> If you write code and you're not on 4k, you don't know what you're missing.
I really don't. Would anyone care to share their experience? Currently, I'm thinking that a vertical monitor would be an improvement for me, but I don't see a reason to get a screen that's several times denser.
* More characters on screen -> easier to glance between different parts of your code , open manuals, etc.
A 4K screen has 3840x2160 pixels. You could see that as either fitting 4 regular 1080p screens in a rectangular pattern, or just over 3 regular screens in vertical orientation (which is what you were considering).
Of course, if your current HD screen is only barely comfortable to you (likely), you will end up needing to buy a screen with larger dimensions (findable) to actually be able to utilize the screen to that extent.
Alternately, you could still go for that higher pixel density; in which case you end up with more readable characters. This does alleviate eye-strain!
Given enough pixels at your disposal (and a large enough screen), you can have the luxury of determining your own favorite trade-off between pixel density and amount-of-code-on-screen. You can do so on the fly, as tasks/whims/fatigue demand.
This is why -at least for now- I'd say you can never have enough pixels.
I'm sure there's a point of diminishing returns somewhere, but I think we have a long way to go before we reach it.
This assumes that your eyesight is good enough to view that much text density at once. In my experience, I just end up zooming in a lot and upping the font size.
Now, an ultrawide. That was truly a game changer in productivity for me.
For coding I've found the best ultrawide resolution is 3840 x 1600, the extra vertical space is much more impactful than adding more horizontal space (a 38" ultrawide can already do 3 columns very comfortably, adding more doesn't help in my experience)
I always found this argument weird: I've used myopic correction since I was 16, and I can tell you that even 4k at 24" is too low for me: actually, if you turn off subpixel rendering (font smoothing), the fonts still looked jagged.
Now, perhaps people are unwilling to wear glasses or contacts for very small vision distortions (understandable), but I do have poor vision, and I want even higher pixel density, because my glasses/contacts get me great vision (I get headaches if I don't correct to 40/20 or something).
We are reading paper books printed at 600 or 1200 dpi (though that often uses similar tricks to subpixel rendering), and nobody complains. As a matter of fact, people can tell a difference between 300 and 600 dpi, yet books are kept at, at most, an arms distance, so usually closer than most big displays today.
I like to work with two columns of windows and the shortcuts to move and tab windows around are easier/more convenient with one monitor versus two. I can easily swap between all of my open windows and snap the two I need side to side. I also find myself moving my head around less and everything just seems a bit more at hand.
Moving windows around on GNU/Linux is not very smooth between different screens, at least in my experience. I am sure with enough time spent on a configurable WM, it would be great, but no need to do that with an ultrawide.
> Moving windows around on GNU/Linux is not very smooth between different screens, at least in my experience.
Depends on the UI you use. Gnome and tiling window managers should do it just fine. I prefer the macOS keybinds (including where full screen becomes a new desktop, combined with the "Magic Touchpad" gestures).
you mention using macOS keybinds with linux. have you found a way to set everything to macOS keybindings? it's super frustrating to relearn every keyboard shortcut and terminals not supporting it fully
What I meant to say is that UI-wise I prefer macOS with macOS keybindings over anything I tried on Linux. That being said, Gnome is pretty good. I can't get used to KDE, but if I were new to this whole thing (or were coming from Windows), I'd try it, too. Tiling window manager is powerful, but not very necessary on macOS IMO.
With regards to keybindings, one thing you can do is get ctrl/meta/alt in the same order as your Mac. Personally, I've swapped ctrl and meta on my MBP while I am using VirtualBox (with Kali) because that way when I'm in the VM I get local consistency. I usually SSH into the Kali machine from the MBP anyway.
With two 1920x1080 displays you can fit even more (or better 1920x1200).
Also, what is the benefit of an ultrawide 2560x1440 compared to 2560x1440 or 2560x1600?
With UW I can have 3 columns the main thing in the center.
With 2 monitors you have a gap in the center or you have to put the thing on the side and turn your head (neck pain)
They're probably suggesting to get a bigger monitor at the same time. You can have somewhat higher DPI and smoother text, and more real estate.
If you're used to 24" 1080P, going to 32" 4K gets you 1.5x the DPI and 1.77x the screen area. For what's now a $300 monitor, that is a pretty significant improvement overall.
The DPI means my characters go from 9x18 pixels to 13x27, which is a big difference in text rendering fidelity and just feels a little nicer. And the additional screen real estate speaks for itself.
Though if you have the space (a very deep empty desk) to put your display like 6 feet away from your face, then the 32" might be a decent way to reduce eye strain.
They will do for sure since you can run them with 200% scaling. That scaling factor gives you the cleanest fonts. Fractional scaling is not as good.
