod? Also do you know if you can horizontally flip the image so it could be used with a teleprompter?

I use [this](https://amzn.asia/d/a74Tepm). Not sure about flipping the image but I’ve put the model number here in the thread.

Thanks! From the manual, it looks like it only has support for rotation and not the flipping.

You could also move the camera to film the reflection from the 45 degree glass, if you’re looking for a home office teleprompter solution and not a live presentation version.

Yeah, it's not actually for a teleprompter - I'm using it as my zero-parallax video conferencing solution with a Canon R5 as my webcam. I'm currently using an 11" iPad Pro using the excellent Duet Display software which does the horizontal flip [1] and it works great for that. I'd like the display to be larger though, but that requires upgrading the teleprompter too and I've been toying with that hence my question about monitors that can do the horizontal flip. But I think I'm just going to mirror a 24" monitor underneath my videoconferencing setup so that I can better see presentations during meetings.

[1] https://www.duetdisplay.com/

...you're using a four thousand dollar (not including lens) mirrorless camera as your webcam for videoconferencing services that are typically barely a few megabits per second?

Yep. But I also use it as a stills camera and a video camera. And you should see the lens that I have mounted to it :) But that's not what I do for a living. Because of that, the camera would otherwise sit on a shelf, unused. I use it for many hours each day and it makes me happy to use it. The only gear that I bought that I wouldn't otherwise have owned is a $250 teleprompter, oh and the Camlink 4K for the HDMI->USB and probably a few other things, but you get the idea. Most of these mirrorless cameras sit around unused all day long. Kind of like your car when you're parked at work.

That must be the problem I had. I gave up using an external monitor because it turned my macbook into a toaster

Was that an Intel toaster or an Apple one? I think the Apple ones don’t get so hot.

That one is/was Intel. Getting a bit long in the tooth, but still my daily driver.

The Apple Silicon models can handle it just fine for desktop use. It’s when you’re using Blender or Unreal or whatever that it becomes an issue.

Except they only handle one external display.

Depends which model you’re talking about. M1 Pro is two external, M1 Max four external, each in addition to the built-in. Nice try, though.

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