<story><title>Time to Upgrade Your Monitor</title><url>https://tonsky.me/blog/monitors/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ogre_codes</author><text>&amp;gt; 1. No matter what operating system you&amp;#x27;re on, you&amp;#x27;ll eventually run into an application that doesn&amp;#x27;t render in high dpi mode&lt;p&gt;You lost me right here on line 1.&lt;p&gt;If there are apps on MacOS that can&amp;#x27;t handle high dpi mode, I haven&amp;#x27;t run into them as a developer (or doing photo editing, video editing, plus whatever other hobbies I do). Also, I don&amp;#x27;t have any trouble with plugging my highDPI MacBook into a crappy 1080p display at work.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; 3. Configuring my preferred linux environment to work with 4k is either impossible or just super time consuming.&lt;p&gt;Things like this are exactly why I left Linux for MacOS. &lt;i&gt;I absolutely get why you might want to stick with Linux&lt;/i&gt;, but this is a Linux + HighDPI issue (maybe a Windows + highDPI issue also), not a general case.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; I genuinely think 4k provides no real benefit to me as a developer unless the screen is 27&amp;quot; or higher, because increased pixel density just isn&amp;#x27;t required.&lt;p&gt;You could say the same for any arbitrary DPI; 96dpi isn&amp;#x27;t &amp;quot;Required&amp;quot;, we got by fine with 72dpi. It&amp;#x27;s all about ergonomics as far as I&amp;#x27;m concerned.</text></item><item><author>thomaslord</author><text>Hello! Person who actively dislikes 4k here. In my experience:&lt;p&gt;1. No matter what operating system you&amp;#x27;re on, you&amp;#x27;ll eventually run into an application that doesn&amp;#x27;t render in high dpi mode. Depending on the OS that can mean it renders tiny, or that the whole things is super ugly and pixelated (WAY worse than on a native 1080p display)&lt;p&gt;2. If the 4k screen is on your laptop, good luck ever having a decent experience plugging in a 1080p monitor. Also good luck having anyone&amp;#x27;s random spare monitor be 4k.&lt;p&gt;3. Configuring my preferred linux environment to work with 4k is either impossible or just super time consuming. I use i3 and it adds way more productivity to my workflow than &amp;quot;My fonts are almost imperceptively sharper&amp;quot; ever could&lt;p&gt;My setup is 2x24&amp;quot; 1920x1200 monitors - so I get slightly more vertical pixels than true 1080p, but in the form of screen real estate rather than improved density. I also have 20&amp;#x2F;20 vision as of the last time I was tested.&lt;p&gt;My argument in favor of 1080p is that I find text to just be... completely readable. At various sizes, in various fonts, whatever syntax highlighting colors you want to use. Can you see the pixels in the font on my 24&amp;quot; 1080p monitor if you put your face 3&amp;quot; from the screen? Absolutely. Do I notice them day to day? Absolutely not.&lt;p&gt;I genuinely think 4k provides no real benefit to me as a developer unless the screen is 27&amp;quot; or higher, because increased pixel density just isn&amp;#x27;t required. If more pixels meant slightly higher density but also came with more usable screen real estate, that&amp;#x27;d be what made the difference for me.</text></item><item><author>the_af</author><text>The technical details are all right (or seem right to me, anyway), but this is too opinionated for my liking. No, you do not &lt;i&gt;need&lt;/i&gt; a 4K monitor for software development. Some people might like them, some won&amp;#x27;t. [edit&amp;#x2F;clarification: someone rightfully pointed out that nobody will actively &lt;i&gt;dislike&lt;/i&gt; a 4K monitor. I was unclear here: I meant &amp;quot;some people won&amp;#x27;t need them&amp;quot; more than &amp;quot;dislike them&amp;quot;]&lt;p&gt;This sounds like when Jeff Atwood started that fad that if you didn&amp;#x27;t have three external monitors (yes, &lt;i&gt;three&lt;/i&gt;) then your setup was suboptimal and you should be ashamed of yourself.&lt;p&gt;No. Just no. The best developers I&amp;#x27;ve known wrote code with tiny laptops with poor 1366x768 displays. They didn&amp;#x27;t think it was an impediment. Now I&amp;#x27;m typing this on one of these displays, and it&amp;#x27;s terrible and I hate it (I usually use an external 1080p monitor), but it&amp;#x27;s also no big deal.&lt;p&gt;A 1080p monitor is enough for me. I don&amp;#x27;t need a 4K monitor. I like how it renders the font. We can argue all day about clear font rendering techniques and whatnot, but if it looks good enough for me and many others, why bother?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>renjimen</author><text>&amp;gt; You lost me right here on line 1.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m on Windows and can confirm 1. is an issue. Windows lets users scale UIs to be readable at high DPI on small screens. Doesn&amp;#x27;t work on all UIs (e.g. QGIS). So maybe not all OS&amp;#x27;s, but two important ones.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; You could say the same for any arbitrary DPI; 96dpi isn&amp;#x27;t &amp;quot;Required&amp;quot;, we got by fine with 72dpi. It&amp;#x27;s all about ergonomics as far as I&amp;#x27;m concerned.&lt;p&gt;I think the point the parent is making is that human vision has limited resolution. I.e. for a given screen size &amp;amp; distance from the screen, you cannot notice any difference in DPI past a point. The parent is suggesting that 1080p &amp;amp; 27&amp;quot; with a typical viewing distance is already higher resolution than the eye can resolve. Looking at my 1080p 27&amp;quot; screen from a metre away with 20&amp;#x2F;20 vision I am inclined to agree!</text></comment>
