I researched this a lot. It turns out, it’s not the monitor size that matters, nor the resolution, it’s the PPI (pixels per inch). Mac OS runs best at 110 ppi or 220 ppi. Any ppi too far from that and it will look markedly worse than any apple display or take a performance hit as your comp has to calculate scaling. You can find youtube videos where people got rid of big 4k 27 or 32 inch montiors with Mac OS because the resolution at that size doesnt work well. The ppi is in the 160 to 180 range. Bad for MacOS. When I saw this all of a sudden the world made sense. This is why the imac is 24 inch and 4.5k. About 218 ppi. It’s why the 27 inch ASD is 5k and the 32 inch Pro one is 6k. It’s not just for resolution, it’s because that resolution is a perfect match for monitor size to get to about 220 ppi, which is natural for MacOS. This is why nothing looks as good as apple displays with macs, it’s hardware built for the software. For example, some human might imagine that a 4.5k monitor at 32 inches will look like an imac screen only bigger. That human would be wrong because the ppi will be much less, it will look worse and the extra screen real estate will feel lower quality and might take more processor for scaling. That same human might imagine that higher resolution is just always better. Nope, if you have a monitor that is like 180ppi it might be better to actually reduce the resolution so that it ends up at 110 ppi for max perfomance and still decent resolution. There are whole articles about this.
Advice: For any monitor you are looking at buying, put the size and resolution into a PPI calculator website. Go for 110 (to save a bunch of money) or 220 for the best view that matches MacOS. It doesnt have to be exact, just close. Not close to those numbers = bad for MacOS.
This is all theory for me right now, all based on what I read in other people’s experiences and research and calculations. I never in my life thought I would be this nerdy about it. But I feel like I uncovered the answer to some hidden mystery. I actually find this a relief because there are so few big monitors at 220 ppi, and the price is not so far from apple displays. Right now I am thinking to just wait for ASDv2 which will prob be same size and ppi as v1, but with 120hz. That’s a display configuration that will look amazing without any performance slow and prob last me for 15 years.
Maybe. I could be wrong about all of this, but when I found out about the ppi thing it felt like I cracked the da vinci code for monitors.
You need to try them out in person.
My preferred text size is with monitors around 100 ppi, so a "Retina" version of that would be 200 ppi. Interestingly, Apple's earlier flagship desktop displays were 101 ppi, not 109 ppi. So, IMO, Apple got it right 15 years ago, but then skimped on screen size and increased the pixel density to 109 ppi, and then doubled/quadrupled that to 218 ppi.
This is my take, after trying things out myself.
I find 92 ppi too low, but 101 ppi acceptable. Both are pixelated, but 92 ppi is that much more obvious. That's running at native resolution only. For scaled resolutions, 92 and 101 ppi are completely unusable.
138 ppi is also unpleasant for scaled resolutions IMO.
However, 164 ppi is very good, reasonably close to my 218 ppi 5K iMac. Not quite as good in some respects, but overall very decent. I'm using a 164 ppi monitor as my primary monitor, even though I have my 5K iMac right beside it.
I don't have a 184 ppi monitor, but others do and claim they are damn near close Retina for their usage.
BTW, MacBook Pros are actually 254 ppi, and prior to that they were 227 ppi. However, that's because people tend to sit closer to laptops than desktops.
You can also use this pixel density distance calculator for Retina as a relative guide:
A display recommended distance and retina calculator..
tools.rodrigopolo.com
92 ppi - Retina at 38" distance (1440p 32")
101 ppi - Retina at 34" distance (Apple 30" Cinema HD Display)
109 ppi - Retina at 32" distance (Apple 27" Thunderbolt Display)
138 ppi - Retina at 25" distance (4K 32")
164 ppi - Retina at 21" distance (4K 27")
184 ppi - Retina at 19" distance (4K 24")
201 ppi - Retina at 17" distance (Theoretical Retina version of Apple 30" Cinema HD Display - My personal holy grail)
218 ppi - Retina at 16" distance (Apple 27" Studio Display)
227 ppi - Retina at 15" distance (13" MacBook Pro)
254 ppi - Retina at 13.5" distance (14" MacBook Pro)
I think most people (including myself) but not all people would be satisfied at 164 ppi, and probably the vast majority at 184 ppi, at least with ergonomic seating practices. Proper ergonomics for a desktop dictates a seating distance of at least 20", and I note that for myself, it's usually about 22-24 inches or so unless I'm leaning forward a bit for some reason and in that case it might be as close as 19". (These are rough estimates, based on some personal measurements over time.) Given that I don't have better than 20/20 vision, it makes sense from the above table that 164 ppi looks very good to me, and way, way better than 138 ppi. My experience is that usually it's "Retina" for me or else very close, unless I lean forward, which seems to agree with the above numbers. OTOH, 138 ppi only looked good to me when I was leaning back on the chair, but at normal seating distances for me, scaled text looked blurry and gave me a headache. Again, that makes sense given the above numbers.
