
Dell introduces 28" 4K Ultra HD Monitor for under $1K, shipping early 2014 - hemancuso
http://www.dell.com/learn/us/en/uscorp1/secure/2013-12-2-dell-ultrasharp-ultra-hd-monitors?dgc=BA&cid=271006&lid=4970696&acd=12309188680294295
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bhauer
Awesome. I say this is a sign that the incumbent manufacturers are finally
adapting to the heat brought on by Korean and Chinese newcomers.

"Industry's most affordable Ultra HD monitor" is semantics. The Seiki 39" is
still substantially cheaper, now at less than $500 on Amazon. Technically,
that is a television, so I suppose "monitor" is a clever use of words by Dell.

If Seiki drops an HDMI 2 version of their monitor—excuse me, television—for
roughly the same price as the current model, things start to get really
interesting. Actually, scratch that, the desktop monitor industry is finally
interesting again right now. This is the first time it has been interesting
since about 2005.

I prefer the higher DPI that Dell is providing, but I prefer the size that
Seiki is going after. My ideal is 200+ DPI at about 50" for my desktop. All
steps toward that make me happy, so good going Dell!

~~~
btian
But the Seiki 39" TV has its framerate capped at 30Hz while on 4k resolution,
which makes it inadequate as a monitor.

~~~
bhauer
Yes, I know. My wife is using the 39" and it's fine for her computer usage.
She doesn't play video games on her computer.

"Inadequate" for gaming, yes. Inadequate for computing? Hardly.

But this is why I said that if Seiki dropped an HDMI 2 version of the same
display, things get interesting.

~~~
selmnoo
> "Inadequate" for gaming, yes. Inadequate for computing? Hardly.

How about for watching movies? High framerates would obviously seem very
important for gaming, but it's not clear how important they are to
movies/shows. Your thoughts?

~~~
majormajor
Displaying 24fps content on a 60fps screen repeats frames. If you repeat half
the frames of the 25fps stream twice, and alternating half of the frames three
times, then you get 60 frames per second, with a stream looking like:

AABBBCCDDDEEFFF...

This isn't perfect, since really each frame should be on the screen for
exactly the same amount of time, which is why 120hz TVs came about -- 120 is
evenly divisible by each of 60, 30, and 24. But it's also pretty much good
enough, or else there'd be a lot more complaining about watching movies on
computers or other 60hz devices.

A 30hz screen makes that harder, since you're going to have to repeat every
fourth frame once, so the unevenness could be more noticeable since those
frames are now twice as long instead of 50% longer. But I haven't tried one to
tell you just how noticeable it would be.

Native 60fps content (sports is the most common one I know of) would require
throwing away half the frames, but at least the remaining frames would all be
shown for the same amount of time.

NTSC "video" content (stuff shot at 30 interlaced frames per second, so 60
fields per second, stuff like old TV shows) would work alright. You wouldn't
be able to take advantage of deinterlacing methods that try to reconstruct 60
full frames, but it wouldn't be a _huge_ loss.

~~~
crassus
Is this also the source of the ultra-real "soap opera" effect that ruins
movies on new televisions?

~~~
underwater
No. That's the TV interpolating frames. The effect described would introduce a
stutter.

~~~
bcheung
Ugh, I hate that effect. The frame rate dynamically changes based on when the
algorithm can find frames to interpolate. It's so disorienting.

------
crazygringo
Does anyone know, are there any Macs that can drive this in Retina mode? Does
OSX on Mac desktops support retina mode for arbitrary monitors, or does OSX
tie Retina mode exclusively to Macbook Pro Retina screens?

~~~
mvitorino
This macbook pro spec page says hdmi port can output 4k at 24hz.
[http://www.apple.com/uk/macbook-pro/specs-
retina/](http://www.apple.com/uk/macbook-pro/specs-retina/)

~~~
mmanfrin
And yet my MBP refuses to output HDMI above 1920 for me :/

~~~
nobodyshere
Check your cable's version if you're using the latest MBP. Also, check if your
output device can handle it. My dell u3011 can't handle even 2560x1600 through
HDMI (which it has 2 for some reason).

------
publicfig
I'm a bit curious why both the 24" and the 32" are priced over 1k, yet they
are able to get the 28" down below that mark. That's not to say that I'm not
incredibly excited to see how this ends up! I've been looking for a sub-1.5k
28" monitor with high resolution for a while, and though I love my Apple
Thunderbolt Display I use at work, I am hesitant that if I buy one for myself,
I'll be buying right before a refresh.

