
ASUS PQ321Q UltraHD Review: Living with a 31.5-inch 4K Display - sciwiz
http://www.anandtech.com/show/7157/asus-pq321q-ultrahd-4k-monitor-review
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jacques_chester
People with more money than me: kindly buy lots of these so that further
generations are developed and costs come down ASAP.

I am sick of having to choose between screen estate and PPI. Give me my
unicorn.

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dmm
This is a 39" 4k2 display for $699:

[http://www.amazon.com/Seiki-Digital-SE39UY04-39-Inch-
Ultra/d...](http://www.amazon.com/Seiki-Digital-SE39UY04-39-Inch-
Ultra/dp/B00DOPGO2G/ref=sr_1_1)

The main downside seems to be that it only has HDMI 1.4, so you only get 30Hz
at 3840x2160.

They also have a 50" version for $1,114.

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seanmcdirmid
The larger the screen, the lower the ppi. Wake me up when someone comes out
with a 4k 24" er.

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dmm
The PPI is about 113 in the 39" model. That's not bad.

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Stratoscope
It's not bad, but it's not good either. My ThinkPad display has 141 pixels per
inch, and I wish it had a lot higher pixel density than that. Even with my
61-year-old eyes, I can still see the pixels, which tells me they are too big.

Of course people have different taste in displays, so what works for me may be
different from what works for you. I just like higher-density displays.

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kalleboo
It also depends on how far away you sit. With a large desktop display, you can
just put it further away.

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rbanffy
But then your eyes will have to refocus between your screen and your work
surface.

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Taek
Somehow, we grew content with 1080p television. I'm not sure why, the
($20-80k) 4K televisions that I've seen are substantially more impressive than
the 1080p counterparts, even at 12 feet away.

Resolution really stalled out on the larger screens, until people realized how
nice 'retina' is on the screens that they keep 1 foot away from their face.
Smartphones are finally starting to hit resolutions that match the upper
limits of the human eye, and people are finally starting to want that on
larger screens.

I imagine that once monitors have started to max out the human eye, there's
going to be a much larger push for higher resolution TVs. I'm still surprised
that TV resolution stalled out for so long, but I think that 4K TV will be the
future (eventually). The eye is good enough to see that many pixels.

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nwh
I can only hope that the new Mac Pro is unleashed along with a similarly
pixel-rich screen.

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mtgx
If you really want to use that resolution fully, then you need a much bigger
screen to take advantage of it, otherwise everything will be too small.

If you want to benefit from the "retina" type of sharpness, then Windows
should really show it at an effective 1080p resolution, and Windows sucks at
doing that. It only enlarges some icons, and that's about it.

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Stratoscope
At only 138 pixels per inch, the PQ321Q is not a high-pixel-density or
"retina" display.

For comparison, the ThinkPad W520 I'm writing this on has a 15.6" FHD display
with 141 pixels per inch, slightly more dense than the PQ321Q. Windows 8 runs
fine on this display and so did Windows 7.

The MacBook Pros with the Retina display have 227 or 220 pixels per inch in
the 13" and 15" screens, about 60% higher than the PQ321Q or W520.

The only scaling trick I use on the W520 is to set the logical DPI in Windows
to 140% and to use "XP-style scaling" instead of the bitmap stretch scaling
used by default for non-DPI-aware apps - to my eyes the old XP scaling looks
better for most apps. Most Linux distros I've tried also look fine after some
font size adjustments.

If you ran the PQ321Q at 1080p (FHD) resolution, you'd be getting effectively
only 69 pixels per inch. It's the same pixel density I'd get if I ran my
ThinkPad at 960x540.

There may be issues with driving the sheer number of pixels on the PQ321Q, but
the actual pixel density shouldn't be an issue at all.

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rayiner
You sit a lot closer to a 15.6" display than a 31" display.

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bryanlarsen
I've got 5 people in the office here. 3 with 27" 2560x1440 displays and 2 with
laptops. They're all sitting about the same distance away from their monitors.

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Stratoscope
Maybe 27" is just below the size where it starts to get awkward at that
distance. In a sibling comment I mentioned how I used a 32" monitor for a week
at the same eye distance as my ThinkPad screen, and it didn't feel right
because I had to move my head around too much to look at different areas of
the screen.

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miga
Sounds great, I also like Retina, but lackings of current HDMI standard are
equally discouraging as a 3D session with Samsung monitor against Samsung
glasses nowadays. At least until the make it work out of the box, and
compatible.

BTW Is there any indication that next HDMI standard will be able to
standardize both 4K _and_ 3D, while keeping performance above 60fps?

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tjoff
HDMI is for the living room. It has nothing to do in a computer other than for
the rare case that you would like to connect a computer to a TV.

Displayport is _vastly_ superior and, unlike HDMI, there is actually some use
for >60fps with displayport (something that is wasted on TV content anyway).

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qq66
Unfortunately, DisplayPort is the absolute worst physical connector design
I've ever had to use.

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tjoff
It's pretty much the same as HDMI but with the added bonus of hooks that keeps
it in place? Reducing the main complaint about the HDMI connector.

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qq66
Those hooks have required me three times to extract a partially broken
connector from a DisplayPort jack with needlenose pliers. I have never had a
HDMI cable loosen.

