4K Pixel Density Sweet Spot

[Jim-H]

Currently I have a 3-monitor setup, one 30" (2560x1600) display and two 24" (1920x1200) displays. If the pixel density were to remain about the same as the 30", this would equate to about a 42" 4K monitor.

The current 4K monitors seem to be in the 24"-32" range. Higher pixel densities give us buttery smooth text and crisp images at the expense of workable screen real estate.

My personal choice would be a monitor somewhere around 35". Screen real estate is important to me. If Apple releases a 4K display that is the same size as the current model, I would be somewhat disappointed.

What size would you like your 4K monitor to be?

 

[chfilm]

I'd like to have a 27-28"Display with a resolution so high (probably 5k?) that it can work as a 2560x1440 retina Display. That would be perfect.

I'm not sure if apples algorithm that they use in the rmbp for interpolating different resolutions is good enough to work on a 27" display with 4k to present it with the font /ui size of 2560x1440.
But that would be perfect.

 

[PhiLLoW]

I can't imagine working infront of a 32" monitor or even more. would really annoying because the screen is way too big.

 

[VirtualRain]

I've been thinking about this a lot lately.

Most common computer displays are around 90-110 PPI. Apple Retina displays are double that at around 220PPI.

In terms of how big text and UI Chrome looks...

90-100 is just too big. 110 looks better (native 2560x1440 at 27") but I like everything even a tad smaller than that.

I like my retina MBP 13.3" 2560x1600 display when it's set to an effective resolution of 1680x1050. That's scaled 1.5:1 or about 150 effective PPI.

However, I tend to work with my rMBP a little closer than I do my desktop displays. So I wasn't surprised that when playing around with a Retina iMac the other day, I actually preferred an effective 135 PPI on its 27" screen (or a scaled resolution of about 3200x1800).

Thus, I believe the ideal 4K display would be either 24" scaled to 2880x1620, 27" scaled to 3200x1800 or 31" native... All rendering UI and text at a similar size that I prefer (an effective 135-145PPI).

Of course, the sharpness is also going to be a factor here but I think it won't be that noticeable. I think the 24" scaled to 2880 is going to be most sharp, followed by the 27" scaled to 3008, followed last by the 30" native. Why? Because Apple's scaling is that good... It's extremely difficult to notice any visual differences or softness in Apple's scaled resolutions and with scaling on a high pixel density display you're rendering any given font or vector graphic with more pixels, so it's going to be sharper. Bitmap graphics might suffer slightly, but again, Apple's scaling algorithm of rendering everything at double-res and then down sampling to the displays true resolution works incredibly well.

Hence, for me, the ideal 4K screen size is probably a pair of 27" displays as it offers a great combination of pixel density, screen real-estate, and sharpness. If I had to have just a single display, I guess a 31" would be the best.

The fact is, thanks to Apple's scaling algorithm, you can have a 4K display at any size under 30-something inches and find a resolution that works for you on that display size.