That's not inconsistent with what I wrote. My viewing distance, when I'm sitting upright in my chair is, 21". But note that defines my
maximum viewing distance. Ergonomic experts also recommend that you aren't static--that you move around, which includes leaning forward (nothing wrong with leaning forward, so long as you maintain good alignment; indeed, that's better than being locked in one position). Thus being 21" when upright against the back of the chair translates to an effective range of ~10" to 21". And that's part of why you need a higher pixel density. The other reason is that, even at 20", you need a pixel density of ~300 ppi to have optimum sharpness. And ergonomics experts also recommend not reading text that seems blurry to you. So to my mind, the sharper the better, both so that I can move forward and back (as ergonomics experts advise), and so I can avoid visual fatigue (as ergonomic experts also advise). So there
.
Basically what I wrote was that 30" 5K is fine for a 20" seating distance, which is a "typical" viewing distance under ergonomic guidelines, including Apple's own guidelines. And that is still true. I agree your needs are different, but your described usage is far from typical.
Furthermore, if we examine for a minute Apple's history with laptops, for the longest time they were at 226 ppi, yet they were shipping Macs with non-2X scaled resolutions, which the vast majority of users thought looked great. Indeed, I will sit with my 12" MacBook screen several inches closer than my with my desktop, yet even at that pixel density I didn't notice any significant difference in clarity aside from the fact that the text was smaller with the non-2X scaled Looks Like 1280x800, vs the 2X scaled 1152x720 native resolution. If I pushed in to say 10" away or whatever I can notice a slight difference, but that is not typical usage, so effectively the clarity was already excellent at 226 ppi.
Apple has since moved to 254 ppi on their MacBook Pros, presumably to catch up to what their Looks Like resolutions were already set at. I don't see much point in going past that for a laptop because the text won't look any clearer to the overwhelming majority of the population. Perhaps it would for the very small group of those with 20/10 vision and who also happen to sit in front of a laptop several hours of day, but even then it's debatable. Diminishing returns and all that.
As mentioned previously, I typically sit at around 25" for a desktop, and several inches closer for a laptop. Let's call that 20" for the sake of argument. Now let's compare that to the various pixel densities. And let's subtract 5" from those numbers for a young computer user with excellent eyesight. That becomes 20" for a desktop and as close as 15" for a laptop.
184 ppi (32" 5K display) is Retina at 19"
196 ppi (30" 5K display) is Retina at 18"
203 ppi (29" 5K display) is Retina at 17"
218 ppi (Studio Display) is Retina at 16"
226 ppi (MacBook Air) is Retina at 15"
254 ppi (MacBook Pro) is Retina at 14"
300 ppi (theorist's Mac) is Retina at 11"
What does that mean? 226 ppi is fine for a laptop, and even 184 ppi or even lower can be fine for a desktop.
However, I wasn't even recommending a 184 ppi desktop screen at 32". In fact, back when Apple Silicon was announced, my prediction was actually not even the 30" screen I'd prefer. Back in 2020 I was predicting a possible 29" 5K iMac release. That would be 203 ppi, or Retina at 17", well below that 20" cutoff for a desktop. For a laptop, I was predicting they'd initially stick to 226 ppi, and then might switch to 254 ppi later on, but Apple did the 254 ppi switch earlier than I expected.
So, at 254 ppi for a laptop means Retina at 14". With even that comparison, a 203 ppi 29" 5K screen with Retina at 17" makes perfect sense, as people typically sit several inches further from a desktop than a laptop, and a 17" seating distance is well under Apple's own recommended 20-30 inches.
