Thinking of moving from iMac 5k to DQHD 49”

[Mac47]

I’m an online teacher, and I love to be able to spread out my windows so I can see photos, PDFs, Powerpoint slides, etc. while I’m teaching on Zoom.

I currently use a 2017 iMac 5k. It has been a great machine, and I love it. On the other hand, I have two kids doing online school on antiquated 2012 Macbook Airs (11”). I would like to give them my iMac and get a new machine.

I can’t see moving down to a smaller screen, so the current M1 iMac 24” is out of the question.

I am tempted to try a Mac Mini with a 49” 5120 x 1440 monitor. I look at that 49” width and fantasize about how many windows I could strew over it. But I’m worried that the decrease in ppi will be disappointing.

Has anyone made this move? How do you like it?

 

[Amethyst1]

But I’m worried that the decrease in ppi will be disappointing.

Going from 220 to 110 ppi will be a big disappointment on macOS. I’d never consider it TBH.

 

[MikeDr206]

My primary work machine is a Mac Mini with a 5K monitor, so essentially equivalent to your iMac.

I visit my mom a couple of weeks at a time every other month. She has a 27 inch Cinema Display, so 2560x1440. So half horizontally wise what you’re looking at getting. I have a 12 inch rMB that I hook up to it.

The first day or so the experiencing in going down from retina to non-retina is a bit jarring. But frankly after that the issue fades into the background. I don’t find MacOS “blurry” at non-retina displays like some others do (still running Big Sur). The only issue is that very small text is harder to read, so I magnify it up.

I can’t recall if your iMac can do external monitors. If so, it may be worthwhile to buy the monitor you’re considering, and put it in front of your iMac to test out the experience. Everyone has their own experience as to this type of issue.

 

[Amethyst1]

I can’t recall if your iMac can do external monitors.

It can, and the GPU will have no problems with the ultrawide resolution either.

 

[Seiko4169]

I’ve gone through quite a few screen permutations over the years, dual and triple HD monitors, single 5k, and ultra wides inc the 49. The 5K still comes out on top for my needs, several coding environments, browsers, debuggers etc. The reason the 49” isn’t quite perfect is that it’s a huge expanse of a screen that takes lots of effort to organize windows. Even with the windows tiler it’s still an effort and moving your head side to side to take in the data is tiring. I’m still thinking that the next step is the XDR display but that’s a huge expense.

If you do get one just be ready to be turning your head from side to side a lot and if you start to maximize windows you’ll need to invest in setting up the tile zones.

 

[anthonymoody]

Going from 220 to 110 ppi will be a big disappointment on macOS. I’d never consider it TBH.

@Mac47 I am contemplating something similar i.e. moving from a 5K iMac to one of the 49" 5120x1440 displays (in my case likely paired with the 14" MBP) and have been searching for similar feedback.

@Amethyst1 what you say makes sense obviously. However, I use my 5K iMac in "default" mode which, as I understand it, is 2560 x 1440. I do understand that pixel density smooths the lines on everything. But on some level am I not seeing 2560 x 1440 currently? If so I wonder how bad the transition would seem. I'd sure love to 2x my real estate on a single monitor.

 

[Matt2012]

@Mac47 I am contemplating something similar i.e. moving from a 5K iMac to one of the 49" 5120x1440 displays (in my case likely paired with the 14" MBP) and have been searching for similar feedback.

I'm not that well versed in Macs and mainly use PC but i'm hugely underwhelmed in how my M1 Macbook Pro looks on large external monitors and just don't understand why some things look so bad on such a modern machine?
I can't use anything under 34" and want just one big screen for the extra real estate. Its almost 2022 so I don't see why i should have to have smaller, dual monitors to make things look nice?
So far I've tried a 49" Samsung Galaxy G9, LG Ultrawide 34WL75C, LG UltraWide 34WK95U and currently LG 38WN95C-W 38.

These aren't cheap monitors and all but x1 of the above costing over a £1000 but none worked for me.
Only the LG UltraWide 34WK95U looked 'nice' but the standard resolution with lots of real estate - everything was tiny and too hard to read anything. The next resoultion down and everything was to big.
All the other monitors, the text just look crappy, low res and blurred.
In programs tho, Resolve, Photoshop etc its looks good but web browsing (with any browser) just looks bad.

I'm running x2 LG 38WN95C-W 38's right now next to each (PC/MBP) on my desk and comparing websites side by side is like night and day with the colours looking hugely different even when i cycle through different picture settings on both monitors.

I tried 3rd party apps like BetterDummy and SwitchResX which fixed things to a degree but ended up being a bit weird.
For example, an image on a website that was 300x400, if i copied that image, and dropped it into Photoshop (on a new 300x400 canvas), for some reason, the image in Photoshop looked half the size even though it showed it was deffo showing at 100% scale so somewhere the resolutions between PS and web browser were getting mixed up.

I have a new 16" M1 maxed out MBP on order but I'm a little worried now how that will look to.
Too spend almost £4k on that, plus another £1k+ on the monitor, I hope it'll look better than my current M1 MBP.

 

[Amethyst1]

All the other monitors, the text just look crappy, low res and blurred.

This is because text rendering is awful on macOS on low-ppi/low-resolution monitors. The only ultrawides to have a sufficiently high pixel density and resolution to get the HiDPI modes with their vastly better text rendering are 5120×2160 ones, such as the LG 34WK95 you tried. 3440×1440, 3840×1600 and 5120×1440 are all too low-resolution for macOS, no matter how expensive the monitors are.

What it boils down to is: don’t buy low-resolution monitors for use with macOS. Anything below 3840×2160 is going to have that awful blurry text rendering. It doesn’t matter what Mac you have.

 

[anthonymoody]

underwhelmed in how my M1 Macbook Pro looks on large external monitors and just don't understand why some things look so bad on such a modern machine?

Before giving up entirely, try switchresX. It's a paid utility but you can download a free trial to see if it improves your particular situation. If it does, you can buy it (I think it's like $10 or $15). If not, at least you've tried.

 

[MacGizmo]

Before buying SwitchresX (or any other paid app that does this), try RDM. It's an open-source utility that does the same basic thing for free. I've been using it for a few years and it works great.

 

[Amethyst1]

The OP has already tried SwitchResX though.

 

[MacGizmo]

The OP has already tried SwitchResX though.

The OP said no such thing.

I was more or less responding to the people talking about SwitchresX (which is a nice app) to let them know of RDM, a relatively unknown app that does the same thing but is free. Quite frankly, the talk about these resolution switchers will have no effect on what the OP is talking about (which is purely a hardware limitation of any particular display.

 

[Amethyst1]

The OP said no such thing.

Correct, I was referring to @Matt2012. I apologise for the mistake.

 

[Mac47]

I actually do have SwitchResX, from my days of running a cylinder Mac Pro with a UHD TV as a monitor.