<story><title>Time to Upgrade Your Monitor</title><url>https://tonsky.me/blog/monitors/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ogre_codes</author><text>&amp;gt; 1. No matter what operating system you&amp;#x27;re on, you&amp;#x27;ll eventually run into an application that doesn&amp;#x27;t render in high dpi mode&lt;p&gt;You lost me right here on line 1.&lt;p&gt;If there are apps on MacOS that can&amp;#x27;t handle high dpi mode, I haven&amp;#x27;t run into them as a developer (or doing photo editing, video editing, plus whatever other hobbies I do). Also, I don&amp;#x27;t have any trouble with plugging my highDPI MacBook into a crappy 1080p display at work.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; 3. Configuring my preferred linux environment to work with 4k is either impossible or just super time consuming.&lt;p&gt;Things like this are exactly why I left Linux for MacOS. &lt;i&gt;I absolutely get why you might want to stick with Linux&lt;/i&gt;, but this is a Linux + HighDPI issue (maybe a Windows + highDPI issue also), not a general case.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; I genuinely think 4k provides no real benefit to me as a developer unless the screen is 27&amp;quot; or higher, because increased pixel density just isn&amp;#x27;t required.&lt;p&gt;You could say the same for any arbitrary DPI; 96dpi isn&amp;#x27;t &amp;quot;Required&amp;quot;, we got by fine with 72dpi. It&amp;#x27;s all about ergonomics as far as I&amp;#x27;m concerned.</text></item><item><author>thomaslord</author><text>Hello! Person who actively dislikes 4k here. In my experience:&lt;p&gt;1. No matter what operating system you&amp;#x27;re on, you&amp;#x27;ll eventually run into an application that doesn&amp;#x27;t render in high dpi mode. Depending on the OS that can mean it renders tiny, or that the whole things is super ugly and pixelated (WAY worse than on a native 1080p display)&lt;p&gt;2. If the 4k screen is on your laptop, good luck ever having a decent experience plugging in a 1080p monitor. Also good luck having anyone&amp;#x27;s random spare monitor be 4k.&lt;p&gt;3. Configuring my preferred linux environment to work with 4k is either impossible or just super time consuming. I use i3 and it adds way more productivity to my workflow than &amp;quot;My fonts are almost imperceptively sharper&amp;quot; ever could&lt;p&gt;My setup is 2x24&amp;quot; 1920x1200 monitors - so I get slightly more vertical pixels than true 1080p, but in the form of screen real estate rather than improved density. I also have 20&amp;#x2F;20 vision as of the last time I was tested.&lt;p&gt;My argument in favor of 1080p is that I find text to just be... completely readable. At various sizes, in various fonts, whatever syntax highlighting colors you want to use. Can you see the pixels in the font on my 24&amp;quot; 1080p monitor if you put your face 3&amp;quot; from the screen? Absolutely. Do I notice them day to day? Absolutely not.&lt;p&gt;I genuinely think 4k provides no real benefit to me as a developer unless the screen is 27&amp;quot; or higher, because increased pixel density just isn&amp;#x27;t required. If more pixels meant slightly higher density but also came with more usable screen real estate, that&amp;#x27;d be what made the difference for me.</text></item><item><author>the_af</author><text>The technical details are all right (or seem right to me, anyway), but this is too opinionated for my liking. No, you do not &lt;i&gt;need&lt;/i&gt; a 4K monitor for software development. Some people might like them, some won&amp;#x27;t. [edit&amp;#x2F;clarification: someone rightfully pointed out that nobody will actively &lt;i&gt;dislike&lt;/i&gt; a 4K monitor. I was unclear here: I meant &amp;quot;some people won&amp;#x27;t need them&amp;quot; more than &amp;quot;dislike them&amp;quot;]&lt;p&gt;This sounds like when Jeff Atwood started that fad that if you didn&amp;#x27;t have three external monitors (yes, &lt;i&gt;three&lt;/i&gt;) then your setup was suboptimal and you should be ashamed of yourself.&lt;p&gt;No. Just no. The best developers I&amp;#x27;ve known wrote code with tiny laptops with poor 1366x768 displays. They didn&amp;#x27;t think it was an impediment. Now I&amp;#x27;m typing this on one of these displays, and it&amp;#x27;s terrible and I hate it (I usually use an external 1080p monitor), but it&amp;#x27;s also no big deal.&lt;p&gt;A 1080p monitor is enough for me. I don&amp;#x27;t need a 4K monitor. I like how it renders the font. We can argue all day about clear font rendering techniques and whatnot, but if it looks good enough for me and many others, why bother?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Polylactic_acid</author><text>I have been using a 4k monitor and 2 1080p monitors on linux for a while now. The current state of things is that hidpi works correctly on everything I have run including proprietary apps. I&amp;#x27;m also surprised when my wine programs scale properly as well.&lt;p&gt;What does not work perfect is mixing hidpi and lowdpi screens. On wayland with wayland compatible apps it works fine but on X11 or with xwayland apps like electron it will not scale properly when you move the window to the other screen, it will scale to one screen and be wrong when moved over. Overall I don&amp;#x27;t find this to be too much of an issue and when chrome gets proper wayland support the problem will be 99% solved.</text></comment>