Nobody is torn on it. The few people who have said it’s fine are those who haven’t seen the night and day difference.
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Is it worth it to use a Mac Mini if you're using a 1080p monitor?
- Thread starter Miyoi
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Damn. Arrive in 2021 please !
False. I've seen it. I've used new Macs, I own an iPhone, and my HTC 10 prior to that had a "retina" screen too. I just don't care. 1080 is plenty for me. My primary display is a 23" Apple Cinema Display circa 2001. 1920x1200. It works, and its more than big enough, and it still looks really good. Sitting next to it as the secondary is a much more modern 1080p monitor. They both look good, and I've got no reason to "upgrade" to invisible pixels. For screen real-estate I have two screens.
Yes this is all one person's opinion, but so is yours. And I'm more than likely the minority especially in this forum.
The newer retina displays are obviously gorgeous. I'm sure people who work professions like video and photo probably will never look back. I'm just saying that a general assumption of "nobody is torn on it because they haven't seen it for themselves" is incorrect. It's the same thing as thinking everyone needs a new car.
*eyeroll*
Edit:
Also @pldelisle I don't choose the computers my place of work buys. They get what they get.
Using a Powerbook to type something is the funniest thing I’ve read this week ?
Come on. There are plenty of good keyboards that exist that doesn’t need you to use a 20 years old computer !
Spreadsheets on a 4:3 display?! It « works », yes (it displays an image). Is it « good » ? Absolutely not. Spreadsheet literally created the 16:9 ratio.
Nothing in what you say is « wrong », but one needs to upgrade. You cannot live in the past like this. At least I wouldn’t!!! You can’t know how beautiful text is on a 4K 27’’ high PPI display if you never tried it. For a programmer, it’s life changing, trust me. And I never play game, never do photo, never do video, only coding.
You, sir, have completely failed to understand the point of high-resolution displays. It's not about the screen real estate. It's not about being able to display more content on a display that is the same size as before by shrinking it to levels unrecognizable by average human beings. It's all about sharpness and definition. A 27" high-resolution display is not going to show more or less than a FHD or WQHD display, depending on your preferred level of scaling. If you have never actually seen and used a 27" 4K or 5K display then trust me, you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. I was like you once. Until 2016. Then I tried a 27" 4K LG display. After that there's no going back. It's like night and day, and regular low-resolution displays are simply miserable in comparison.
Computers are a hobby, not my profession.
It is actually a WIDELY known thing that PB's have great keyboards. You are the type of person that keeps me out of the "mainstream" forums. Close minded.
I don't work with spreadsheets often, usually just forms that have been made in excel because charts are easy to make and fill in on excel.
"nothing in what I said was wrong". Okay, then stop arguing? I'm not allowed to have a different opinion? I believe you, as a programmer I'm sure it's life changing. I'm as far from a programmer as one can probably get. Just because you love something doesn't mean I have to need it in my life. I like older turbo cars with manual transmissions. One of my great friends wants a tesla. We get along great.
I literally said I've used them.
My God. If we simply can’t discuss about something then why come on a forum?!
Close minded ? Lol. No. I work with correct, actual tools for what I have to do. I threat myself correctly for the job I have to do. If you want to live in the past, I have no argument against that. If it’s your hobby to work on 20 years old computer to get things done it’s up to you. But don’t come here and spread “4k displays are useless, I use an old 4:3 display for spreadsheets and I’m fine”. This is disinformation.
BTW. I doubt the keyboard on a 20 year old PowerBook are the best ... the best keyboards out there are mechanical keyboards on which you can decide which keys you want to use depending on your workfkow. This i life changing, too.
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I would. Things were more fun pre-2020.
Newer isn't necessarily better. Just newer. Or are you going to posit that the work you did 5 years ago was low quality and worthless because you didn't have an 8k screen to display your chef d'œuvre on?
No. But it’s a lot more pleasant to work on a 4K high PPI display than a 94 PPI one. Nothing to do with quality of work, everything to do with enjoyment of doing your work and productivity.
Because you've never used a high DPI display before.
