Is it worth it to use a Mac Mini if you're using a 1080p monitor?

[colinzim]

Maybe Apple Thunderbolt Cinema 2k and Mini m1.
Works very well

 

[guzhogi]

Simple : Retina. If, from a reasonable distance, you cannot see the pixel, then, anything above this density is simply overkill. You stare at your phone closer, so usually a 350 PPI is required (average on iPhones too, even go as high as 475 on iPhone 12 Pro I think).

Viewing distance for a computer monitor is usually higher than your phone. So you can go a bit lower ([200, 250] range). That’s exactly why MacBooks have this PPI.

TVs are even higher viewing distance, so density can be much lower.

That’s why Retina displays tend to be in the [210-220] range. Pro XDR is 218, just like iMac 5k 27’’ and LG 5k.

To achieve the same performance:
24” should be 4k
27” should be 5k
32” should be 6k
43” should be 8k

Sounds reasonable. Though I'm sure there are also several "1 uppers" out there as well who will say "Enough is never enough!" and try to be bigger and better than everyone else.

 

[leman]

That’s why Retina displays tend to be in the [210-220] range. Pro XDR is 218, just like iMac 5k 27’’ and LG 5k.

To add to this, all Apple display have comparable PPI so that the UI size is identical across all of them. This ay you get consistent behavior — a bigger display just gives you more real screen estate, but doesn't have a different look and feel differently. Outside Apple world, UI and text can vastly range in size from monitor to monitor, all other settings being identical.

 

[bobcomer]

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.

One *needs* to upgrade??? Hardly. One of my main monitors at home s a 27" 4K hi ppi beast that I really don't like. Other than having more screen real estate, it's a bust for the cost of it. As for the fonts being better, yeah, sometimes, but it's not harder or easier to read on a 1080P monitor.

It's all personal preferences and arguing about that quickly leads down the rabbit hole.

 

[Mistborn15]

I had a 1080P monitor till last year and it was fine. Those saying "4k is MINIMUM" are overselling it. 4K is certainly better but that doesn't make 1080P unusable. I'd recommend getting a 4K in the future but not having it right now shouldn't deter you from getting the mini.

 

[Toutou]

You can’t know how beautiful text is on a 4K 27’’ high PPI display if you never tried it.

What kind of scaling do you use for the 4K? I use a 4K display natively and am pretty spoiled by the screen estate.

 

[pldelisle]

What kind of scaling do you use for the 4K? I use a 4K display natively and am pretty spoiled by the screen estate.

Not currently having a 4K display, but experienced one at a friend. Fell in love with 4K.

I have two U2720Q on order. Will get them end of March (was supposed to be end of February ). Planning to use them at « look like 1440p ».

I put a hold on the Mac Mini thought.... I wanted to get the new Mini, but decided to install GNOME on my Ubuntu server and use it instead for a moment. I still need those 2 RTX 2080 for computing purpose.

 

[rafark]

and that the new standard is 4k minimum

Lol that’s something super geeky techy people would say. Retina displays are gorgeous to look at but a 1080p screen is more than fine.

 

[D.T.]

I'm a software dev/architect, I'm on my (i7/2018) Mini 10+ hours a day, generally staring at text/code (or tweaking UI elements, etc.), and I run two 25" QHD displays, Dell U2518Ds. Terrific displays in general (great calibration, excellent stands, solid 3 year warranty including dead pixels), and with the 25" size @ 2560x1440, I get a pretty decent ~118PPI - for me, it was a touch noticeable when I checked out a 27" (same resolution), and very noticeable vs. HD (1920x1080) at either of those display sizes.

Originally, I was partially motived to go QHD because the Intel based Minis have semi-craptacular GPU performance, I don't really need much performance in that capacity for my uses, and so I determined QHD on this machine was a good balance. My plan was to eventually swap out these displays for 4K when I had a much more performant GPU solution, thought that might be an eGPU, but now I'm pretty convinced it's waiting for the next gen M1<something> based Mini, when Apple bumps the cores and max RAM (hoping for 12-16 CPU/GPU cores, or more, plus 32-64GB RAM option )

Er, so yeah, QHD is pretty decent, Dell QHD displays were a steal.

 

[Robospungo]

Lol that’s something super geeky techy people would say. Retina displays are gorgeous to look at but a 1080p screen is more than fine.

It really isn’t though. At least not for MacOS since they removed subpixel antialiasing.