I’m using a 27" screen with 4K which is ok. But I would definitely upgrade to 5k to get 200% scaling once display standards properly support it (Thunderbolt 3 will not be a permanent solution) and screens are affordable
Thunderbolt is much more than an just a display link. You can think of it as something as PCI Express, plus some USB and displayport compatibility. It can technically support everything, but might require custom drivers. I don't expect it to become a mainstream solution for "just pushing down some pixels from A to B" due to its additional complexity and cost.
I haven't followed USB4 too much. I expect it to again have multiple "levels" like USB had before. And whether some or all of those will be high definition video capable it to be seen. For USB-C video was just a mere alternate mode which switched the meaning of the wires inside the cables to displayport. Doing video over the PCI Express subsystem of thunderbolt is a different story.
TB3 can embed displayport, even 1.4 with latest versions (allowing for 8k video, though if I remember correctly, it was 60Hz using only one of the "fake" techniques like compression or interlacing, not sure exactly which). The hard bit is finding which chipset a particular device uses and if it will do 8k (more recent ones) or not.
If 8k is supported, so is 5k, which is kinda getting mainstream.
USB4 will definitely be high definition video compatible, that much we know.
From reading this[0] it looks like USB4 and TB3 will be broadly compatible, modulo the usual sort of tiresome licensing and compatibility BS our industry loves to burden us with. Pity.
I also went with a good 27" instead of a cheap 32", but mine is 200% scaling. I figure this will become a secondary monitor I can use for a very long time.
I'll buy a 32" with no bezel when I can get it with a Thunderbolt 4 port, and my desk will be right about maxed out.
I'm already using a 30" monitor; there aren't a lot of 4k monitors >30" that aren't full TVs (50-60"). Going to 4k at 30" just increases my DPI with no increase in area, and I'm already not using tiny fonts; more DPI isn't what I want. I'd really like 4k at 40" or so: that still bumps me from 100 DPI to 110 DPI, but I get a lot more usable screen real estate. Unfortunately, the market for monitors over 30" is tiny / costly.
There's several, just search. $300 is about the cheapest you'll find a 32" 4k though, don't expect much and it'll certainly be a TN panel with a slower refresh.
I've been using this one. (Typing on it right now) Has a display port I wire my mac into when coding for work and run a Linux box on it when I'm playing. It is a nice panel, for what I paid. 32" @ 2650x1440 IPS. I've got it next to an older 30" 16:10 (2650x1600) and it is comparable.
I do wish I could get my hands on cheap 16:10 monitors. My old 24" dell is vertical, which really makes for a nice way to view the web.
My LG is a little over 4 years old (an LG 27MU67, sadly no longer produced), and the only complaint I have with it is that the capacitive buttons are difficult to use by feel. If I could get another monitor that's exactly the same, I'd do it in an instant.
I have a similar LG 27UD68. The game changer for me was taking off the anti glare coating. It's amazing the relief from eye strain that I got once it came off.
I've bought a million of the Dell P series 4k monitors for my office in various sizes, they range from 200-500 bucks or so depending on the size. Even less used or floor model. I have a few dozen and they've pretty much been bulletproof.
Not at all my experience. Honestly, wayland has been an incredibly sharp improvement over x for me.
Arch running Gnome on Wayland just freaking works. Input is miles better. Output is miles better.
I run two 4k displays and the internal display is 1920x1080. Even dragging windows between the external and internal monitor, with different scaling factors works SO much better.
That's odd. Maybe it's your hardware or your setup or something.
I'm on Linux, and as long as I have screen composition on in the NVidia Settings Panel and software vsync off, 4k60 is as smooth as butter and as sharp as 4k, much like OSX. It's nicer than Windows.
Thank you for that tip. I had a lot of screen tearing before I enabled that option.
Do you have "Force Full Comoposition Pipeline" enabled or just "Force Composition Pipeline"?
Which distro./desktop environment are you using?
I'm running a dual screen setup (laptop + 4k screen over DP) with fractional scaling on the laptop screen (150%). This works pretty well in Fedora 31, no blurred text.
AFAIK different scaling parameters on different screens are not supported by Xorg, so I'm pretty happy with Wayland.
Kde Plasma Wayland with fractional scaling set to 125%. My workhorse applications are Libreoffice, Firefox and Thunderbird.
Each and every of these applications is blurry as hell. My eyes hurt. True that the multi-monitor experience with mixed scaling factors per display under Wayland is better, that's why I am still suffering of that stockholm syndrom.
Gnome does better, I acknowledge that, but their opinionated UI decisions make me feel like a retard.
That's because those applications use XWayland, which means Wayland scaling has no effect and it scales the pixmaps instead. Try export GDK_BACKEND=wayland.
I played with Wayland and decided it is not for me.
