Monitor thoughts for home office

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Master Geek

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#2993692 9-Nov-2022 06:46

Don't underestimate the benefit of high refresh rate for general computing work. Once you have experienced 144+Hz going back to 60Hz is jarring. Smoothness of scrolling, moving windows, even the mouse pointer is night and day more pleasant to view. Like the difference between a modern 60Hz monitor and old-school LCDs where mouse trails etc were visible. They are not much more expensive especially at the small screen sizes, don't short change yourself. And avoid VA monitors, they can have horrendous dark level smearing (visible when scrolling text) especially the budget monitors. Get yourself a 144Hz+ IPS display.

andrew75

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#2993693 9-Nov-2022 06:50

And unless you like the over-saturated look, a monitor with a sRGB Mode is nice - especially on a wide gamut display.

Batman

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#2993699 9-Nov-2022 07:56

toejam316:

From personal experience, 4K is too dense on a 27" display, let alone a 24" display. A 1440p 27" is the sweet spot.

This.

27 1440p

I've tried smaller and bigger no good

Other resolutions no good.

timmmay

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#2993702 9-Nov-2022 08:12

Work has 34" 4K curved wide monitors with a 100Hz refresh rate - this one. I like the smoothness of the text, but I don't much like the width - I just put all my windows in the center and ignore the edges. I don't notice any real difference in motion between this and my ten year old Dell. I might see if I can find a store with 24 and 27 monitors so I can have a look at both.

Current contenders:

HP G4 24" QHD $458 which is 60Hz, reviews as "solid but boring", has a slightly ugly silver stand, but looks great in terms of visual quality.
Samsung QHD 24" $499 and visually a bit nicer, but many reports of light bleed. 75Hz slightly higher.
Dell P2423D which is QHD, 60Hz, lots of connectivity options, slightly ugly silver stand
Dell Ultrasharp U2520D QHD 25" $680, 60Hz, which reviews very well.
Dell Ultrasharp U2422H FHD 24" $450. Only 1080p but looks good.

I think the Dell Ultrasharp 25" QHD might be a good option. 25" should be fine, it's QHD. Otherwise maybe the Dell 24 1080p. There was a pop-up on the Dell site to get notified of Black Friday specials, so I might wait for that.

toejam316

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#2993722 9-Nov-2022 08:46

Well that simplifies things. The 34" displays are extra wide equivalents of 27".

Anything I say is the ramblings of an ill informed, opinionated so-and-so, and not representative of any of my past, present or future employers, and is also probably best disregarded.

jonathan18

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#2993778 9-Nov-2022 09:32

toejam316: Well that simplifies things. The 34" displays are extra wide equivalents of 27".

Yep, which is why I found the switch from 27” to 34” perfect - same height but enough width that results in a nicer experience than two 27s”.

I found this website helpful - one of the tables provides dimensions of all screen sizes at 16:9 and 21:9 ratios.
https://en.tab-tv.com/home-3/the-size-of-the-sides-of-the-tv-screen-depending-on-the-diagonal/

timmmay

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#2996879 15-Nov-2022 20:07

My Dell UltraSharp U2520D 25" QHD 1440P IPS Monitor arrived from Computer Lounge today and I just set it up. 25" is a good size for home, it feels quite large, but I'll get used to it quickly enough. I went into PBTech and looked at the 27" monitors, they seemed a bit big, and I really think 1440p or better is required at that size. If I decide it's too big my wife will have it , but I doubt that will happen :)

The monitor seems good. It can do things like act as a USB-C hub, but I don't need that as I have a docking station for the laptop. The desktop plugs in fine and it should swap between the computers fine. Even with the brightness turned down to 35% it's still very bright, I'll have to find my monitor calibration tool and see what it says. The menu is ok, bit fiddly to use but once you set it up you rarely touch it. It has good configurability, for example you can turn the super bright power button light off. Resolution seems slightly better than the 22" 1080p, nothing much in it really, though it does make low resolution images look pretty poor.

The main problem I have is the bezel at the top is so thin I need to either find another way to mount it or buy a new webcam! My webcam is probably 10+ years old and doesn't always play nicely with Teams so it might be time for a new one anyway.

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Geektastic

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#2996936 15-Nov-2022 21:53

I'm going through this process for Mac at the moment.

5K (full - not 5K/2K) is required for Retina at 27" to avoid oddities with GUI scaling. 6K is required at 32" to achieve the same thing.

The number of displays capable of even Retina 5K is very small! AFAIK for a 6K Retina, you are ponying up $10,000+. because the Apple Pro XDR is the cheapest option.

27" is a bit small but I will have to live with that. Might wait for the rumoured mini LED Studio Display update early next year.

timmmay

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#2996960 16-Nov-2022 06:48

So Mac can't scale text to a standard resolution monitor? Sounds... daft.

Senecio

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#2996962 16-Nov-2022 07:52

Its more Microsoft products running on a Mac that don't scale well. Native Apple apps and most other 3rd party apps scale just fine but Word, Excel etc.... running on a Mac that is not running at native resolution looks crap.

shrub

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#2996964 16-Nov-2022 07:59

Sweet spot for price is 27" 1440p 144hz

I've gone to a 32" 1440p 155hz and its very nice for spreadsheets / office. 2560x1440 really helps the pixel spotting as over 24" 1080p is noticeable

timmmay

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#2996967 16-Nov-2022 08:23

I use 34" Samsung curved 4K monitors at work, with each of my windows in the middle of the screen taking up about 1/2 the width :) Resolution is good, they're nice monitors, just too wide for me. I'd probably get used to them if I went into the office more often.

SpartanVXL

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#2997029 16-Nov-2022 11:39

I don't like turning my head to see larger or multiple monitors, and I only need to see one window at a time.

Normally you’d use your eyes not your head, the screen would be well within centre field of view. For a screen roughly 21-27”should be around a 1m distance from your eyes. The bigger the screen the further back it should be for comfortable viewing unless using it for periphery e.g ultrawide screens for games.

Eye sight is a factor of course but best to resolve that through other methods rather then bring the screen closer :)

timmmay

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#2997065 16-Nov-2022 12:25

SpartanVXL:

Normally you’d use your eyes not your head, the screen would be well within centre field of view. For a screen roughly 21-27”should be around a 1m distance from your eyes. The bigger the screen the further back it should be for comfortable viewing unless using it for periphery e.g ultrawide screens for games.

Eye sight is a factor of course but best to resolve that through other methods rather then bring the screen closer :)

I find much bigger than 22 / 24 inch I turn my head as it's more comfortable than moving my eyes.

timmmay

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#2997232 16-Nov-2022 20:24

It might be that because of my desk size I'm sitting a bit closer to my monitor than is ideal. I'm about 60cm from a 25" monitor, I sit in close to the desk so I'm in the right ergonomic position. I might have to mount the monitor to the wall and pull the desk out a bit.

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