 

[Miyoi]

Alright, my Mac came in on the 4th. I've spent about two days with it. The font is completely fine honestly. There's a terminal command you can use to turn of font smoothing and it looks perfect. Even with it on I wasn't particularly bothered at all. You get used to it pretty quick and it never gave me a headache or anything. If a MacOS update were to force me to deal with Font Smoothing it wouldn't be a deal-breaker and I'd keep on trucking. All in all my opinion on 1080p on MacOS: It's completely fine. Sure, you might not have the screen real estate you'd want, but I get along fine but I've also always been on 24 inch 1080p monitors and never used side monitors so I've gotten pretty skilled at it.

I think ultimately it's preference. I've used 4k displays before but honestly I'm not bothered enough by 1080p to pay to upgrade. It looks fine to me. I also get headaches with any size above 24 inches. I can't even use a 27 inch monitor. Anyhow, those are my thoughts. Thank you everyone for chiming in. I don't think it's as cut and dry as people think it is. I'm definitely getting along fine with it. I used it with font-smoothing for a whole day and didn't really think of it.

 

[pldelisle]

. I also get headaches with any size above 24 inches. I can't even use a 27 inch monitor.

I don’t think it’s size, but you might be more sensible to PWM. Ensure yourself you pick a flicker free monitor without PWM.

 

[Fomalhaut]

There is literally no reason whatsoever to use a 1080p display over a 4K display other than price. The difference between a scaled 27" 4K display and a 27" FHD or even WQHD display is like night and day.

What about performance though?

I use 2 x 1080p monitors over DisplayLink and it's smooth enough for all my desks. If I had 2 x 4K monitors, I'd need to push 4 times as many pixels over the USB link....that might not work as well.

Similarly, I assume that rendering 4K displays requires more use of GPU memory than 1080 screens, and on the M1 Macs that memory eats your available RAM.

 

[pldelisle]

What about performance though?

I use 2 x 1080p monitors over DisplayLink and it's smooth enough for all my desks. If I had 2 x 4K monitors, I'd need to push 4 times as many pixels over the USB link....that might not work as well.

Similarly, I assume that rendering 4K displays requires more use of GPU memory than 1080 screens, and on the M1 Macs that memory eats your available RAM.

Difference in memory is marginal.
M1 can drive two 4K effortlessly.

 

[Robospungo]

What about performance though?

I use 2 x 1080p monitors over DisplayLink and it's smooth enough for all my desks. If I had 2 x 4K monitors, I'd need to push 4 times as many pixels over the USB link....that might not work as well.

Similarly, I assume that rendering 4K displays requires more use of GPU memory than 1080 screens, and on the M1 Macs that memory eats your available RAM.

That's not going to be a problem on an M1 Mac, or any current gen processor for that matter.

 

[Tagbert]

I’m using a 27” 4K monitor in scaled 1440p resolution.
I found native 4K 2160p to make things too small.
Running at 1080p scaled was too limiting.
1440p seems just right. Especially since I’m used to using a Thunderbolt Display at 1440 native.

Text is sharp and there is enough space for side by side documents. The price is pretty good for a 4K monitor at that size. I’d prefer a 5K monitor but there aren’t any really good choices at this time.

 

[theSeb]

A picture (screenshot) says a thousand words... but even the differences in these two screenshots are more noticeable on a scaled resolution 4k screen vs a 1920x1200 native screen.

?‍♂️

 

[dontpokebearz]

OP I'll chime in on the font rendering issue. I submitted a bug a few years ago when Apple disabled subpixel antialiasing in Mojave. I noticed a very apparent difference on my 1440P display. Text looked fuzzy, and not crisp or sharp. I do not experience this on a Windows 10 computer on the same monitor.

While you won't be hindered using a 1080P display, I will argue that macOS is no longer designed for anything under 'retina'. It just doesn't look as good. I'd argue 1440p at the minimum.

 

[dontpokebearz]

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.

^ This is why I don't want my wife buying me tech gifts. She wasn't happy that I wanted to give away my $25 Google Home Mini's because I don't want to use their services anymore ?

 

[KarimLeVallois]

I have two 24" MSI widescreen monitors that work purchased for me to WFH on Windows. I connected my MBA M1 up to one last night for jokes and to be honest it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.

I'll probably use my 12.9" iPad 2017 as a second monitor in Sidecar mode, but there is always the option to go bigger if required.

 

[Arctic Moose]

A picture (screenshot) says a thousand words... but even the differences in these two screenshots are more noticeable on a scaled resolution 4k screen vs a 1920x1200 native screen.

?‍♂️


View attachment 1728272

View attachment 1728273

Not surprising. The 4K screen is receiving an output of 3840x2160 regardless of the scaling level set. GUI elements are simply pixel-factored. Photos, videos and vector objects (such as text) do not lose any resolution when zoomed to the same size.