Which 27/28" monitor for 16-inch Macbook Pro M1? UHD, 4K, or 5K?

[Mactech20]

I have this for my 16 m1 max. It is an excellent monitor. Charges, has ports, fantastic color and picture quality, and a reasonable price. All iMac displays are manufactured by LG so I like to keep the same brand.

LG UltraFine UHD 27-Inch 4K UHD 2160p Computer Monitor 27UN850-W, IPS with VESA DisplayHDR 400, AMD FreeSync, and USB-C, White,Silver

Upgrade to an LG UltraFine IPS 4K screen, delivering ultra HD resolution with supremely accurate colors, even when viewed off-angle. The 27-inch display offers versatility of USB Type C connectivity (60 Watt power delivery) plus the benefits of HDCP 2.2 compatibility, so it will seamlessly displa...

www.amazon.com

 

[brilliantthings]

It sounds like 4K 27” from a decent brand is the most widely preferred size and resolution for what you are asking. I have a Samsung 4K 27” and a Dell 4K 27”. I love them. 1440 is really not an adequate resolution for a 27” monitor. Getting a monitor with usb-c and a built-in hub is the other consideration.

 

[onlyforbo]

Can you explain why universal control brings value to the iMac?

It lets you use your iMac essentially as a secondary display. It is also 4.5k and also gives you the advantage of literally being an m1 Mac on top of it. That being said it is fairly overkill.

 

[estabya]

I will add another recommendation for a 27” 4k display. I use an Asus PA279CV with my M1 MBA and have no complaints. It’s a giant upgrade from the dual 22” 1080p screens I was using with my Mac mini.

 

[kingtj1971]

I know this may not even be an option if you're really set on a display no larger than 27" or 28".

But I'm running a 34" curved Samsung display at 3440x1400 native resolution as my external monitor for my 16" MBP M1X and am really pleased with it. I guess this "ultrawide" resolution counts as "2K" vs "4K" - but it also means it's about 40% less demanding on the GPU than a true 4K display while giving you all that horizontal screen real-estate to open 2 "typical sized" app windows side-by-side on it.

 

[Elise-K]

If you want text to be as “crisp” as possible, you want the highest pixel density you can get. For 27”, that means a 5K (5120×2880) monitor with 219 pixels per inch (ppi). The LG UltraFine 5K is the only 5K monitor still available AFAIK.

Hello again. I just found this conversation on an Apple Communities forum, where people discuss the problems they've encountered using an LG 27" UltraFine 5K monitor with a MacBook Pro M1 Max. https://discussions.apple.com/thread/253395298

 

[Love-hate 🍏 relationship]

Seeking recommendations, please.
Making a computer upgrade to the 16" MB Pro M1 or M1 Max Having read dozens of reviews and recommendations online, I am now thoroughly confused as to which monitor I should get. I spend about 85% of time working with multiple windows/tabs open in Safari, MS Word/Excel, and Filemaker relational databases; and about 15% working with Adobe Acrobat for desktop publishing and GraphicConverter for editing images and illustrations.
Does a 5K monitor seem an excessive investment given this usage profile? Seems I'd be working most of the time in a lower ppi space, and the rest of my time either cranking up the System Preferences for viewing high res images on the monitor or simply using the MB Pro screen for image work. Have read about resolution issues for text, which I need to be super crisp.
Many thanks in advance and if this is not the correct forum for asking this kind of question, a pointer to another would be appreciated, please?
cheers, Elise

4k at 27" is fine by me.

granted i use it with 1080p res 99% of the time lol,i prefer one window only

 

[pugxiwawa]

Hello again. I just found this conversation on an Apple Communities forum, where people discuss the problems they've encountered using an LG 27" UltraFine 5K monitor with a MacBook Pro M1 Max. https://discussions.apple.com/thread/253395298

No issue with my LG 27" UltraFine 5K, and I'm pairing it with 16 M1 Pro. I don't use the hub on the monitor though.

 

[Elise-K]

No issue with my LG 27" UltraFine 5K, and I'm pairing it with 16 M1 Pro. I don't use the hub on the monitor though.

