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SRemington

macrumors member
Original poster
Mar 10, 2022
33
77
Hi everyone, first post here!

I am looking for advice for buying a new display. I have a cheap 24” HD monitor with 60 hz at work which gives me migraines every once in a while, same for the Lenovo Windows Notebook. I can see single pixels, the scrolling feels extra bumpy because of 60 hz and the writing is fuzzy around the edges (because I’m able to see the individual pixels). I am constantly being fatigued and working on it totally sucks.

In home office I work on my fiance’s M1 MacBook Air, my own 2013 Retina MacbookPro which is just unkillable and a 2018 Retina iPad Pro with ProMotion. Writing is smooth, pictures are crystal clear and I am able to relax the eyes so much more when compared to the BS screen I have at work. No headaches or whatsoever. Scrolling through text on MacBook still feels bumpy compared to iPad but is ok when compared to work.

I would like to expand my home setup with a new display and perhaps later a Mac Mini. I am eyeing the Apple Studio Display but I’m kind of bummed that they did not built 120hz promotion into it, which would have been an instant but for me. Now there are rumours that there may be something coming in June like a Studio Display Pro with ProMotion but who knows. I wanted to buy a screen now, but not sure if I should wait?

If not, are there any monitors out there that have the following specs (all essential requirements incl. the glossy finish):

4K or higher
120 hz or higher
glossy finish
27 inch or higher
price tag 1500 - 2000 USD
Webcam and speakers are a bouns but not essential, I just don’t want it to melt my eyes.

Also: How well would it play with a Mac? This is critical. I have had serious trouble getting a nice picture when I plug in my MacBook with external monitors, the writing has often been very fuzzy, it would pass for windows quality but it was nowhere near the crystal clear image of my MacBook Retina display, even on the 4K TV (LG C9) I use It was blurry and the colours were completely off. I don’t want to mess around with mods and non certified drivers.

then there is also the question of 120hz. If I plugged my MacBook into such a monitor, would it actually work and make the scrolling smoother? Because that’s what I want 120 hz for, to keep my eyes from getting tired when scrolling through text. I know this had been a major issue when the new MacBook Pro’s where released - most apps including Safari didn’t support ProMotion until a MacOS update and now I’m wondering whether the apps support other display’s high refresh rates at all. If not, then a non Mac display would be pretty useless to me.

I’m really out of ideas here. Would appreciate your help, your perspectives and ideas very much. Cheers!

edit: I am aware that Migraines may be caused by the blue light spectrum and that it might be TrueTone after all that prevents me from that on my Mac machines, however the low resolution and refresh rate still keep tiring my eyes when working on my windows setup at work.
 
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phrehdd

Contributor
Oct 25, 2008
4,502
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At 120hz, you might have to venture over into "gaming" monitors. The trade off is often smaller and less accurate colour space. Some of the offerings have a higher hz rate than 120 such as 144. As for glossy, no clue if any gaming
monitor is offered with glossy.
 
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theluggage

macrumors G3
Jul 29, 2011
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...if the Studio Display and the LG UltraFine were the only two displays in the world then I'd probably go for the studio.

They aren't.

The LG is a 6 year old display (plus, it's hard to find in stock). It comes down to whether you want to pay a considerable premium to get 5k resolution because 5k @ 27" is such a sweet spot for MacOS without needing non-integer scaling.

You can still enjoy a really good display on a far cheaper 4k @ 27" screen - the "scaled modes" work really well (some people here act as if they were poison - not true) and it's not as if the "looks like 1080p" mode - no scaling involved with modern software - is unusable, it's just that the system fonts and icons are a tad on the chunky side, which may even be irrelevant depending on what software you use. Even with a 27" 5k display you might end up using it in scaled mode to get larger text - the default size is quite small.

...and if you go for a 24" 4k display, "looks like 1080p" is just about right, so the scaling issue goes away. Likewise if you go for 32"+ 4k screen on which 1:1 scaling becomes usable. If you want a 27" display then 5k is the best (but effectively limits you to the two options above) - but you're probably paying twice as much for a slight improvement over a good ~$800 4k display, and even that may be an overkill if you're not doing photo work.

I have a cheap 24” HD monitor with 60 hz

Any 4k display, even a relatively cheap one, is going to be night-and-day better than HD (1080p). Just to be clear, even if you use a 4k screen at "looks like 1920x1080" scale, you are still looking at a 4k image with twice the linear resolution of a "Full HD/1080p" screen.

However, I doubt anybody here can really predict what's going to give you migraines. Could be anything in your work environment (like the "work" bit :)), and I'd be very careful about assuming it had anything to do with screen refresh rate: 60Hz/120Hz LCD displays don't flicker at the refresh rate (the way the old CRTs used to). Higher refresh rates smooth out motion when scrolling, stop the mouse pointer "submarining" and windows "tearing" when you drag them, but it's not about how fast the screen"blinks".

Some people ascribe their headaches to the pulse-width modulation (PWM) used to vary the brightness of the screen (essentially: blinking the backlight on and off very rapidly to make them dimmer) - and it's pretty difficult to find whether particular screens use PWM or what frequencies they use. That's something you'd need to research - I'm not going to try to advise.
 

