Dell’s new UltraSharp monitor is a 6K powerhouse for pros
arstechnica.com
arstechnica.com
I’m sure there are people who benefit from 6k on 32”, but if you’re coding and you haven’t tried the 42”, you may want to do it.
I got this one: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09RRVKN12/
I'm running 1 monitor with MacOS and Rectangle. The vertical height is amazing, and there's enough horizontal space for 3 double wide terminals.
Isn’t 42“ a bit big for a desk monitor? I prefer having a second monitor (currently a 25“), is there still enough space on the desk for a second monitor?
But if you really need to have multiple monitors, you'll need a pretty big desk to make it work.
I specifically got their G3223Q (144Hz) and it's awesome. Color calibrated it to match my MBP and it's an excellent match (with less contrast).
Samsung just announced a 57" 8k monitor which looks pretty awesome, $$$.
2-monitor setups suck. If I had to go multi, I'd always go with an odd number of monitors (so, 3 or 5) to avoid assymetry. With 2 monitors, your secondary monitor is going to be placed either to the left or to the right of your primary, thus creating assymetrical workload on your neck muscles, affecting your health long term.
The only exception from this rule is a layout where your primary screen sits in front of you, and your secondary is placed beside it but rotated 90 degrees (to vertical position) and used mostly for placing various toolbars to declutter the main one. I tried this setup once and it worked ok ish for me. It looks weird but is quite practical once you get used to it.
I prefer to use Linux with Xmonad, where any virtual desktop can be displayed on either monitor at any time. So I don't really think of any monitor as my primary one.
Lately I've been forced to use Windows for work, where I use Win+Left/Right to make a window take up 100% of vertical and 50% of horizontal space of a monitor. With two monitors this means 25% of total horizontal space, which is perfect. With one monitor... FML
Been in club 1 good monitor with virtual desktops for 4 years now and no going back. No giant bar in the middle of my view. No neck strain going left to right. Just plenty of screen and a nice layout.
(The other reasons are specific to those screens: the 40" wasn't curved, and had a slightly inferior screen.)
I'm using an LG 43" 4k 16x9 monitor. I don't use all the vertical pixels (especially the ones at the bottom near the desk surface). I find it pretty great since I couldn't find suitable ultrawide monitors that weren't also ultrashort.
At least without display stream compression.
I hope more displays incorporate PD and networking.
None of the reviews mention the speed of the network interface on this, however. (Fairly safe to assume it's only 10/100/1000 but it would be nice to see 2.5G on a $2000+ display designed for pros and connecting with thunderbolt.)
But I don't like that ugly and huge webcam. I would use my own webcam on top of it.
> via Mini DisplayPort 2.1
Why Mini Displayport? I haven't heard of Mini DP for years.
My older Dell monitors have both (mini and regular DP) and ship with a mini to regular cable. So you can use it in both directions and they don’t have to ship two cables.
I use a macbook air for personal stuff, and a windows laptop for work (Microsoft). So it's great having a 5k monitor for both of my laptops!
It looks great, but honestly wasn't really worth the effort and risk of damaging everything. I retrospect I'd have sold the iMac and bought the Studio Display I think.
Interesting tidbit. DP 2.0+ allows for much higher resolutions without needing DSC. The Pro Display XDR for example uses DP 1.4 with DSC to drive the 6k resolution.
I can imagine it can be useful for some image / video related professional production or for font perfectionists. Other than that I do not think it is very practical.
I really like high DPI monitors for programming, text looks just so much better and is easier to read (less tiring for the eyes).
There are way less scaling issues because of that though. Windows only does scaling well since Windows 11, before it was a mess, and before windows 10 it was practically unusable.
But the whole point of the approach is to support monitors like this one flawlessly compared to most alternatives. 3008 x 1692 (1/2 6k) is perfect for a 32" 6k screen
> not smaller pixels for which I have to increase scaling proportionally
I'll never understand this argument. You want to place windows and text on a single screen so that it's comfortable to read, not smaller, and not bigger.
Then, when you have the perfect reading font size for your viewing distance, there's no imaginable scenario where you would want a lower resolution. If you have a comfortable physical font size, the same font size at a higher resolution will always be better than at a lower resolution.
Especially if you don't have perfect vision.
It could be worse due to fractional scaling. Some people are more sensitive to it than others.
You do not have to. I choose what works the best for me personally. And yes I looked at higher resolution monitors. Did not seem to look any better.
You do whatever works for you
we started with around 100dpi when 1920x1200 screens where trendy. Font and UI sizes on those were pretty good - but the screens lacked real estate (small size) and clarity (low DPI).