I have a 24" 4K and next to it a 22" 1080p and they both run the same "looks like" resolution of 1920x1080. It's unbelievable how sharp the 24" is compared to the 1080p monitor next to it. It's not about running it at the higher native resolution, its running it at scaled resolutions that still provide the same "looks like" as what you're used to, except its 4x sharper (twice as many horizontal and vertical pixels)
I use a 4K TV with my Macmini and it works great. It is possible to use a 1080p monitor with a Mac, but I recommend that you try it first. Because it is as other people says not looking particularly good, but it doesn’t necessarily means it will bother you. Ultimately you must make the decision on where you want to make the compromise.
So you were genuinely less productive? I smell diminishing returns here if you are being honest.
If you want to punish yourself, that's perfectly fine. Right now I have a 27" 4k display sitting next to an old 24" ACD with a 1920x1200 resolution. I can move any window around and the difference in text is night and day between the two monitors. The only reason why I still keep the ACD is because my wife bought it for me a long time ago and she gets upset if I get rid of gifts that she bought.
I cannot and would not recommend not using a retina display resolution to anyone. I think telling people that it's perfectly fine is disingenuous and has little to do with "that's like your opinion, man". Anybody with half decent eyesight will be able to tell the difference and agree that a higher resolution monitor running in a scaled retina mode is far more pleasing to work with. You admit that you have not used a "retina" screen with a computer. Why spread false claims that 1080p ought be good enough for everybody when you genuinely don't know. Your experience with "retina" screens on phones is not relevant here.
Everybody on Earth knows that a higher resolution screen means more real estate. More real estate means less scrolling, more things to show “at once”.
Come on. Higher resolution displays DO increase productivity.
At least I can see others share my opinion. There is faith.
There are actually two different problems.
Screen estate and pixel density.
The screen estate of a FullHD screen is nothing to scoff at. 1920x1080 points is larger than most laptop screens, it's much larger than the default MacBook desktop of 1440x900, it's wide enough to display basically all websites ever made and all Mac apps ever made, including the heavy ones like IDEs or photo editors.
If you go from a FullHD screen to a larger one (QuadHD or even 4K) without changing your scaling, you're only getting more screen estate, nothing else. The image is not more detailed, sharper or anything. And there are even downsides: I use a huge 43" 4K screen with 100 % scaling, so the screen estate is equal to FOUR FullHD screens, and that's ridiculously too much for a single app, so fullscreen mode goes basically unused on my machine.
Then there's pixel density, or scaling. The amount of pixel different screen elements (fonts, buttons) are drawn with is constant, whether you use a pre-retina MacBook or the crazy 43" panel that I use.
But most OSes out there allow you to choose your own SCALING, that is, they allow you to trade screen estate for more pixels per every button, letter or icon. This makes the elements larger as the usable screen estate shrinks.
Retina Macs used to use 2x scaling (200 % in Windows) but now they default to slightly more than that.
Whether you're going for screen estate or more details depends mainly on how big your screen is, physically.
I COULD make my display look like a FullHD screen in 200 % scaling, but that would rob me of the screen estate I need and enjoy.
So the questions you have to ask yourself are:
Do you feel constrained by the screen estate of a FullHD screen?
Would you pay money to have your letters drawn with more pixels?
If one of the answers is YES, you will probably need a larger screen, maybe a QuadHD one. If both of the answers were YES, well, you'll likely need a 4K or larger screen, so there's enough pixels to give you more screen estate AND more pixels to draw everything with.
Screen estate and pixel density.
The screen estate of a FullHD screen is nothing to scoff at. 1920x1080 points is larger than most laptop screens, it's much larger than the default MacBook desktop of 1440x900, it's wide enough to display basically all websites ever made and all Mac apps ever made, including the heavy ones like IDEs or photo editors.
If you go from a FullHD screen to a larger one (QuadHD or even 4K) without changing your scaling, you're only getting more screen estate, nothing else. The image is not more detailed, sharper or anything. And there are even downsides: I use a huge 43" 4K screen with 100 % scaling, so the screen estate is equal to FOUR FullHD screens, and that's ridiculously too much for a single app, so fullscreen mode goes basically unused on my machine.
Then there's pixel density, or scaling. The amount of pixel different screen elements (fonts, buttons) are drawn with is constant, whether you use a pre-retina MacBook or the crazy 43" panel that I use.
But most OSes out there allow you to choose your own SCALING, that is, they allow you to trade screen estate for more pixels per every button, letter or icon. This makes the elements larger as the usable screen estate shrinks.
