You dont need a good display until you have used one. Its like glasses, you think you got perfect vision and then you get glasses its night and day in comparison. You dont know a good display until you have seen one. The thing with high res monitors is that you should upscale or everything will look tiny.
IMO, there are two key criteria for monitors. Real estate and pixel density, and in some cases, you can't get both affordably.
I have had 15" laptops with 4K displays for some time now. I love the pixel density. But I can't do certain types of tasks on them because I end up getting real estate anxiety. I feel so constricted on a laptop screen, even when I add a second monitor.
My desktop has 2 x 27" 4K monitors running without scaling. So I have plenty of real estate, but the text could look nicer. Having said that, I don't miss sharp text in the same way that I miss real estate when using my laptops, at least from a productivity perspective.
I don't think a 5K screen is an answer for me, because my first urge would be to try to use it without scaling for more real estate.
On the other hand, a pair of 27" 8K screens (does such a beast even exist, and is it affordable?) would be ideal, because 1:1 scaling on such a beast is impossible at that monitor size, but 200% scaling would basically give me the same workspace real estate that I have now but with super sharp text.
A long time ago, resolutions got better, but when we got more pixels...we didn't make the characters smaller, we just made them more crisp. What changed? Why is the transition from 110 PPI to 220 PPI being handled differently than the one from 50 PPI to 110 PPI?
> What changed? Why is the transition from 110 PPI to 220 PPI being handled differently than the one from 50 PPI to 110 PPI?
Well that is a user setting, and I tend to think the first retina iPhone is what started the trend.
Also, at certain screen sizes, 1:1 scaling is just impractical due to limitations of the human eye.
My 27" 4K screen is pretty much at my personal limit in terms of what I can handle at 1:1 scaling for my normal viewing distance. Had I gotten a 24" 4K screen, I'd have to set the text scaling to ~125% which would also translate into some lost screen real estate.
> Also, at certain screen sizes, 1:1 scaling is just impractical due to limitations of the human eye.
Scaling isn't even relevant. It makes sense to talk about scaling pixel artifacts, but not vectors one. The font is 8pt or 20pt, you can configure that on your own. 1:1 scaling is just some arbitrary and artificial fixed pixel/letter seen.
A 24" 4K screen (basically a 24" imac) had text the same size as a pre-retina 24" imac, they just used more pixels to render that text.
Windows 8+ does, windows 10 has no problem with resolution independence. Some legacy apps that run on windows break, but not something modern
like Visual studio, chrome, etc...
Windows has issues with HiDPI once you have multiple screens with different densities, and it's not just with legacy apps.
In any case, Windows is just using a scaling feature. But when you scale, you are losing workspace in exchange for sharpness.
When 4 physical pixels translates to 1 logical pixel, you've actually lost 3 pixels of potential real estate on a screen size where your eyes can actually discern those pixels.
On a 15" 4K monitor, losing that real estate is not a big deal, because >90% of people can't easily read or see anything scaled at 1:1 on a screen that size. When you scale that screen at 200%, you're basically using a 1080p screen with sharper text. You don't gain any real estate at all from the higher resolution.
On a 40" 4K screen, it's a whole other story. The text may not be sharp, but you can have way more windows open on that screen, which makes it easier to multitask. It's like having a grid of 2x2 20" 1080p screens.
-addendum - my visual limit is 1080p @ 1:1 on a ~14" screen, which is why I am fine with no scaling on my 4K 27" screens.
