I just ditched their 32” 4k for their - cheaper - 42” 4k displays and haven’t looked back since. Finally I get 4K sans dpi scaling. 42” is huge, but perfect for hn type work. IDE, terminal, browser, mail/chats all on one screen, all readable, no compromises.
I’m sure there are people who benefit from 6k on 32”, but if you’re coding and you haven’t tried the 42”, you may want to do it.
I've been using their 42 inch monitor for a couple of years now. Before that, I worked on a curved 50 inch Samsung TV but it was a bit too large. 42 inches is a sweet spot for me.
2-monitor setups suck. If I had to go multi, I'd always go with an odd number of monitors (so, 3 or 5) to avoid assymetry. With 2 monitors, your secondary monitor is going to be placed either to the left or to the right of your primary, thus creating assymetrical workload on your neck muscles, affecting your health long term.
The only exception from this rule is a layout where your primary screen sits in front of you, and your secondary is placed beside it but rotated 90 degrees (to vertical position) and used mostly for placing various toolbars to declutter the main one. I tried this setup once and it worked ok ish for me. It looks weird but is quite practical once you get used to it.
2 monitors is the only way for me. I could never go back to just one, unless the software could split it in half for me.
I prefer to use Linux with Xmonad, where any virtual desktop can be displayed on either monitor at any time. So I don't really think of any monitor as my primary one.
Lately I've been forced to use Windows for work, where I use Win+Left/Right to make a window take up 100% of vertical and 50% of horizontal space of a monitor. With two monitors this means 25% of total horizontal space, which is perfect. With one monitor... FML
I think 2 is an artifact of back when monitors were tiny and you had to do it to fit all your stuff up at once.
Been in club 1 good monitor with virtual desktops for 4 years now and no going back. No giant bar in the middle of my view. No neck strain going left to right. Just plenty of screen and a nice layout.
I switched from a 40" 3840x2160 display to a 38" 3840x1600. I find the latter more comfortable for three reasons, one of which is that I don't have to move my head up and down too much.
(The other reasons are specific to those screens: the 40" wasn't curved, and had a slightly inferior screen.)
I love the 38” 1600p format so much, it’s both wide and tall while still feeling like it’s a single monitor. I’ve heard though from friends in the industry that it’s not long for this world :(
I recently spent a few days working in front of two 27" QHD monitors. It made me realise how often I have three windows side by side (working doc in the middle, reference materials to the side).
I just pickup a U3223QE last week and can't complain. I already have two viewsonic 27" 4k monitors which were side by side, now stacked next to the new monitor which I'm liking this configuration. If this 6k monitor was available now I would be taking the 4k back and buying two of them.
Samsung just announced a 57" 8k monitor which looks pretty awesome, $$$.
I did exactly the opposite a while ago. I switched from 40" 4K to 32" 4K. Too much head movement to see the whole screen or inconvenient head angle when looking at the corners / sides. 32" at 4K is perfect for me
I just switched to the 32“ and I like it a lot. I think the sharpness of texts and icons are much better on the 150% scaling I use it on, mich easier on the eye. Would prefer more sharpness though.
Isn’t 42“ a bit big for a desk monitor? I prefer having a second monitor (currently a 25“), is there still enough space on the desk for a second monitor?
I run a single 43" monitor. I vastly prefer it over 2 monitors due to running a tiling window manager. I'm sure there are good ones for Linux and Windows, but on MacOS Rectangle is where it's at.
But if you really need to have multiple monitors, you'll need a pretty big desk to make it work.
I’ve got the 49” ultrawide that clocks in at 5120x1440. Massive real estate but 100% UI scale so no weird issues - aside from the occasional software that pulls the resolution instead of the DPI and then insists on a 200% UI zoom
This looks like the 24" 1920x1200 (16x10) monitor I have. It's still great and have an appreciation for smaller but taller than 16x9 aspect. It's really heavy though.
I'm using an LG 43" 4k 16x9 monitor. I don't use all the vertical pixels (especially the ones at the bottom near the desk surface). I find it pretty great since I couldn't find suitable ultrawide monitors that weren't also ultrashort.
Also (for some uses) nice to have a wide-gamut monitor. Getting wide gamut, high refresh rate, and high resolution tends to make for some very expensive monitors though.
I'm excited for this, because the PC world has been too low dpi for too long.
I hope more displays incorporate PD and networking.
None of the reviews mention the speed of the network interface on this, however. (Fairly safe to assume it's only 10/100/1000 but it would be nice to see 2.5G on a $2000+ display designed for pros and connecting with thunderbolt.)