Retina Macs used to use 2x scaling (200 % in Windows) but now they default to slightly more than that.
Whether you're going for screen estate or more details depends mainly on how big your screen is, physically.
I COULD make my display look like a FullHD screen in 200 % scaling, but that would rob me of the screen estate I need and enjoy.
So the questions you have to ask yourself are:
Do you feel constrained by the screen estate of a FullHD screen?
Would you pay money to have your letters drawn with more pixels?
If one of the answers is YES, you will probably need a larger screen, maybe a QuadHD one. If both of the answers were YES, well, you'll likely need a 4K or larger screen, so there's enough pixels to give you more screen estate AND more pixels to draw everything with.
The issue of text sharpness might be personal. Some people don't care as long as they can read the text.
Personally, I now need reading glasses, and if the text is less crisp than on the Retina display, if it's pixelated around the edges, then it bugs my eyes, like it's crawling. Long hours of work would be tiring.
Having forked over to Apple for a 4k LG 24" Ultrafine, the resolution is close enough to Retina for me. It is pricey, but also I get a USB-c hub on the back of it and it works beautifully with the Macbook Pro: touchbar control, etc.
I've read that 27" 4k monitors might have noticeably lower pixel density, but I don't know if I would notice. 24" is big enough for me anyway.
Personally, I now need reading glasses, and if the text is less crisp than on the Retina display, if it's pixelated around the edges, then it bugs my eyes, like it's crawling. Long hours of work would be tiring.
Having forked over to Apple for a 4k LG 24" Ultrafine, the resolution is close enough to Retina for me. It is pricey, but also I get a USB-c hub on the back of it and it works beautifully with the Macbook Pro: touchbar control, etc.
I've read that 27" 4k monitors might have noticeably lower pixel density, but I don't know if I would notice. 24" is big enough for me anyway.
Yeah unfortunately
But unless going with Apple’s LG 4K, it’s the second highest density you can get.Some of us simply cannot appreciate Retina displays past a certain point. Either due to disability or just advanced age, some of us do not have very good eyes anymore... Our eyes quite literally make things so blurry anyway that pixelation is no longer a factor, the damned thing looks the same to me Retina or non-Retina. Obviously, if I stare at it closely I can see some difference, but who really cares if you can't appreciate it? It's just throwing money into a sewage drain. Not to mention, if we're on the Windows side and you're a gamer, the lower res is easier on your hardware.
I don’t think anyone is arguing that a 27” 4K monitor is inferior to a 24” 1080p monitor. What many people in this thread are saying is that a 24” is sufficient for many people’s needs. The question posed at the beginning of this thread was “Is it worth it to use a Mac Mini if you're using a 1080p monitor?” and the answer is “yes”. The question of whether the extra expense is warranted is a subjective one, not objective.
Pixel density is probably the most important factor in monitor choice for me. I cannot comfortably use anything below about 200 ppi, which sadly does not leave a lot of choice as far as reasonably priced monitors are concerned. This is the main reason I am holding on to my iMac and put off purchasing an M1 laptop.
Very flawed argument. People, even on this forum, for years were defending taller aspect ratios (namely 16:10, not 4:3 but still applies) for their advantages in displaying documents. This is more so the case with PDF documents and text documents, but I've heard similar praises for certain spreadsheet workflows. If you're using a 27" at 1440p either native or scaled, my 30" at 1600p will blow it out of the water in terms of document viewing. Much easier to fit 2, even 4 documents on the screen at once, and enough for some toolbars or a bit of another application in addition to Excel Word etc.
A PowerBook G4 (which didn't use 4:3 ratio, it was 3:2 which is what the MS Surface uses today, it's still widescreen in technical terms) from 2005 will display more of a PDF document at default zoom than a 16" MacBook Pro at defaulted scaled resolution, assuming the window sizes are the same. If you have the hardware to attempt to debunk this go ahead, but to rip this apart on that merit is poorly constructed by all potential factors.
That's totally understandable and fair enough, but those qualifiers were not included in the original post, nor in the posts saying 1080p is fine.
Have you used a Retina style display and then went back to a non-high DPI? It is truly night and day difference, and I cannot use for an extended period of time a non high DPI monitor anymore.