I'm running 3x 28" 4k@60 driven from nVidia using prop driver with an Openbox at the Window manager. It is working great. Super fast, super snappy, fonts look fantastic. Same goes for video. I have one monitor dedicated to code, one monitor monitor dedicated to logs ( 6-10 tmux windows ) and one monitor used as a general workspace.
There's an i9 8-core model (on the 15.6 inch model). That's the one I got. I agree that the 16 GB max is disappointing. No problems with touchpad, though I'm used to Windows laptops (I don't use Macs)
Can't speak to 4K but I recently switched to 3 2K monitors (2 vertical on either side of a horizontal monitor). And I quite like the vertical monitors (My setup resembles a tie-fighter) even though I had resisted trying them for over a decade now.
I still have 1 1080p screen attached (just for NVR viewing) and if I drag my IDEA (code editor) window from a vertical monitor to my 1080 then it takes up over 3/4ths of the width. Just to restate that a different way: I gave up less than 1/4th of my screen width but got ~3x the height (just for the 2 vertical screens).
My current setup looks like this with 1 & 3 being vertical, 2 being horizontal, and 4 being my old 1080p horizontal.
| | | 4 | | |
| 1 || 2 || 3 |
| | | |
I have my 2 vertical monitors divided into 3rds (top, middle, bottom) and have keyboard shortcuts to move windows between each region (coupled with a shortcut to move/resize all windows to their predefined default locations). My code is always on monitor 3 taking up the bottom 2/3rds (I find that using the whole height requires too much head/eye movement). I like to use the top 3rd of both vertical monitors for things like chat/reference.
I rather wish we would rid ourselves of ambiguous terms and instead just state a specific resolution. 2K and 1440p and 4K could each mean any of numerous different resolutions.
For my aging eyes, 4K 32” is the sweet spot. They’re cheap too (you can get one for $380.)
I don’t use the full screen for editing (it’s too wide for that), but the edit window is in the middle and stuff that happens in the background (compiling etc.) sits in the virtual background, showing up in the border around the wait window. So I see immediately when things have stopped scrolling.
After using this configuration at work, I upgraded all my home setups as well.
The controller for this one isn't the best and is picky about inputs (I can't get the original Apple HDMI adaptor to work well even at 30hz, so use DisplayPort instead), but it does well enough for the price.
I use 1:1 pixel ratio and a tiling manager to manage the screen 720p subdivisions (3x3 = 9 of these) and will have editors or documentation arranged vertically in 2-3 of these subdivisions, terminals in individual subdivisions, and screen shares or video in 2x2 spaces (1440p) depending on what I'm up to. I have configured hotkeys which place windows in predefined positions in the grid and gotten pretty quick with the muscle memory of them. I aggressively organize windows into spaces, and use the Apple track pad + gestures to move spaces, this acts as a stack of second monitors that I don't have to move my head to see (but can change attention to with similar speed).
32" at arms length seems to be just right in terms of not feeling like I have to turn my head to change my area of attention, and the pixel density isn't too hard on my eyes without any scaling, but both of these are just on the edge (I wish I had slightly larger UI elements, and slightly less FOV occupied) but with these being at direct odds with each other, this device (and a more expensive one with the same resolution and dimensions I purchased for home use before this one at this price point was released) occupies a sweet spot (for me personally).
I'm using a 55" 4K TV for my coding at home. It's wonderful that I always have enough space to put all my windows (using Win 10).
The other benefit is that I can sit farther away from the screen (I make the font larger to compensate). Feels like it's better for the eyes not to have to focus up-close.
I'm on Windows. The TV is a low-end $400 TCL, but it's good enough for me. The text isn't as crisp as it would be with a smaller screen size, but I don't mind. And if I make the font larger, it's smoother (more pixels per character).
Back in the early 90's I had a "Sony News" newspaper layout monitor with hardware that displayed a full 2-page newspaper spread at 16 grey-levels. I got addicted and mourned the loss of viewing giant amounts of source code and terminal/app windows.
When 4K came out, my dream returned. I'm currently working with four 4K monitors, no scaling, that is also Input Director linked to a second system with two more unscaled 4K monitors, but those are portrait (tall). I'm in heaven, again.
43in 4k monitor (Philips BDM4350UC). Not a particularly high dpi but LOTS of screen real estate, and not very expensive. You can have two documents open side by side plus stackoverflow and the rendering of your website. But it requires 60Hz, because otherwise moving the mouse over such a large surface feels laggy and uncomfortable.
It has been several years since I wrote "4K is for Programmers" [1], and in time since we've migrated to 4K 60 Hz LG panels using DisplayPort. But the upsides of a large 4K for programming remain the same today.
I really don't. Would anyone care to share their experience? Currently, I'm thinking that a vertical monitor would be an improvement for me, but I don't see a reason to get a screen that's several times denser.