Monitor 4k or not ?

[davide]

Is it better to buy a 27 4k monitor and use it at 2560x1440 or get a 27 non 4k monitor? Sorry for the stupid question. Now I use an imac 27 late 2009, so not retina and wanting to change it and  I can't afford a 5k monitor. thanks

[rakurs]

Budget and contrast are the main advantages, as you said yourself. Everything else is on the side of IPS. Four and a half years ago when I bought my first ultrawide (which I still use) there really was no other thing at that price point (400-ish euros) that came even close in terms of features and specifications that I wanted. I am still very conflicted about giving more than twice that amount for a 38" IPS, all that time later, while we have OLEDs at 34" going for 400-ish.

Work environment is a flexible term nowadays, and especially for self employed architects. I play games on my monitor, too, and also use it for some media consumption as well.

[Lingwisyer]

Not sure why you would be comparing a 38" IPS to a 34" OLED...

[davide]

no.

I need to change my computer. Maybe I'll buy a used MacBook Pro and decide whether to pair it with a 27" 2K, 27" 4K, or 32" 4K. Thanks.

[Lingwisyer]

A couple of people in my office struggle to read things on a 27" 4k, so one swapped to a 27" 2k that we had and the other runs it at 150% non-native which isn't ideal... So try them out if you can before you buy.

Ling.

[Laszlo Nagy]

I have 2x28" 4K monitors, but I am using them at 2560x1440 resolution (at 4K things are just too small on the screen). The 4K resolution would require a larger monitor for me.

[davide]

I'm wondering if it's better to buy a 27" 2560x1440 monitor or a 27" 4K monitor and use it with ArchiCAD at 2560x1440 resolution. I'm not interested in color fidelity, I don't do photo editing, and I don't use it for gaming, but I do care about text and line sharpness. I currently use a 2009 iMac with 2560x1440. I would have liked a larger desk, going up to 32 inches, but I understand that I would lose some line sharpness and that perhaps it's better to have two 2K ​​monitors. The assumption is that the computer will be Apple. Thanks.

[Lingwisyer]

If you are not planning to run the 4Ks native, I would just get the 2K. I really like the Dell Ultrasharps. Instead of two 2K monitors, you could consider using a secondary 1080p in portrait, depends on your usage case, or alternatively, there is also the option of using a 1440p 34" ultrawide, with or without a secondary.

Ling.

[davide]

thanks

[Laszlo Nagy]

When I bought my monitors, I wanted to buy a monitor with 2560x1440 top resolution, but most of the monitors were already 4K, so I just went for the 4K one.

I don't know how much that changed since then.

But 1440 pixel vertical resolution is the absolute minimum I would accept now.

[Pavel_N]

Hi David, since macOS 10.14 Mojave, the "subpixel antialiasing" feature that ensures smoothing of fonts is no longer supported, so I think you will be very disappointed with the image on native 2K monitors if you have been working on an iMac so far. I use an old but great DELL U2415 1920x1200 monitor and when I switched from WIN to MAC M2 PRO, it was a disappointment for me. Against WIN the texts on the MAC are not smoothed and it spoils the overall impression. MACs are now made to work well with 4K and 5K monitors.

If you are sure that you will want to work with downscaled resolution of 1440p, 5K monitors are recommended for smooth result. It does not work so well with 4K monitors. Even though the image with a 4K monitor downscaled to 2K won't be perfect, it will still be better than native 2K. But I'm not good at technical details, it's better to check on various Mac user forums.

https://www.google.com/search?q=mac+external+monitor+when+downscaling+to+1400p+is+recommended+4K+or+...