4K or QHD monitor? Which is best for general usage

[Kiwi79]

Hi PHers,

I was thinking of upgrading my home setup for work to 2 x 27 inch 4K monitors. The aim is nice crisp text for document and more screen real estate but it occured to me:

- Can my laptop dock run 2 of these?

- Is it actually worth it or shall I just get 2 x QHD which would be a step up on HD and maybe text/etc wouldn't look so tiny which I assume it will on a 4K? I'm not gaming on it.

Laptop is Dell Latitide 7420
Has One HDMI 2.0 port
Two Thunderbolt 4 ports

I tend to use ->Thunderbolt -> Thinkpad hub -> 2 x Displayports into HD monitor right now.

Not sure if that would support 2 x 4Ks @ that size.Could go to 2 x 24's if better.

[bloomen]

Do you use lots of programs?

I found more than a few, presumably the older and more obscure ones, did a very bad job scaling to 4K, or rather didn't scale at all, and nothing could be done to get them to play ball.

Some weren't too far off unusable.

[Mr Pointy]

I'd go with 2x 27" 4k screens - it's what I have hanging off a Dell 7010 desktop. Windows will scale to around 150% to keep the icons & text from being too small.

[SP_]

I think QHD is a nice balance.

[Panamax]

Does text need particularly fancy screens? I use a couple of inexpensive Acer 27" screens on HDMI and they're brilliant. It' not as if I'm into gaming and/or need dazzling colour balance. They really are very good.

[Whataguy]

I have a 27 inch 4k display for a Mac, but to make the text readable for work it's actually running at an equivalent FHD resolution so unless you need the 4k resolution for something special I'd save the money and get a QHD.

Native 4k on a display is too small to use, and when I was using a windows laptop the screen looked a bit funny making the fonts bigger to make it readable.

[arfur]

I've been umming about this for a while ... I currently have a laptop, a 24 inch an a 27 inch on my work desk and 2 inputs to the screens (laptop 2nd screen and a Lenovo Tiny on the other screen) ... I'm still tempted as both inputs would be on the single screen at the same time and can be resized however I want

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Philips-499P9H-00-Widescr...

[Kiwi79]

bloomen said:

Do you use lots of programs?

I found more than a few, presumably the older and more obscure ones, did a very bad job scaling to 4K, or rather didn't scale at all, and nothing could be done to get them to play ball.

Some weren't too far off unusable.

I only have a work laptop so we always have whatever the latest version is. I am guilty of having a lot of tabs open. Most of my time is spent:

Excel (multiple workbooks), PPT, Outlook, + work systems, Adobe Photoshop (sometimes). I don't think I will be watching movies on it (got a tv for that) and gaming isn't my thing so starting to think maybe 4K is overkill unless it somehow makes text beautifully readable and reduces eye straim in a way which QHD wouldn't

[LeeM135i]

Takes a lot more power/performance to drive a 4k screen over a 2k/QHD screen. Would you end up with the laptop fans running more and system stuttering when trying to draw all those pixels?

I moved to a QHD ultra wide (from 2x QHD's) so I didn't have the dead space in the middle of the screens and use the laptop screen as a spare space to park windows.

The laptop screen is 4k and you can tell the difference between it and the ultra wide but in reality when I am working in MS office / Teams I don't notice it. I can spot it in photoshop but that might be the quality or size of the panel as they don't come from the same manufacturer.

[Panamax]

LeeM135i said:

I moved to a QHD ultra wide (from 2x QHD's) so I didn't have the dead space in the middle of the screens and use the laptop screen as a spare space to park windows.

I have the two separate screens arranged so the right hand edge of the left screen tucks slightly behind my main, right screen. The right screen has all the control gubbins at the bottom and I always run spreadsheets etc slightly reduced in size so they fit the visible part of the left screen and leave controls visible at left and bottom of the right screen. Probably wouldn't suit everyone but it works well for me. The right screen is flat on to me and the left screen is slightly angled around. In other words I use the two screens separately as "main working screen" and "subsidiary information screen" and never stare at the join in the middle.

[wyson]

Not sure what graphics card you are running, but you can buy thunderbolt monitors you can daisy chain off one port, if that matters.

With Windows, I'd go 4k.

With Mac, I'd go QHD. The OS wants to be either 'normal' resolution or pixel doubled to Retina, which at 27 inches is 5k. It's not particularly happy with in betweens like 4k.

Edited by wyson on Tuesday 8th October 18:53

[wyson]

Panamax said:

Does text need particularly fancy screens? I use a couple of inexpensive Acer 27" screens on HDMI and they're brilliant. It' not as if I'm into gaming and/or need dazzling colour balance. They really are very good.

What model? Better screens offer crisper, more even backlights, better contrast ratios that make text look more defined, even at the same resolution. The brightness / contrast control is a lot better too, so text doesn’t wash out. It’s an obvious bug bear of budget panels in a bright room.

My office has 27inch budget Acers. I notice the drop in quality straight away over my ‘office’ orientated P series Dell.

Edited by wyson on Tuesday 8th October 19:19

[wyson]

https://www.dell.com/en-uk/shop/dell-ultrasharp-27...

Something like this is a brilliant all rounder, very well reviewed and can be daisy chained.

[BlackTails]

Kiwi79 said:

Hi PHers,

I was thinking of upgrading my home setup for work to 2 x 27 inch 4K monitors. The aim is nice crisp text for document and more screen real estate but it occured to me:

- Can my laptop dock run 2 of these?

- Is it actually worth it or shall I just get 2 x QHD which would be a step up on HD and maybe text/etc wouldn't look so tiny which I assume it will on a 4K? I'm not gaming on it.

Laptop is Dell Latitide 7420
Has One HDMI 2.0 port
Two Thunderbolt 4 ports

I tend to use ->Thunderbolt -> Thinkpad hub -> 2 x Displayports into HD monitor right now.

Not sure if that would support 2 x 4Ks @ that size.Could go to 2 x 24's if better.

I run two 30” 2560x1600 monitors off a Dell laptop and a WD22TB dock at work. Only USB-C ports on the laptop.

To run two monitors at that res I think you’ll need to use DisplayPort rather than HDMI. Whether you can daisy chain the monitors will depend on whether they have DP out sockets.

The real estate and clarity is excellent. But Dell’s TB implementation isn’t. The dock will drop off the laptop randomly when power demands are made on the processor, and they aren’t easily predictable. So far the best solution I have found is to disable all the Nvidia software and hardware and let the Intel graphics chip run everything.

At home I have two 32” Dell monitors running at 3840x2160, plus a 27” screen running at something lower. These run off the desktop, and I have the two big screens on DP and the smaller one on HDMI. The additional real estate over the work set up isn’t appreciable but the clarity is. Very easy on the eyes.

TL;DR: DisplayPort is your friend.

ETA: used Dell Ultrasharp monitors bought off eBay are good value.