27" 1440p and then 4k screens improved on that, but they were never good enough to go for 2x scaling - which will provide both more real estate and more clarity. One had to pick either unnaturally tiny fonts or fractional scaling which messed up some UI sizes.
With 5k 27" and 6k 32" screens the compromises should be gone. It's a natural 2x (retina) display, just like Apple had them on notebooks for lots of years.
1) It didn’t go into sleep and I always had to fiddle with the remote to bring back the desktop image after a wake up (select source, etc).
2) The color (LED lighting?) wasn’t uniform near the frame even if it was a higher end model.
But the 120 Hz frame rate was interesting and the text extremely sharp. I kept it around 1 meter from my eyes and I liked the extra space. I connected it to an older MacBook Pro through an eGPU.
You have to watch out for burn in with some TV technologies like OLED.
Reliable reviewers say it makes even average Joe stuff like movies and photos look noticeably better. So I want to at least try it.
If you are telling us what kind of display you personally don't need, I guess that's another thing...
But if the extra pixel density and other features aren't useful to you, then no reason not to get the vastly cheaper device.
At that size, a 16:9 display is just not very functional. It's just too wide and not tall enough. You will be constrained by the vertical height (since you need to use dpi scaling) and the extra width will, by and large, be wasted. Depending on your configured DPI, notifications or other activity to the side of the screen is effectively outside your active vision, and you'll miss things that happen there.
I'm still holding on to my ZR30w for dear life, and that's only a 16:10.
This monitor is 6144×3456, which is 1.6x more pixels in each direction (2.56x total pixels), and physically a bit bigger. So I feel like I'd get the extra real estate I want. Heck, I might be comfortable even adding some more inches to the side, making it more widescreen!
However I really don't want a 60Hz monitor. Everything is much smoother at even 90Hz. That's my dealbreaker.
I find that generally I can scale up or scale down the font in most applications, without crude fractional scaling measures. That the buttons/menu bars are all tiny is fine with me.
I do wish we'd stop just fractionally scaling everything. On the web, having absurd DPI is so rarely a problem. But applications & OSes are still stuck in a very crude world where nothing can be adapted/adjusted, everything is all fixed sized, carefully laid out. Both have a lot more they could do to allow users to experience things as they want. But we seem to have been moving towards more blunt approaches- retreating from any kind of semi-sophisticated attempts- for a while now.
(PS I had a comment earlier here on HN on diying a monitor, let me know if anyone wants more info.)
Do you mean salvaging two laptop display internals and placing them rotated vertically side-by-side, sticking them in an enclosure, and converting the 2x LVDS to an HDMI? That was the only option I was left with after my last hunt for a well-proportioned display.
You’ll need to hit up Aliexpress/Alibaba for the panels and their drivers though, so shipping/import taxes can be funky.
The advantage of this method is that you can pretty much find almost any commercially available monitor panel including the Dell/LG 8k panel and many at lower resolutions too. However it isn’t always very cheap.
Does the extra 2 inches of width really bother you that much?
My XDR is too tall if anything, definitely not too short. I can't have the entire thing aligned with my eyes: I end up either having to look down a little, or up.
> You will be constrained by the vertical height (since you need to use dpi scaling)
I run the XDR at a very comfortable scaled resolution of 3008x1692 and text looks absolutely flawless. Compare that to your 30" 2560 x 1600 native screen and you can see it's hardly a difference.
Anyway, personal story: For years I worked on a 24" monitor at home. Then, at some point, I decided I too want to be a "pro" or whatever, and bought me a Dell UltraSharp 27" monitor. It looked very impressive when I turned it on... but within a couple of weeks, I noticed I was getting this sensation of wanting to turn away from the screen, of not wanting to be at my computer. I gradually realized that, well, it was the monitor; or rather the monitor + the distance: I could just not tolerate my eyes having to focus on high-intensity lit items at the angles the monitor was showing me. I went back to a 24-incher, and am happy as a clam. No multiple monitors for me, either: Dizziness and headaches.
I know this might not be everyone's experience, and many people have no trouble with large/multiple monitors, but - be warned, you might be one of those we do; or, you might develop this sensitivity over the years.
>However, the company hasn't provided any color accuracy claims for the monitor yet, and that will be critical for many creatives.
>But while IPS Black contrast is impressive for IPS, there are prosumer monitors delivering even greater contrast levels.
>One potential disadvantage: HDR >When in HDR mode, the U3224KB's max brightness increases a tick to 600 nits, as per VESA DisplayHDR certification. That’s a bit dim for creative professionals like video editors, who will likely need DisplayHDR 1000 and beyond for effective performance.
>both monitors are still expected to be subject to the flaws of LCD panels that OLED monitors avoid, such as the potential for blooming around light areas on dark content.