
Does 4K display result in productivity loss? - xstartup
We&#x27;ve recently upgraded our developers, team of 20 with retina displays and recorded 20% productivity drop. Does 4K display have any effect on productivity, coding being the main task here? Is there any research on this?
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w_t_payne
What is the refresh rate and latency?

I have two monitors on my desk, One of them has a very high resolution, but
with noticeably higher latency than the other.

When using the high resolution / high-latency display, I notice that I start
to feel more clumsy, frustrated and stressed, so (despite all of the gorgeous
pixels), I tend to use it just as a 'side display' for static documents and
reference material ...

I think latency could be a critical factor here.

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sheraz
The productivity drop I see is that machines spiking CPU and apps like sketch
struggling to keep up with updates and refresh. When that starts then devs and
designers start tweaking settings and googling answers and boom. 1 hour gone
to IT issues. Swapping adapters. Swapping cables. Cycle continues...

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stargrazer
I run two HP Z32x 4K monitors off an nvidia 1060. Text is easy to see. Lots of
pixels. Very little alt-tab. Lots of productivity. So my environment isn't
really about retina and HiDPI,

On the other hand, take a look at your developer's postures: are they
leaning/squinting into the screen? Are they using 1:1 pixels, or scaling?

What does the retina get you when one is a developer?

Coming back to what I said, I have large monitors so that I can make use of
and see the pixels. Any thing smaller would probably be a waste of 4K unless I
had really good eye-sight.

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baystep
I just upgraded myself to a 4K 28" monitor. Mine has 1ms response time. I
noticed a _slight_ loss of productivity in the initial stage, but really just
because I was getting used to it. Now I'd say it's increasing productivity
since I don't have to Alt+Tab all the time anymore. I can fit 4 source files
comfortably now. So, in regards to your drop in productivity, I'd say give it
time.

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thinkloop
How did you measure the productivity drop?

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shk1338
It's harder to find suitable wallpaper for HiDPI display.

But if serious, there may be some problems with adapting specific software to
run HiDPI.

