

Where are all the high-resolution desktop displays? - yarianluis
http://www.extremetech.com/computing/130605-where-are-all-the-high-resolution-desktop-displays

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yantis
I current use three 3840x2160 monitors (4K displays) (55" each) which in my
opinion is a huge upgrade to my previous six 30" Apple cinema display
configuration.

I got mine from IDT (<http://toshibadisplays.com>) for around 30k USD each a
couple years ago. I think they might be considerably less now especially with
the new 32" 4K displays coming out in 2013.

The resolution is split so every display is basically 1920x2160 x2. The hard
part is driving these since each one is considered two monitors by the host
OS. I use a Quadro Plex 7000 to power two of them and just use my third one
with Synergy on a second machine.

Nvidia has a tool called Mosiac which allows you to turn the screens into one
big screen. I also think the ATI Eyeinfinity cards are an option but I
personally never tried those.

~~~
raphman
I, too, would like to learn more about a) why you are using such a setup, and
b) how having so much screen real estate affects how you work.

~~~
yantis
I consider my line of work a general technologist. I find I have to consume
huge amounts of information so I can advise the people I work with. Though for
programming or reverse engineering its amazing. I love the fact I can run
Visual Studio on one screen and still have the ability to have WinDbg and IDA
Pro as well as the app I am working on all running and visible as well as keep
whatever dashboards open at the same time. I also like to have at least one
Linux virtual machine open simply because I prefer Linux for quick tasks so I
always have a terminal open and ready to go (VMs really are awesome for
compartmentalizing but its a whole another topic).

Its really hard to describe the effect of this size of screen and resolution.
You can consume information at a much faster and natural rate as compared to a
smaller display that is high resolution (ie: a 2880x1800 retina). I think your
brain has to use extra processing power to scale the fonts up or something or
maybe the patterns your brain uses to build the letters and words just work
better when its clearly visible without any thinking. Who knows... I just know
it increases my productivity leaps and bounds.

I figure for something that I spend over a third of my life in front of I want
them to make me as efficient as possible. Some people like to buy cars. I like
to buy things to be more efficient and these monitors help me do this.

BTW, All of these mount nicely on a geek desk without the top (the smaller of
the two versions they sell). They just fit perfectly. So I use four Geek
desks.. 3 for the monitors and one in the center. If you want an amazing desk
setup that is the way to do it. That way you can sit or stand when you work.

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zyb09
Because the demand for HiDPI desktop displays isn't there yet. You would buy
one, and so would I, but overall they wouldn't sell much, compared to the
standard 1080p panels. We have to wait another year until Apple introduces
Retina iMacs, tells everybody how awesome they are and why people absolutely
need Retina displays. Then suddenly there will be steep increase in the demand
of HiDPI panels, and a few month later every manufaturer starts offering them.
If I learned anything the last few years, it's that's how it works.

~~~
melling
So, we all agree that "Retina" displays are better? The problem is that it
won't become popular until a company, which tends to be Apple, comes along
with the right marketing so the average consumer feels the need to spend the
extra money on the technology. Personally, I wouldn't mind if Microsoft joined
in and promoted HiDPI, for example, with Windows 8.

Apple introduced USB in the later 90's. It took forever before the PC industry
adopted it. I don't think anyone has to pay licensing fees for Thunderbolt
connectors. How long do we have to wait before every PC ships with a port?

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munger
Also, bring back 16:10! Stop putting 1366x768 screens on laptops that are 14,
15 and even 17 inches and saying it's HD! Get off my lawn!

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Zak
16:10? Let's just go all the way - 16:12!

~~~
hayksaakian
I see what you did there.

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Too
Where are all the high resolution desktop displays? They are stuck in the 90s.
Back then I had a 21" CRT that could run at something like 2400x1800. Not all
the way to retina but still in a different league than todays screens. It
could also run at something like 120Hz refresh rate, but then you had to turn
down the resolution to more like 1280x1024.

~~~
stinos
exactly. I loved those displays, running at at least 90Hz. That in a dual
moitor setup was hard on your desk becasue of the weight, but awesome for
programming. Being so used to the vast amount of vertical space, I felt sort
of let down by the 'now let's make all widescreen displays' movement. 1080
pixels vertically really doesn't do it for me. But maybe it's just me?
Sometimes I see people programming, with the editor taking up only half of the
screen and the rest all IDE windows and toolbars and whatnot. That's like 15
lines of code on one screen. I don't get it.

~~~
w1ntermute
Yep, this is why I try to avoid IDEs whenever I can. The best "IDE" is Vim
running in Screen in urxvt.

~~~
stinos
I hope that is not the sole reason you avoid IDE's? Cause any decent IDE can
be configured to behave properly and get out of your way on the screen. The
example I gave was just to clarify that apparently some people do not seem to
bother about vertical space (or don't know any better)

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TheHeasman
Also; there's been an international LCD price fixing conspiracy,

That... makes the most sense compared to the other arguments
[http://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2012/november/lcd-price-
fixi...](http://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2012/november/lcd-price-fixing-
conspiracy/lcd-price-fixing-conspiracy)

------
Zak
This is old, and includes an update mentioning Apple's Retina Macbook Pro,
introduced after the article was published.

I think a better question is why nobody else is offering high-res panels on
laptops. The Nexus 10 tablet has more pixels than any non-Apple laptop ever
produced.