I've been feeling that way for a long while though, so who knows

~~~
mortenjorck
Unfortunately, the 28” is going to have the wrong pixel density to use with OS
X in Retina mode.

Non-Retina MacBooks start at 110 PPI. Cinema Displays have hovered around 100
PPI for about a decade, with the 27” Thunderbolt Display topping out at 109
PPI (same for its sister 27” iMac).

At 28", a 3840 x 2160 panel has a PPI of 157, which, dividing by two to get
the equivalent non-Retina PPI, comes to only 78.5, a reduction of over 20%
from the lowest-PPI Cinema Displays. This means, on a Mac in Retina mode,
everything in the UI will be 20% bigger than normal. Maybe that’s something
you could get used to, but it’s far from the much more optimal 24” panel, with
a PPI of 184 (92 PPI non-Retina, very close to a 24” Cinema Display).

~~~
eigenvector
Ugh. This is why true DPI independence in the OS is so important. There should
be no such thing as a "wrong" pixel density.

~~~
rodgerd
Indeed. Acorn's RiscOS had resolution independence in the 80s with scalable
fonts and icons being shipped as vector graphics; it's a pity everyone else is
30 years behind.

~~~
danbee
I'm afraid you're mistaken. RiscOS certainly had scalable vector fonts (anti-
aliased too!), but the icons and interface elements were all bitmaps and the
OS was not resolution independent.

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maqr
I'd just be happy to see a 2560x1600 monitor at 120hz or greater. I think
we're going to have to max out resolution (to 'retina' or whatever levels
where most people can't distinguish additional pixels) before we start seeing
monitors commonly supporting greater than 60hz.

~~~
ffrryuu
The cheap korean monitors can almost do it, but you run into ATI's DVI cap.

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pyrocat
Can anyone explain why monitor and TV prices are so vastly different for the
same size? Could you not substitute a small flat screen in place of a monitor
and save a few hundred?

~~~
seiji
Because [http://xkcd.com/732/](http://xkcd.com/732/)

~~~
Macha
For a 2013 update, that is the resolution of his cell phone.

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akandiah
I'm confused. Under $1000 for the 28"? It goes on to say that the 24" is
available for $1399...

~~~
bouk
What's confusing about it? Apparently the 28" is cheaper to manufacture

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antonpug
I foresee a 4K Thunderbolt Display coming our way within the next couple
months. I have been wanting to get a new display for a while, so I am holding
out for that. If not, I might consider a Dell. It's not unibody and it's not
as thin as the newer Thunderbolt displays are going to be though.

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grecy
Now I'll be shocked if Apple don't release something similar with the Mac Pro
this month.

~~~
johnbpetersen
The Thunderbolt display is desperately in need of a refresh. How do you think
a new Thunderbolt will match up with this Dell UltraHD monitor?

~~~
jfb
I think it's likely that the new Thunderbolt display will be the exact same
23.8" panel, but with updated Thunderbolt expansion hardware (USB 3.0, &c.)

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scotth
Will a Macbook Pro Retina 13" be able to drive this?

~~~
alexgaribay
According to Apple's website, the latest version of the rMBP will be able to
drive a 3840 x 2160 display at 30Hz via HDMI.

~~~
RyanZAG
30Hz sounds like a 'No' to me.

~~~
quaint-
Why? It's not like you're going to play graphically intensive games with it.
30Hz sounds just fine for many types of content, like text (and even videos).

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redial
This looks awesome. But I'm wondering, how long until we get an iMac using
this panel? I guess the thunderbolt display will get it first, but anyway,
exciting news.

~~~
FireBeyond
I’ve been holding out. Seems silly to buy a Cinema Display right now for my
rMBP. USB2 ports, TB1, no Retina, oh, and a Magsafe 1->2 adapter...

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prewett
So if I understand the tech specs correctly, this 24" monitor is 185 DPI. (24"
diagonally, sqrt(3840^2 * 2160^2) = 4406 pixels, 4406px/24" = 185 DPI) By
comparison, the MacBook Pro 15" retina has 220 DPI, so it's a respectable
monitor. Although for "Ultra HD" I was kind of hoping for something "ultra
impressive"...

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anovikov
Being spoiled by apple retina, 32'' 4k does not sould 'ultra sharp' for me.
24'' maybe, so i'll buy one.

Can't wait until 8k monitors come about! These can be both truly ultra sharp,
with invisible pixels, and sizeable.

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acqq
Unfortunately they aren't 3840 x 2400 (which would be 16:10) that is more
convenient for coding or anything that isn't full-screen TV viewing.

But still... yay for finally reaching retina-like resolutions on the desktop!
It was about the time.

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salient
That's what I thought a 4k _monitor_ would cost, and I was actually very
surprised Asus priced theirs at like $3,000 earlier this year. Hopefully Dell
didn't cut a lot of corners, though.

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jfb
Even better: the 24" is $1399.