Mini-DP is still used for a lot of professional graphic cards that have a lot of outputs, because you can’t fit 4 or 8 regular sized DPs on a normal PCIe card bezel, especially if it is just half size. (https://www.techpowerup.com/review/nvidia-rtx-a2000/2.html)
My older Dell monitors have both (mini and regular DP) and ship with a mini to regular cable. So you can use it in both directions and they don’t have to ship two cables.
I'm very interested in this. I've been looking at the XDR for a high-DPI, >27" display but can't bring myself to fork over $5k for it. Hopefully this is significantly cheaper.
I converted my 27" 5k iMac into a monitor using a conversion board from eBay.
I use a macbook air for personal stuff, and a windows laptop for work (Microsoft). So it's great having a 5k monitor for both of my laptops!
It looks great, but honestly wasn't really worth the effort and risk of damaging everything. I retrospect I'd have sold the iMac and bought the Studio Display I think.
In 2001, 17' ViewSonic LCD displays were sold for $999 a piece. Even if this 6K monitor sells for $1800, it is worth the price for the people who need such a set up. In my case, I am happy with my 7 years old 4k P2715Q monitors, which I bought for $480 a piece.
> You’ll also be able to connect to the U3224KB via Mini DisplayPort 2.1
Interesting tidbit. DP 2.0+ allows for much higher resolutions without needing DSC. The Pro Display XDR for example uses DP 1.4 with DSC to drive the 6k resolution.
I think 31.5" is too small for this resolution. I have for example 4K at 32" and pixel density is sort of borderline optimal to me at 100% font scaling. For programming I want to have more windows and text on single screen, not smaller pixels for which I have to increase scaling proportionally. This particular Dell display in this case has to have something like 50" which is way too big when sitting in front of it.
I can imagine it can be useful for some image / video related professional production or for font perfectionists. Other than that I do not think it is very practical.
Are you using windows? Because on windows you can scale in 25% steps and everything still looks crisp. Linux and macOS don’t have this feature (more or less only 100%, 200%, and so on).
I really like high DPI monitors for programming, text looks just so much better and is easier to read (less tiring for the eyes).
Yes, Windows. I do not want to scale at all. Scaling reduces the amount of text on screen. Completely contrary to what I want. And for my imperfect eyes 4K at 31" is totally optimal, sharp and easy to read. I would not spend a single penny to make something look "Better" when it is already perfect for me
Okay, I use my screen at arms length, and I can’t read the text if it is set to 100%. I’m in my 30s and the eyesight is good, but it seems to be already a bit less than in my early 20s, maybe that’s the issue.
I had perfect vision until about 50. I am 61 now and have to use reading glasses (luckily weak ones) when reading / programming. With reading glasses everything is crystal sharp
As far as I know macOS (like Linux) renders always in 100% increments and then scales it down. So if you’re running a 4K in 125% it needs to render everything in 8K and scale it down. Which can require a lot of GPU power.
There are way less scaling issues because of that though. Windows only does scaling well since Windows 11, before it was a mess, and before windows 10 it was practically unusable.
I've used the "Using a scaled resolution may affect performance" branded sizes (which are fractional) just fine in the past
But the whole point of the approach is to support monitors like this one flawlessly compared to most alternatives. 3008 x 1692 (1/2 6k) is perfect for a 32" 6k screen
> I want to have more windows and text on single screen
> not smaller pixels for which I have to increase scaling proportionally
I'll never understand this argument. You want to place windows and text on a single screen so that it's comfortable to read, not smaller, and not bigger.
Then, when you have the perfect reading font size for your viewing distance, there's no imaginable scenario where you would want a lower resolution. If you have a comfortable physical font size, the same font size at a higher resolution will always be better than at a lower resolution.
it's actually the perfect resolution for this size - since it finally gets you 2x scaling with "previously native" font sizes.
we started with around 100dpi when 1920x1200 screens where trendy. Font and UI sizes on those were pretty good - but the screens lacked real estate (small size) and clarity (low DPI).
27" 1440p and then 4k screens improved on that, but they were never good enough to go for 2x scaling - which will provide both more real estate and more clarity. One had to pick either unnaturally tiny fonts or fractional scaling which messed up some UI sizes.
With 5k 27" and 6k 32" screens the compromises should be gone. It's a natural 2x (retina) display, just like Apple had them on notebooks for lots of years.
