Monitor for text editing at work: 4K at 60Hz or 1440p at 120Hz?

[Mushkins]

Dont forget, it's not just the monitor but how the OS *and* how the application handles scaling. I've got a Surface Pro 3 that does a similar thing to the retina macbooks (high dpi, high res with scaling) and windows features/text look amazingly crisp but a lot of apps that still aren't high DPI aware look like a hot mess.

Maybe in a few years we'll be there, but for serious text and editing work I would stick with the 1080p-1440p range and avoid scaling. If you need more screen real estate, add an extra monitor instead of trying to cram more onto a single space.

 

[Cerb]

^ That's why, if you can, go fairly high res, and use +100% at a time, so that the bitmap scaling looks OK, rather than terrible. 125%, 175%, 225%, etc., are the worst, and 150% is fine if you're not looking at text in bitmap-scaled programs much. But, 200% is definitely the way to go, if reasonable.

 

[kasakka]

Dont forget, it's not just the monitor but how the OS *and* how the application handles scaling. I've got a Surface Pro 3 that does a similar thing to the retina macbooks (high dpi, high res with scaling) and windows features/text look amazingly crisp but a lot of apps that still aren't high DPI aware look like a hot mess.

Maybe in a few years we'll be there, but for serious text and editing work I would stick with the 1080p-1440p range and avoid scaling. If you need more screen real estate, add an extra monitor instead of trying to cram more onto a single space.

Text usually works fine with scaling, it's icons and so on that get fucked up. So that's why I recommended 4K for purely text editing.

Also OSX does scaling quite different from Windows. Whereas Windows scales based on settings you give, OSX is either no scaling or 2x scaling, nothing in between really. Makes it easier for developers that way though.

OP, don't misunderstand resolutions and scaling. You have one native resolution (for example 2560x1440) where everything is 1 pixel on screen = 1 pixel on display. On top of this you have scaling, which increases the size of everything based on a ratio. With a 4K display, this means that everything appears bigger (and thus easier to read) but because there are more pixels to form the shape of each letter, text becomes more book-like. If you want to see what it does, type dpi in Start menu search and try the "Make things bigger or smaller" option.

 

[guskline]

@karlitos wow, that's a really big desktop I don't need that much, but it's good to know 4K scales well to 1440p. (btw nice nickname, Karl)

@Cerb I've tried to have a couple of displays working (I had an old 20'') and I couldn't get myself used to the situation. Looking back and forth is a little bit weird for me, and it didn't work out. One "big", good monitor with enough resolution would be perfect. Hence this question about possible options.

@Dribble same thing about the dual monitor solution... not for me and it's difficult that a shop over here (and I'm in Madrid) would have several options for that specific scenario.

@bystander: I'm a Chrome heavy user and newer versions do text rendering finally better than older ones. I work from a browser (I publish online, so several CMSs involved), so it would be important that 4K scaled to 1440p would work really nice. Otherwise, I guess it would be better to get a native 1440p display.

@kasakka: do you really think so? From what I've been reading, getting a native 1440p would be probably better. The dual monitor setup doesn't work for me, but thanks for the idea

I've been trying to look for more options, and besides de 21:9 displays (like the LG 34UM95 or something smaller) I've read a not very old review of the Planar PXL2790MW, and it seems really nice. Do someone know that one?

BenQ BL3200PT seems also recommended on several sites. Any ideas on these?

The BenQ BL3200PT has a TON of options for various uses. There is so much monitor space for a 2560 x 1440 monitor that it is stunning (32" monitor).
I would google the reviews for it.

Not cheap but OH my it is really a quality monitor.

 

[Z15CAM]

I run X-Fire R9 290X's under water and a Matt QNIX 2510 Evo2 with Dvi-D ONLY.

For Text Editing I will change the DPI to 150%.

Running the display at either 60 or 120Hz makes no difference when Text Editing.

The IPS Samsung 27" QNIX (2510 EVO II Matt ) 2560x1440p Res Dvi-D is great display for $300, in my opinion, and I'm 1/2 blind.

 

[javipas]

Thanks everyone for the comments.

@kasakka, that's a fair point (on scaling), but I think native resolution will always be superior to any scaling at least on text crispness and sharpness.

@guskline, yes, seen that monitor but it's a little too big for my office setup... and a bit expensive.

@Mushkins, agreed, 1440p is the way to go for me it seems

Z15CAM the QNIX is a good option, but I like the desing and features of the Iiyama Prolite XB2779QS. Not expensive and very promising. I think I'll go with this one, I'll let you know as soon as a take a final decision (Black Friday is coming, so I'll be buying on that day I guess).

Regards all from Madrid!

 

[Accord99]

Thanks everyone for the comments.

@kasakka, that's a fair point (on scaling), but I think native resolution will always be superior to any scaling at least on text crispness and sharpness.

Scaling in this situation for HiDPI aware applications does not reduce text sharpness or crispness.

I have a 27" 1440P monitor and 15.6" 3200 x 1800 laptop and I usually use the laptop for programming simply because text looks so nice on it.

 

[kasakka]

Thanks everyone for the comments.

@kasakka, that's a fair point (on scaling), but I think native resolution will always be superior to any scaling at least on text crispness and sharpness.

On the contrary. With scaling you use native resolution but scale the UI and text, having more pixels for each letter and thus sharper, crisper text.

Text sharpness depends largely on these elements and their relation

• screen size
• resolution
• UI/text scale

A 27" 1440p display will look sharper looking than a 30" one because it has smaller pixels. A 27" 4K res will have really sharp text but it will be really tiny and hard to read unless you use scaling to scale it up to the same visual size as it is on the 1440p display. At the scaled size you have the same amount of desktop space on 4k as on 1440p, but sharper text because 4k has more pixels to represent each letter. Equal visual text size but more pixels = sharper text.

 

[KingFatty]

Whenever you use scaling, there is a chance that the scaled location of a pixel will fall between the native position of a screens physical pixels. Therefore it will not be ideal, so you can't say for sure that scaling will always look sharper. It depends.

 

[exar333]

A 27'' 1440P monitor is the 'sweet spot' for me in terms of text size without any scaling. That's ~ what a 3840x2160 is at 40'' for PPI comparison.

 

[Qwertilot]

No problems if you scale 2-1 of course

Mind you, this is something which worries me very slightly about 4k - scaling down to 1900 * 1080 leaves your desktop real estate a bit small (esp on 27/8") and 2560 isn't going to be perfectly clean. Maybe its fine of course!

5k solves that but not that sane just yet. I imagine the eventual 8k stuff will firmly bury all such worries!