Hi, pugxiwawa: What are you using to connect the monitor to your 16 M1 Pro? cheers

 

[turbineseaplane]

It lets you use your iMac essentially as a secondary display. It is also 4.5k and also gives you the advantage of literally being an m1 Mac on top of it. That being said it is fairly overkill.

Not really (not at all in fact)

With UC...The iMac still has to be its own machine and UC just allows you to control it from an adjacent machine.

Secondary display users enjoy multiple displays doing things all from one machine as the source.

UC is really just an Apple implementation of a KVM switch

 

[pugxiwawa]

Hi, pugxiwawa: What are you using to connect the monitor to your 16 M1 Pro? cheers

Hi, just 1 thunderbolt 3 cable. Nice and easy.

 

[eddjedi]

I recently bought a Huawei Mateview for my 14" MacBook Pro. It's 28", and has a 3:2 aspect ratio rather than the more typical 16:9 so you get an extra 20% or so at the top and bottom of the screen, great for web pages and single screen apps like Photoshop etc. It also has a built in USB C hub so you can connect it via a single cable, and a great feature is the ability to pair Bluetooth mice and keyboards with the screen rather than the computer, so anything you connect via USB C automatically has a wireless keyboard and mouse (great for me as I'm constantly switching between work and personal laptops.)

For the price of ~£500 it's a pretty good compromise of price, features and quality. Unfortunately if you're in the US, you may struggle to find one.

 

[Elise-K]

I recently bought a Huawei Mateview for my 14" MacBook Pro. It's 28", and has a 3:2 aspect ratio rather than the more typical 16:9 so you get an extra 20% or so at the top and bottom of the screen, great for web pages and single screen apps like Photoshop etc. It also has a built in USB C hub so you can connect it via a single cable, and a great feature is the ability to pair Bluetooth mice and keyboards with the screen rather than the computer, so anything you connect via USB C automatically has a wireless keyboard and mouse (great for me as I'm constantly switching between work and personal laptops.)

For the price of ~£500 it's a pretty good compromise of price, features and quality. Unfortunately if you're in the US, you may struggle to find one.

Are you using the new M1 MacBook Pro?
Thank you for your comments.

 

[fwmireault]

No issue with my LG 27" UltraFine 5K, and I'm pairing it with 16 M1 Pro. I don't use the hub on the monitor though.

I have the exact same setup and i don’t have any issues so far. I do use the hub and it works as intended

 

[karen999]

Not really (not at all in fact)

With UC...The iMac still has to be its own machine and UC just allows you to control it from an adjacent machine.

Secondary display users enjoy multiple displays doing things all from one machine as the source.

UC is really just an Apple implementation of a KVM switch

This is true. I think the main benefit is to use it as a seamless KVM switch between your work computer and your personal devices, where you purposefully don't want to mix the activities on two systems.

 

[Elise-K]

Seeking recommendations, please.
Making a computer upgrade to the 16" MB Pro M1 or M1 Max Having read dozens of reviews and recommendations online, I am now thoroughly confused as to which monitor I should get. I spend about 85% of time working with multiple windows/tabs open in Safari, MS Word/Excel, and Filemaker relational databases; and about 15% working with Adobe Acrobat for desktop publishing and GraphicConverter for editing images and illustrations.
Does a 5K monitor seem an excessive investment given this usage profile? Seems I'd be working most of the time in a lower ppi space, and the rest of my time either cranking up the System Preferences for viewing high res images on the monitor or simply using the MB Pro screen for image work. Have read about resolution issues for text, which I need to be super crisp.
Many thanks in advance and if this is not the correct forum for asking this kind of question, a pointer to another would be appreciated, please?
cheers, Elise

Thank you to everyone who commented. I do appreciate it.
However, I'm still reading recent posts online, talking up the M1 PowerBook <--> external monitor problems. So i've decided to wait to see what the 27" M1 iMac offerings will be (spring? summer?), especially since my main workspace is the large screen with the smaller one for parking Finder tabs, to-do lists, contacts, and the like—which seems a waste on a 16" M1 PowerBook screen.
cheers, Elise

 

[eddjedi]

Are you using the new M1 MacBook Pro?
Thank you for your comments.

