Monitor Opinions

[bag99001]

Hello Everyone -

Returning this Samsung Monitor, I got that is having some strange flickering issues with my new M1 Macbook Air.

Samsung 24" T350 Series IPS FHD, AMD FreeSync Monitor (VESA, HDMI, VGA) Dark Blue Gray LF24T350FHNXZA - Best Buy

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I'm an educator who does a lot of writing/email work, some basic design/music work. I'm also a father who handles a lot of family photos and hobby video work, including Final Cut Pro. Nothing really special in terms of color correction or anything fancy, but quality, bright, good color is nice and appreciated. I'm in a finished basement, so no glare, so glossy is probably appealing over matte. I'm not a gamer either so response time isn't super important.



Debating buying this HP I saw for sale now to replace this 24" in Samsung.

HP 32s Monitor, 31.5" Full HD IPS LED Monitor (HDMI, VGA), Silver/Black | Staples

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This would be a big upgrade size-wise...I was debating going to a 27" after returning the Samsung, but now thinking 32" would be amazing...but maybe *TOO* big?

I could use your opinion. I'm debating getting a VESA mount that also supports attaching the MacBook as well.

I rather not spend much more $ than $200 at the absolutely most but is it really worth it? I see such a range of monitor prices.

Here's my current setup with a 24" monitor to give you an idea.

 

[coolajami]

Hi
I'm using a 2 Dell monitors 24" IPS at work and got a Samsung 28" IPS UHD LU28R55 monitor at home mainly for academic work including image manipulation plus important home stuff like gaming

For office work, I find more comfortable an extended desktop over 2 monitors rather and the single large monitor. Don't get me wrong, the Samsung 28" monitor is great, amazing colour accuracy but ergonomically the size(mainly the height of the screen) combined with the 4K UHD resolution does not make it very comfortable for reading/writing documents etc.

If I was making the choice again, with consideration the office work only, I would have given more consideration on an ultra-wide monitor at 24-27" range or 2 x 24 IPS Monitors. I was also thinking a 34" ultra wide monitor, in order to get the best of both worlds, as vertical dimension is roughly similar with the 27/28" monitors, but I was limited by my office space and they do look massive to me.

The reason I chose an 28" IPS screen was that the Retina Screen of the MacBook made my experience with any other monitor unbearable. The Samsung was the only monitor with a reasonable price-tag that I could calibrate to show colours similar to the Macbook Pro and anything less than UHD IPS was a miss.

The Picture by Picture function saved the day for me regarding office work: you can split the monitor screen into two if you're using two sources (I'm connecting my MacBook Pro from two different ports to the monitor in my case) and it is like like having two monitors. It adds a big black frame top/bottom of the picture but it makes life easier in terms of office work.

 

[bag99001]

I have two monitors at work and I like the setup but it's with my work Laptop and my M1 Macbook Air doesn't support the dual monitor setup.

I guess I'm just very confused by quality levels of monitors....I can certainly SEE when a monitor is bad, but I don't know what I need to do to pick one and why one is $700 and one is $179.

 

[coolajami]

I have two monitors at work and I like the setup but it's with my work Laptop and my M1 Macbook Air doesn't support the dual monitor setup.

I guess I'm just very confused by quality levels of monitors....I can certainly SEE when a monitor is bad, but I don't know what I need to do to pick one and why one is $700 and one is $179.

I cannot see the reason to spend $700 on a home office monitor except if refresh rate/colour accuracy is very important to you. Regarding the size of the monitor is subjective what you find comfortable and comes down to personal opinion. I would say that you can get a good monitor within the price range of $250-350. If you looking a monitor to match the screen resolution and colour accuracy of the Retina MB, IPS panel is the way to go, a VA panel in this price tag likely will fall short in performance.

I thought that UHD monitor would be better all-around than a QHD, but it is true only partially: colour and clarity are stunning in videos and games(10-20% of my time), but make difficult to read/write documents(80% of my time). My experience is that when I'm doing office work, I end up using the low end of the screen, leaving a massive unused space at the top that I fill with widgets. In hindsight, I should have gone for a UWQHD IPS monitor ultra wide around 24-25".

 

[ght56]

I have two monitors at work and I like the setup but it's with my work Laptop and my M1 Macbook Air doesn't support the dual monitor setup.

I guess I'm just very confused by quality levels of monitors....I can certainly SEE when a monitor is bad, but I don't know what I need to do to pick one and why one is $700 and one is $179.

(Disclaimer - I am far from an expert on displays.) The biggest difference for your usage is going to be with respect to how text looks, IMO, if you are spending most of your time writing. The pricier models sometimes do have more advanced features such as charging, hubs, nicer stands, more customizable settings, etc., but they also commonly have a higher resolution, which, in the same size display, yields greater pixel density (PPI). Text and images look sharper and crisper, and this is going to be especially pronounced with smaller text and serif fonts that benefit greatly from having more pixels (e.g., Times New Roman looks a lot worse on lower PPI displays than Arial.)

