Ask HN: Best 4k display for dev work?
I'm looking for 27" display, up to $1000. Ideally it's compatible with macbook pro 2017+ As a Linux user, I kinda regret buying a 4k display. Absolutely no desktop environment can properly handle having a 4k display and a 1920x1080 13" laptop panel at the same time if you need to keep switching between with-monitor and without-monitor. Yes they all claim to have "hidpi" configuration, and those configs mostly work if you're always using it in the same setting, but as soon as you start having to disconnect/reconnect your monitor to take the laptop somewhere else your troubles start. Applications can't properly handle changing DPI on the fly, there are often apps that get completely confused by their changes: they either show tiny fonts (e.g., cinnamon taskbar launchers), or adjust the font sizes but not the spacing between lines so you can only see half of the characters (hexchat) or whatever. It's horrible. It makes me want to write my own desktop environment, or fully switch to text-mode-only apps. I have a Samsung monitor and I'm not super happy with its colors. I always enjoyed the colors from Dell monitors. But if I ever buy another monitor I'll probably look at its response times. Xfce handles it very nicely with fractional scaling. As does Kde. Haven't tried Gnome though, couple years ago it had issues. I have tried both. Xfce was the worst actually: switching from dual screen with scaling to laptop-screen-only without scaling made the DE so broken I had to reboot. I've started using a LG 27UL650 4K and so far it seems good. I noticed some mild ghosting though... not sure if it's config related. Both my LGs (5Ks not 4Ks) have ghosting. I'd keep clear of them if you can. Picked yup a 4k lg from costco last year for around $300-350. This is not a gaming monitor, but running KDE on Kubuntu 20.04 scaled at 150% is just fine. Ubuntu 20.04 is unusable due to buggy GPU/x/? though. Looks like that composited desktop is getting like 10fps. Text and video are just fine, games are horrible but just get a cheapo 1080p 144hz TN if secondary monitor if you're gaming. I consider Acer ConceptD CP3271KP, not sure how good it is... It's pretty new display and not many reviews out there. Another option - Dell UltraSharp 27 4K USB-C U2720Q What are the benefits to 4k for coding? I find my 31.5" to be almost a bit too bit for dev. So far I like 2 x 24" 1080p's. I remember seeing this article a while ago here: https://tonsky.me/blog/monitors/ I can't use anything worse than Macbook's display since I tried it :( LG UltraFine 4K Good question Good comment :)