Equivalent monitors to Apple's Retina display?

[waterjug]

I have a few friends with Apple laptops and the displays on them are just gorgeous. I despise Apple but I have to hand it to them in that regard. Can someone point me towards an equivalent in the 27" LCD/LED range that would match the quality seen on the Retina displays?

 

[Lonyo]

Retina really refers to perception of the number of screen, so it depends on how far away from your monitor you sit. Displays which are used from a close distance require a much higher PPI to be "retina" than displays used at a distance. A 1080p TV can be a retina display if it's far enough away.

All commercially affordable 27" monitors are the same resolution, the main difference would be in the coating/etc, which would impact how the monitor seems in various ways, and that depends on preferences as much as anything else, as well as use cases.

 

[AustinInDallas]

Catleap!

 

[BrightCandle]

The technical term is the pixels per degree, which according to Apple you need 55 of for the display to be perceived as having no pixelation. Retina is a trade mark so you wont find other companies using that term.

A normal desktop 24" 1920x1200 viewed at 30" scores 42 PPD where an iPhone scores 57, so there is a 20% or so advantage on Apple's screens compared to a desktop monitor. Even a 27" 2560x1600 monitor only gets to 50 PPD, just shy of what is necessary to meet the definition.

Apple added retina screens to laptops as well because it turns out that most laptops have really low PPD's by default, because we sit so close to them. My 17" 1920 screen (which is a high density upgrade supposedly) viewed at 20" only achieves 39 PPD. There is clearly a lot of advantage on a very closely viewed screen to upgrading that PPD to something a lot better. Tablets also are viewed very close and need their resolutions boasting to near desktop levels to make them look decent.

I do not know of any desktop monitors yet that meet the definition but its worth keeping in mind the distance from that so called ideal to what we have today isn't actually as big as we think it is.