Monitor resolution

[Kent Border Kenny]

I’m used to having lots of screen real-estate at work, and want to improve what I have at home, but am struggling with screen resolution.

I have graphs, text, presentations and and excel open, and can’t work out how many pixels per inch you need for everything to look sharp when viewed at “normal” size.

At the moment I’ve mus-matched screens, a “retina” 27” iMac and a curved 35” Samsung. The iMac is not on maximum resolution, looking fine at 3200 x 1800, with the Samsung also looking good at 3440 x 1400

My question is, if I go for a 55 inch 3840 x 2160, am I going to have to make everything bigger to keep text smooth and readable, or will it let me keep everything the size it is on the smaller screens, giving me a lot of extra space?

The other option is the new Samsung 49” (very) curved model. 5120 x 1440, but at a higher density.

[mmm-five]

You know how big your 5k 27" iMac is - imagine something twice as big, but equally close

A 55" non-ultrawide is going to be HUGE. Yes, the text/icons will be bigger, but you'll probably do yourself sone damage moving your head to see anything not in the centre of the screen.

Also if it's primarily a TV screen, then it might not be optimised (or be able to be configured) for dedicated computer monitor use. e.g. I have 2 almost identical LG panels...one in a TV and one as a monitor - no matter what I tried, I could not get the TV to produce as sharp/clear a picture as the dedicated monitor.

The iMac 5k defaults to a resolution-doubled/scaled 2560x1440 (50% of native 5k), so you must have changed to something higher to be using 3200x1800 (that's to small for me on mine).

Edited by mmm-five on Wednesday 11th November 15:21

[Kent Border Kenny]

Thanks. I’m connecting to my work machine using Citrix, so it’s probably scaling it.

At work I have 4 x 34” curved; I don’t need that much here, but the one my wife’s using, an Asus 38” curved gaming monitor is just a bit too small.

The curved Samsung 49 looks great, but is quite a lot of money.

[Mr Pointy]

You can work out the pixels per inch which will tell you how "fine" the displayed resolution is. The below is a crude demonstration because it's using the diagonal measurements but if you can find the screen dimensions you can work out the true figure:

35" Samsung: 3440/35 = 98ppi
49" Samsung: 5120/49 = 104ppi
55" Unknown: 3840/55 = 70ppi

So you can see the 55" screen will not be as "sharp" as the other two (again these are not accurate calculations, just an example). In general the higher the resolution the smaller text & icons will be, which is fine until they become difficult to read. on my 27" 2560x1440 screen I have to scale the display by 125% for comfortable working, but that's due to my eyesight & many people find it perfectly ok.

A higher resolution gets you more screen real estate as text & icons get smaller, but a lower PPI will give a grainier display.

[Kent Border Kenny]

Mr Pointy said:

You can work out the pixels per inch which will tell you how "fine" the displayed resolution is. The below is a crude demonstration because it's using the diagonal measurements but if you can find the screen dimensions you can work out the true figure:

35" Samsung: 3440/35 = 98ppi
49" Samsung: 5120/49 = 104ppi
55" Unknown: 3840/55 = 70ppi

So you can see the 55" screen will not be as "sharp" as the other two (again these are not accurate calculations, just an example). In general the higher the resolution the smaller text & icons will be, which is fine until they become difficult to read. on my 27" 2560x1440 screen I have to scale the display by 125% for comfortable working, but that's due to my eyesight & many people find it perfectly ok.

A higher resolution gets you more screen real estate as text & icons get smaller, but a lower PPI will give a grainier display.

Thanks, I think that I phrased the question badly; how low, in terms of pixels per inch, becomes noticeably grainy.

[mmm-five]

Kent Border Kenny said:

Thanks, I think that I phrased the question badly; how low, in terms of pixels per inch, becomes noticeably grainy.

Will depend on both the monitor quality, the scaling engine and the source app.

Apple developer guidelines are written so that apps are built for retina displays (for the Mac, iPhone, and iPad). So these scale very well.

With your current set-up, maybe try halving the resolution on the Samsung and see if it's noticeable...however, I'd assume the same number of pixels, but double the size, showing the same element, will likely be more noticeable.

Only you will know whether or not it's noticeable...to you.