MacBook Pro retina external display dilemma

[dimaash]

Hi everyone,

I have this dilemma that i am sure was brought up countless times before.
The dilemma is with an external display.
Now everyone knows how beautiful retina displays on MBPrs are.
The text is super crisp and clear. On pretty much any applicatation (web browsers, text editors etc)
The ratio of how everything is sized with respect to resolution and screen size is perfect. The DPIs are well balanced.

I do web software development and one of the most important things for me on the screen is how text is rendered (web pages, code editor, IDE, terminal) and other tools related to development.

When i started to see how to hookup and external monitor to a MBPr I saw that there are plenty of options. There are 4K displays, Thunderbolt displays, normal IPS monitors, UHDs and etc.

What i have wondered if it is possibel to achieve the same results on an external monitor.
Meaning vivid colors, crystal clearand crisp text, proper size of how everything is sized (issue when dealing with 4K displays that have everything super tiny on screens native resolution).

I have hooked up someones Thunderbolt display to my MBPr and i liked how it looked. But fonts/text seemed somewhat jugged. Now i only had 15 minutes to play with a Thunderbolt.

Is there a setting or something that needed to be set/configured/adjusted for Thunderbolt display to be as close as possible to the retina display of MBPr ?

Or would an external display always exhibit some difference (real estate, size , font rendering, etc ) with respect to MBPr display?

 

[treekram]

You can read about the Retina Display in:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retina_Display
or in multiple other articles on the web.

The Apple Thunderbolt Display at 2560x1440 was not Retina or HiDPI or pixel-doubling or whatever term you prefer. If you want HiDPI, you can buy a 4K or 5K monitor and select the appropriate resolution (half the vertical/horizontal pixels of the native resolution). The following is an example of this from a monitor company:
http://www.eizoglobal.com/support/compatibility/dpi_scaling_settings_mac_os_x/

Your MBP would need to be able to display 4K or 5K (whichever monitor you select) at 60Hz for optimal results. The LG 5K monitor that Apple sells is $1299. 27" 4K UHD monitors are considerably less expensive but people seem unhappy that the Retina/HiDPI mode only gets you 1920x1080.

 

[Fishrrman]

Get a 4k external display. It doesn't have to be Apple-branded.
A good place to start looking:
Comprehensive List of S-IPS/H-IPS/e-IPS and other IPS Based LCD Monitors