Those are not comparable. This has about 2.5x the pixels of a comparably sized 4K TV which means lower yields for manufacturing, plus it doesn't have the same economy of scale of a discounted consumer TV. Also it integrates a stand with USB hub, a webcam, far superior color gamut than your $200 screen and Thunderbolt 4 with PD.
But if the extra pixel density and other features aren't useful to you, then no reason not to get the vastly cheaper device.
IPS Black with twice the contrast compared to previous IPS models, 35% deeper blacks, probably a lot of the UltraSharp line's conveniences thrown in...yeah I can see people wanting that.
Reliable reviewers say it makes even average Joe stuff like movies and photos look noticeably better. So I want to at least try it.
If you are telling us what kind of display you personally don't need, I guess that's another thing...
Yes, because TV prices are heavily subsidized by ad systems installed directly on the OS and not reflective of the true cost of manufacturing. Good monitors still do not have this problem.
I have couple of big TVs for people to watch movies, play games. All hooked up to PC and disconnected from any networks. They're essentially dumb monitors. No ads at all.
Maybe they're also monitoring what you are watching making you part of the greatest Nielsen ratings group of all times?! Content producers and advertisers would pay a lot for that.
I just sent back to the store a 42" Samsung LCD TV for two reasons:
1) It didn’t go into sleep and I always had to fiddle with the remote to bring back the desktop image after a wake up (select source, etc).
2) The color (LED lighting?) wasn’t uniform near the frame even if it was a higher end model.
But the 120 Hz frame rate was interesting and the text extremely sharp. I kept it around 1 meter from my eyes and I liked the extra space. I connected it to an older MacBook Pro through an eGPU.
I've used a 43-inch 4k monitor for 4 years. First a Samsung and now a TCL. I love it. Some people worry about frame latency for high performance gaming, but that's not me. It handles my level of PC gaming just fine, in addition to being my programming workhorse.
Used a 27" monitor years ago, but it's simply too large for practical work for me, let alone 32" or more. LG's Apple-exclusive UltraFine 23" 4k monitor, OTOH, is a perfect companion next to the built-in monitor of a MBP in terms of dot pitch and glare.
While I love my 27" iMac, with its 1440 vertical points (2880 pixels) I always found it a regression vs. my 30" 2560x1600 pixel screen it replaced. That is from the real estate side, picture quality was of course much better. This is why I never understood that Apple stuck so long to the 27" format for their "large" screen, not counting the very expensive 32" screen.
I was hopeful for all of about two seconds until I saw the aspect ratio: as I feared, it's a 16:9 display.
At that size, a 16:9 display is just not very functional. It's just too wide and not tall enough. You will be constrained by the vertical height (since you need to use dpi scaling) and the extra width will, by and large, be wasted. Depending on your configured DPI, notifications or other activity to the side of the screen is effectively outside your active vision, and you'll miss things that happen there.
I'm still holding on to my ZR30w for dear life, and that's only a 16:10.
I wish there were good squarish displays. The best/closest one is the Huawei Mateview at 3:2 (3k*2k resolution IIRC), or the Microsoft studio computer (4.5k*3k, also 3:2). But the mateview is 500EUR+, while decent 4K monitors are available for significantly less. I wish 3:2 and 16:10 took off properly - MacBooks have been doing the latter for forever, yet no one copies that good part :(
(PS I had a comment earlier here on HN on diying a monitor, let me know if anyone wants more info.)
> (PS I had a comment earlier here on HN on diying a monitor, let me know if anyone wants more info.)
Do you mean salvaging two laptop display internals and placing them rotated vertically side-by-side, sticking them in an enclosure, and converting the 2x LVDS to an HDMI? That was the only option I was left with after my last hunt for a well-proportioned display.
Not really (though you can do that too), what I had suggested was buying a display using panelook to first choose a suitable panel, and then make a frame around it.
You’ll need to hit up Aliexpress/Alibaba for the panels and their drivers though, so shipping/import taxes can be funky.
The advantage of this method is that you can pretty much find almost any commercially available monitor panel including the Dell/LG 8k panel and many at lower resolutions too. However it isn’t always very cheap.
Your mileage may vary. I'm using a 38" screen (21:9) daily since four years and I wouldn't want it any other way. Except maybe a single 49" monitor (which does 32:9 I think).
Yes. Like I lamented above, the ZR30w is already borderline. I miss things already. I "upgraded" to a Dell 32" UltraSharp then want back to the ZR30w (well after I could return the Dell) as it was that much worse.