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kudu
For $1k, you can get /three/ X-Star DP2710s, which are 27" 1440p PLS monitors.
A much better deal in my opinion. ([http://www.ebay.com/itm/Matte-FREE-
EXPRESS-X-STAR-DP2710LED-...](http://www.ebay.com/itm/Matte-FREE-EXPRESS-X-
STAR-DP2710LED-27-2560x1440-Samsung-PLS-Panel-Monitor-/330932578190))

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Mankhool
The 32" version is $3539 in Canada.
[http://accessories.dell.com/sna/products/Gaming_Accessories/...](http://accessories.dell.com/sna/products/Gaming_Accessories/productdetail.aspx?c=ca&l=en&cs=cadhs1&sku=210-ACBL&baynote_bnrank=0&baynote_irrank=0&~ck=baynoteSearch)

------
WesleyJohnson
Any hope of getting full resolution at 30hz on a late 2011 MBPro? I'm using a
30" Cinema Display right now, but it's pretty banged up as I got it from an
as-is liquidation auction. Would love to replace it with something newer,
lighter and that doesn't raise the ambient temperature of my office by several
degrees.

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quaint-
I'm more interested in the 24" model, although the press release goes a long
way to convince me it's actually 28.3" display despite the name.

edit: the tech specs page convince me the name is not ridiculously misleading.
Seriously interested of this one.

~~~
jfb
It's a typo.

~~~
nsxwolf
What part is a typo, though? The 24 or the 28.3?

~~~
jfb

      Display
      Diagonally Viewable Size:
      60.47 cm
      23.8" (23.8-inch wide viewable image size)
    

From

[http://dcse.dell.com/us/en/gen/peripherals/dell-
up2414q/pd.a...](http://dcse.dell.com/us/en/gen/peripherals/dell-
up2414q/pd.aspx?refid=dell-up2414q&s=gen)

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Pxtl
Wonder how well various OSes will handle resolution jumps. The embarassing
failure to scale GUI objects was acceptable in the technically-limited '90s,
but in 2013 it seems ridiculous to have everything pixel-sized.

~~~
notatoad
All the big ones (Mac, ios, win8, winphone, Ubuntu, android) support pixel
doubling. And they're all a long way from dynamic scaling.

~~~
girvo
Ubuntu does???? I've been keeping an eye on HiDPI support for it for ages, did
I miss the release?

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easymovet
I'm underwhelmed, the Lenovo yoga 2 has almost as many pixels and cost less.

~~~
nsxwolf
It's a 13 inch screen. How are these even comparable?

Is it that you're holding out for an 8K desktop monitor?

~~~
easymovet
the resolution is almost 1:1 comparable. Obviously the I sit much closer to a
laptop than i do my 57" HDPC

------
RichMorin
I'd be interested in hearing about ways to drive this from an older
(MacPro3,1) Mac Pro.

------
xutopia
Why are they announcing this now? Is it to tell people to hold off for Xmas?

~~~
grecy
My guess is either that, or they know Apple is about to release something
exceptionally similar with the Mac Pro this month.

------
veritas20
Your eyes can't tell the difference b/t 1080p and 4k on a 28" screen

~~~
quaint-
When you say "your", you mean "my", don't you? Also, you seem confused by
these TV-related terms and only think of videos and games here; you'd have to
be half-way blind not to see the difference between 75 and 150 PPI density
with typical font sizes (computer fonts are usually a tad bigger than what's
necessary just because of the lousy displays we have).

~~~
GalacticDomin8r
[http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-33199_7-57566079-221/why-
ultra-...](http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-33199_7-57566079-221/why-ultra-
hd-4k-tvs-are-still-stupid/)

Comment sections like this are why HN is called an echo chamber.

~~~
gknoy
The original comment missed the point of the chart in the article you link:
the increased pixel density is useless __at TV viewing distances__. When you
go down to about 2 feet from the screen, 4k is pretty apparent on a 30 inch
screen.

A clearer chart is at [1], and the Carlton Bale's original article even has a
handy calculator that lets you verify this [2].

1:
[http://s3.carltonbale.com/resolution_chart.html](http://s3.carltonbale.com/resolution_chart.html)
2: [http://carltonbale.com/does-4k-resolution-
matter/](http://carltonbale.com/does-4k-resolution-matter/)

~~~
veritas20
Thanks for posting this. It wasn't meant to be a snarky comment, but I did
leave out some basic assumptions which I thought were obvious. "Usually" the
larger the screen the further away most people will sit from there screen.
Right now, I'm on a 21" monitor sitting about 3'2" (already out of the 2'6"
for added benefit of a 4K screen if you take this chart as gospel) from the
screen. If I went up to a 28" monitor, I would most likely move it back at
least 6" so that I don't have to move my head and eyes around too much. That
would put the screen about 3'8" from me which is within the range of full
benefit of 1080p but outside the range of 4K for this size and viewing
distance.