~~~
joonix
I just bought a $500 laptop for my father and was surprised at how laptop
displays haven't gotten much better since I last shopped over 3 years ago.
They're all x768, even on 15.6" notebooks. The pixels are easily noticeable on
the 15" Samsung I bought for him. I would have thought displays improved over
all these years, even on low end laptops, but I guess other than the shift to
LED-lit screens a few years ago, not much else has happened outside of
MacBooks and some Ultrabooks.

~~~
DeepDuh
At 500$ I wouldn't be surprised at all. Did you read the article? That's just
200$ over the _manufacturing_ cost of a retina iphone. I'm rather surprised
that lenovos retailed at 2500$ are still stuck at low resolutions - and they
still have quality control issues like overheating GPUs. People that call out
rMBPs as expensive clearly don't get what they're about, there are simply no
comparable alternatives at that price point.

Note: Other points critizised such as repairability are very valid however.

~~~
hayksaakian
Its a good strategy, make the best first impression and the best of everything
visible.

Repairability and upgrade costs are hard to SEE at purchase.

~~~
DeepDuh
Well to be honest - was upgradeability ever a big deal with laptops? At least
this time around they have offered sane maxed out Ram options, so those who
know they'll need that in the future can buy it that way - which is what I
did. Yes the 16GB option is expensive, but it's still a reasonable price for
the value you get (a high chance of plus 2-3 years in lifetime since the build
quality is very solid plus the comforting feeling to never care about Ram -
fire up your VMs as you like).

~~~
Zak
_Well to be honest - was upgradeability ever a big deal with laptops?_

For most people, I imagine not.

I have upgraded the RAM in every laptop I've owned in the past decade, and
either upgraded the hard drive, or moved an old one over in most. In my
current laptop, I also upgraded the motherboard to one that wasn't quite
intended to work so that I could have a UXGA IPS panel and 8GB of RAM in the
same machine. I also upgraded the CPU on that board, and will upgrade to a
QXGA panel if I can find a good price.

I'm not sure I'd care much about upgradeability if I was selling laptops, but
it matters a great deal to me when I'm buying them.

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blaabjerg
I'm quite pleased with the el cheapo 2560x1440 Korean 27" IPS panel I bought
on eBay a few months back. Set me back less than $300 including shipping to
Europe.

It's nowhere near the pixel density of the small devices of course, but it's
quite adequate for my use.

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moe
Typing this on a 27" 2560×1440 I don't see myself needing much more.

Text remains crisp down to sizes much smaller than what I can comfortably read
at a normal viewing distance, so there's little I could do with even more
pixel estate.

That is not to say that I wouldn't _like_ a display with even higher
resolution, but the returns diminish really rapidly from here.

I'm definitely looking forward more to panels improving on other metrics such
as contrast, color reproduction and viewing angles (IPS glow).

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Xcelerate
If monitors are stuck at 2560x1600 forever because it's "good enough", I'm
going to be very disappointed. I'm sure I'm not the only one who sits 10
inches away from his screen.

~~~
davidcuddeback
I don't think you'll need to worry about that. At least a couple manufacturers
are working on 4k (3840x2160) monitors. The most promising one I've seen is
Sharp's PN-K321, expected to be about $5500 when it comes out [1].

[1] [http://www.engadget.com/2012/11/27/sharp-pn-k321-4k-igzo-
lcd...](http://www.engadget.com/2012/11/27/sharp-pn-k321-4k-igzo-lcd-monitor/)

~~~
mtgx
Why are 4k monitors and TV's so much more expensive than 1080p ones? If it's
priced per pixel, they still should be only around 4x more expensive, but the
current prices are much higher. I mean we're even seeing 10" 2560x1600 (2x the
pixels) very high quality IPS displays in sub $500 devices, where the 10"
display itself is probably $100 at most. So what's going on? Is it just the
"rip off the earlier adopter with a 10x-the-cost price tag" strategy at play
here?

~~~
gareim
It's not as simple as charging per pixel. First of all, raising the resolution
that high is still fairly new compared to 1080p. Lots of screens are going to
come out not 100% perfect. See Catleap as evidence that lots of panels come
out with defects even at non-4k resolution.

Second of all, because the screens are harder to make and prices are high
because of that, adoption is lower too. With lower adoption comes lower
economies of scale which mean higher prices again. So two factors at least
that push prices up.

We won't see low prices until they can improve the manufacturing process
enough to drop the price, which will increase adoption, which will drop the
price, which will increase adoption, etc..

~~~
hayksaakian
Good point 4x the pixels = 4x more defective pixels, given the same
manufacturing.

~~~
Silhouette
Given that we're talking about components where more precision is needed, the
odds of a defect aren't necessarily the same either.

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rartichoke
Prices are insane because monitor manufacturers are the scum of the earth.
They are constantly getting in trouble for price fixing.

It's ridiculous that in today's day and age we still have inferior monitors
compared to the mid/late 90s. The korean 27" S-IPS 1440 monitors are
$275-300ish US.