I had a similar first reaction. My main monitor is 28" 4k 16:9 and more vertical sounds nice.
This monitor is 6144×3456, which is 1.6x more pixels in each direction (2.56x total pixels), and physically a bit bigger. So I feel like I'd get the extra real estate I want. Heck, I might be comfortable even adding some more inches to the side, making it more widescreen!
However I really don't want a 60Hz monitor. Everything is much smoother at even 90Hz. That's my dealbreaker.
You might not actually get (that much) more usable real estate - it depends on how well your machine handles fractional dpi scaling. Odds are the virtual pixels will be too small at the same DPI you are using with all those extra hardware pixels but only stuffed into an extra 2" diagonal, so you'll have to increase the dpi configuration. Your current monitor has 157 ppi while this one has 220. I don't know what DPI you're currently running, but 157 is pushing it for 100% DPI, and totally not doable at 220.
I develop at native res on my Macbooks sometime, which are all 254 DPI. They used to run Linux & it was more than fine there too. I have good wall-mount arms for my displays so I have a lot of freedom to position.
I find that generally I can scale up or scale down the font in most applications, without crude fractional scaling measures. That the buttons/menu bars are all tiny is fine with me.
I do wish we'd stop just fractionally scaling everything. On the web, having absurd DPI is so rarely a problem. But applications & OSes are still stuck in a very crude world where nothing can be adapted/adjusted, everything is all fixed sized, carefully laid out. Both have a lot more they could do to allow users to experience things as they want. But we seem to have been moving towards more blunt approaches- retreating from any kind of semi-sophisticated attempts- for a while now.
I could see using the native ppi on macOS and maybe Linux, but on Windows where there are native controls at fixed 32x32 (or smaller!) sizes in use for toolbars, etc in many applications its unfortunately a lot more difficult.
My XDR is too tall if anything, definitely not too short. I can't have the entire thing aligned with my eyes: I end up either having to look down a little, or up.
> You will be constrained by the vertical height (since you need to use dpi scaling)
I run the XDR at a very comfortable scaled resolution of 3008x1692 and text looks absolutely flawless. Compare that to your 30" 2560 x 1600 native screen and you can see it's hardly a difference.
Not really. I have this and it is too tall (gotta look up and down) and too skinny (bit too wide for one window across, too skinny for two tiled). Preferred my old 1600x1200 4:3 in portrait mode, though I won't go back to < 200dpi.
Anyway, personal story: For years I worked on a 24" monitor at home. Then, at some point, I decided I too want to be a "pro" or whatever, and bought me a Dell UltraSharp 27" monitor. It looked very impressive when I turned it on... but within a couple of weeks, I noticed I was getting this sensation of wanting to turn away from the screen, of not wanting to be at my computer. I gradually realized that, well, it was the monitor; or rather the monitor + the distance: I could just not tolerate my eyes having to focus on high-intensity lit items at the angles the monitor was showing me. I went back to a 24-incher, and am happy as a clam. No multiple monitors for me, either: Dizziness and headaches.
I know this might not be everyone's experience, and many people have no trouble with large/multiple monitors, but - be warned, you might be one of those we do; or, you might develop this sensitivity over the years.
I am using 2 monitors for over 20 years (since GeForce 2 MX, my first video card with 2 outputs) and I had no problems; at first it was 19" CRT, then dual 21", for the past 9 years dual 24". I had a colleague (now retired) that was using 6 21" monitors on a special stand in a 3x2 arrangement, he loved it. Different people have different preferences and tolerances.
Ads normally do not contain these type of nuggets:
>However, the company hasn't provided any color accuracy claims for the monitor yet, and that will be critical for many creatives.
>But while IPS Black contrast is impressive for IPS, there are prosumer monitors delivering even greater contrast levels.
>One potential disadvantage: HDR
>When in HDR mode, the U3224KB's max brightness increases a tick to 600 nits, as per VESA DisplayHDR certification. That’s a bit dim for creative professionals like video editors, who will likely need DisplayHDR 1000 and beyond for effective performance.
>both monitors are still expected to be subject to the flaws of LCD panels that OLED monitors avoid, such as the potential for blooming around light areas on dark content.
Is it still plastic, does it make that plasticky sound when you twist or bump into it? That’s like the best thing about these expensive apple displays, no plasticky sounds. Why can’t other brands just try to do aluminum enclosures for $50-75 more?
I’m sure there are people who benefit from 6k on 32”, but if you’re coding and you haven’t tried the 42”, you may want to do it.