The problematic display you have is FHD or 1080p, as you know. If text looked okay to you, then you could stay with that. As of right now, the larger display you are considering is the same resolution of your current display but is a physically larger size. That means it has lower pixel density, and text and images will not look as good as a consequence of this.

If you wanted more pixel density for sharper images and text, your options are to either, A) get another 1080p display in a smaller size, or B) get another display with a higher resolution in the same (or slightly larger) size. The next common step up would be QHD or 1440p. After that you have 4K or UHD (2160p). Your Mac is capable of easily driving any display in any of these resolutions, and macOS has the ability to ensure text size looks more consistent across different resolution displays.

At the 32 inch size, I would personally recommend going at least for QHD, which would be a slight increase in pixel density over your current 27-inch 1080p display. But, for that size, I would personally go for 4K if I was purchasing one myself.

At your price range, QHD displays are a good compromise between image/text quality and price. For QHD, I especially like the 25 inch size. So, in sum, if your price is strongly fixed, I would recommend a 25 or 27 inch QHD display.

 

[bag99001]

(Disclaimer - I am far from an expert on displays.) The biggest difference for your usage is going to be with respect to how text looks, IMO, if you are spending most of your time writing. The pricier models sometimes do have more advanced features such as charging, hubs, nicer stands, more customizable settings, etc., but they also commonly have a higher resolution, which, in the same size display, yields greater pixel density (PPI). Text and images look sharper and crisper, and this is going to be especially pronounced with smaller text and serif fonts that benefit greatly from having more pixels (e.g., Times New Roman looks a lot worse on lower PPI displays than Arial.)

The problematic display you have is FHD or 1080p, as you know. If text looked okay to you, then you could stay with that. As of right now, the larger display you are considering is the same resolution of your current display but is a physically larger size. That means it has lower pixel density, and text and images will not look as good as a consequence of this.

If you wanted more pixel density for sharper images and text, your options are to either, A) get another 1080p display in a smaller size, or B) get another display with a higher resolution in the same (or slightly larger) size. The next common step up would be QHD or 1440p. After that you have 4K or UHD (2160p). Your Mac is capable of easily driving any display in any of these resolutions, and macOS has the ability to ensure text size looks more consistent across different resolution displays.

At the 32 inch size, I would personally recommend going at least for QHD, which would be a slight increase in pixel density over your current 27-inch 1080p display. But, for that size, I would personally go for 4K if I was purchasing one myself.

At your price range, QHD displays are a good compromise between image/text quality and price. For QHD, I especially like the 25 inch size. So, in sum, if your price is strongly fixed, I would recommend a 25 or 27 inch QHD display.

This is very helpful. Thank you.

I noticed exactly what you were talking about when checking out the monitor at staples. The 1080p monitor at 32" inches is a problem because you're right, the pixel density is just too low so it looks like garbage, just big garbage.

I'm thinking a 2k 1440p monitor is probably going to be my sweet spot on price/pixel density.

 

[Fishrrman]

OP wrote:
I'm thinking a 2k 1440p monitor is probably going to be my sweet spot on price/pixel density.

I would agree.
While 32" doesn't look so good @ 1080p, it's far better @ 1440p.

Pixel size on a 32" display @ 1440p is .277mm (which is the exact same size as 1080p would be on a 24" display).

There are some folks who won't be satisfied with anything less than "retina quality". I'm NOT one of those people.

A 32" "QHD" 1440p (native resolution) display is a good blend of "lots of screen real estate" combined with "viewability". It may not be up to the level of "full 4k", but it will still be pretty good.

A word of caution:
Take the time to investigate what's available, and pay attention to the user reviews...

 

[bag99001]

So I ended up going with a 27" QHD and now am regretting it. Thinking maybe I should have gone with the 32" or another FHD 24" for UI usability without the flicker issues. The UI elements are extremely small on this screen and I'm seeing no way to scale them like I can from my internal Macbook Air monitor. Is this a typical issue?

 

[Dutchie91]

Scaling of the external monitor is only possible from 4K and up

 

[bag99001]

For what it’s worth I got used to the 27” size and changed it on my macbook as well to smallest scale”more space” which helped when adjusting between it and the external monitor.

 

[joshmradio]

For what it’s worth I got used to the 27” size and changed it on my macbook as well to smallest scale”more space” which helped when adjusting between it and the external monitor.

Out of curiosity, what were the original flickers you had? I just got a Mac Mini M1 with Samsung FHD monitors. I do get an odd flicker that isn't like the screen itself is flickering, but almost like the graphics on screen were.

Trying to see if anyone else had that issue I had.