Yes mine is a 14" M1 Pro, full spec in my signature. It works well, the only issue I have is that the 65w power delivery from the monitor seemingly isn't enough as I get audio interference unless I have the Magsafe power cable connected (I should add this is only while connected to my external Audio Interface, not the internal speakers.) So if you just want to hook the MBP up to the monitor and charge without external speakers, it will probably work just fine.
Also worth mentioning I get exactly the same interference when connecting my work PC laptop too, so it's an issue with either my Arturia Audio Interface or the monitor.

 

[Lee Cooper]

Anyone tried the Lenovo Creator Extreme 27" miniLED, two times more dimming zones than XDR!
At least on paper beats the XDR, not to mention is only about $2000.

 

[glindon]

No issue with my LG 27" UltraFine 5K, and I'm pairing it with 16 M1 Pro. I don't use the hub on the monitor though.

Mine works perfectly fine as well. Launch day model. I’ve never used the webcam or hub. Speakers rarely used for system sounds. I had one glitch where I had a strip of offset pixels on the right side. (Hard to explain). Reseating the TB cable fixed it and haven’t had it happen again. Cable used is one that came with monitor.

 

[eret9616]

I bought dell s2722qc for a week, its great, and dell released their ultrasharp model today.

 

[throAU]

All I can say is that the MacBook Pro XDR display will ruin you for non-HDR screens.

 

[satcomer]

With prices today see your money and go for good RGB 4K monitor! The text will look better with a better selection!

 

[Christopher Kim]

I think for many ppl on a budget who are looking for a good-sized external monitor, getting a 27" 4K monitor and running it at "Looks like 2560 x 1440" to allow for HiDPI scaling is the way to go.

- To clarify for those who aren't familiar, doing this will look quite a bit better than running 2560 x 1440 on a native 1440p monitor
- Most ppl think "Looks like 2560x1440" on a 27" is the right balance of space vs UI / font sizing (this is what the 27" iMac does)
- MacOS HiDPI / Retina scaling will basically render a pixel-doubled image (Eg. a 5K 5120 x 2880 desktop), and then downscale it to the 3840 x 2160 resolution of the 4K monitor

This ends up looking *almost* as good if you had a true 27" 5K monitor like the LG 27" UltraFine 5K, but at a fraction of the price. The only downside is the non-integer scaling is a bit more gpu-intensive, but if you have any of the new 14/16" MBPs, shouldn't even feel it. Prior to me getting the 14" M1 Pro, I was running my 27" LG 4K UD-68 monitor like this for ~5 years with my 2016 13" MBP (first gen with Touchbar / 4 Thunderbolt3 ports) and it ran great, though admittedly I don't have graphics-intensive workflow.

Especially given 1) the LG 27" 5K UltraFine is your only option in this size range for true-pixel doubled 1440p (and it's going on 5+ yrs old now), 2) there are many 27" 4K monitors at very reasonably prices (<$300), and 3) in my subjective opinion, it looks *almost* as good, I think it's a great option for many ppl on a budget.

 

[Amethyst1]

Especially given 1) the LG 27" 5K UltraFine is your only option in this size range for true-pixel doubled 1440p (and it's going on 5+ yrs old now),

It's not the only 5K monitor out there. My (discontinued) Dell UP2715K uses the exact same panel as the UltraFine.

 

[Aeliron]

Well, there’s lots of cheaper 27”/28” “4K” monitors around, which have around 160 ppi. They’re not as crisp as a 5K monitor, and scaling (if you need more than the equivalent of 1920×1080 screen estate) introduces additional blurriness due to how macOS handles scaling.

I have both 28.2” “4K” and 27” 5K monitors side-by-side, and while the 5K is noticeably sharper and just perfect, I find the “4K” still acceptable. Everyone is different though, so YMMV.

Has anyone here tried BetterDummy? Supposedly a free tool to offer more Mac scaling options.