SRemington

macrumors member
Original poster
Mar 10, 2022
33
77
Thank you so much for all your replies, @theluggage especially for your angle on the whole "scaling" discussion which has been a bit confusing to me. And no worries, my "work" is actually pretty fun :) except for the screen in my office.

Regarding my headaches I'm actually fairly confident that I was able to track it down to screen usage at work (I'm using an app to track my triggers). But yes, you are right that I am making assumptions about what exactly the monitor does to me.

I just know for sure that by comparison reading is far more exhausting for me than on Retina Displays because I can see the individual pixels at a normal screen distance, so I am assuming that the low resolution of work display is exhausting me which eventually triggers a migraine.

The same goes for scrolling through documents. The choppy scrolling exhausts me a lot on my work display. It's much better on my MacBook Air (which is interesting because in theory it has the same refresh rate of 60hz), and I feel no strain at all when scrolling through documents on my iPad Pro with ProMotion

In conclusion, I believe that a high-res, high-refresh rate monitor might help me a lot. Since I'm doing a lot of home office on my Mac I think I will be able to wait and see if Apple throws another display on the market in June. I would be willing to shell out up to 3.000 USD if they put ProMotion into such a display, since I would probably use it for 15 years. If not I may go for a 16' MacBook Pro and a 4k Monitor for the time being and swap the monitor if ProMotion Tech becomes more affordable.
 
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MajorFubar

macrumors 68020
Oct 27, 2021
2,175
3,827
Lancashire UK
I wonder how you would have coped in years gone by when the resolution was 640x480 on a 15 CRT monitor which refreshed at 50 or 60 hz depending on where you lived. Hope you find something to meet your expectations.
 

theluggage

macrumors G3
Jul 29, 2011
8,015
8,450
I wonder how you would have coped in years gone by when the resolution was 640x480 on a 15 CRT monitor which refreshed at 50 or 60 hz depending on where you lived.
...personally, I really didn't notice the flicker when using 50hz CRT displays until I got an Atari ST with a 70Hz monochrome display. After that, 50Hz screens were suddenly unbearable - although the switch to light backgrounds rather than white-text-on-black also made flicker more noticeable.

Meanwhile, did anybody else get that weird thing when Trinitron and similar flat-tube displays came out, where everything on the shiny, expensive new display seemed to have terrible "pincushion" (sides curved inwards) distortion until you held a ruler up to the screen and saw that it was perfectly square? Your brain was just so used to staring at spherical-section screen and mentally correcting...

Vision is weird - see also the "soap opera effect" with high-frame-rate movies (seems to be mental association of 24 frames-per-second with high-quality shot-on-film material vs. cheaper shot-on-video material at 50/60 fields-per-second that actually had smoother motion - and the initial reception of The Hobbit suggests it's not just dodgy motion interpolation of standard-rate material on 100/120Hz TVs).
 

MarineBand5524

macrumors 6502
Dec 17, 2021
343
113
Evidently I didn’t know the DPI was going to be so bad with the new Samsung. Guess I’ll keep looking.
 

SRemington

macrumors member
Original poster
Mar 10, 2022
33
77
If you only use the Mac, the Studio Display is worth it tbh. I got dual 4K displays and having to do scaling sucks...
Hey everyone, quick update on my end, I have accepted that affordable mini LED’s or OLED’s are still a few years away and I ended up getting an LG 27GN950 4K monitor with 144hz for the time being. I’m loving it so far.

The screen is an insane improvement over the ****** monitor at work in terms of resolution and I finally stopped seeing pixels. Also, using a DisplayPort to USB C cable allows for full 144hz functionality for my M1 MacBook and scrolling is wonderfully smooth across apps. Definitely a great buy and I don’t experience any scaling issues, so apparently to my eyes scaling doesn’t seem to be an issue.
 

TiggrToo

macrumors 601
Aug 24, 2017
4,205
8,838
Hey everyone, quick update on my end, I have accepted that affordable mini LED’s or OLED’s are still a few years away and I ended up getting an LG 27GN950 4K monitor with 144hz for the time being. I’m loving it so far.

The screen is an insane improvement over the ****** monitor at work in terms of resolution and I finally stopped seeing pixels. Also, using a DisplayPort to USB C cable allows for full 144hz functionality for my M1 MacBook and scrolling is wonderfully smooth across apps. Definitely a great buy and I don’t experience any scaling issues, so apparently to my eyes scaling doesn’t seem to be an issue.

Ain’t that the truth. Different folk have different experiences with these things. Really happy to read of your satisfaction with the monitor!
 
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MrGunny94

macrumors 65816
Dec 3, 2016
1,148
675
Malaga, Spain
Hey everyone, quick update on my end, I have accepted that affordable mini LED’s or OLED’s are still a few years away and I ended up getting an LG 27GN950 4K monitor with 144hz for the time being. I’m loving it so far.

The screen is an insane improvement over the ****** monitor at work in terms of resolution and I finally stopped seeing pixels. Also, using a DisplayPort to USB C cable allows for full 144hz functionality for my M1 MacBook and scrolling is wonderfully smooth across apps. Definitely a great buy and I don’t experience any scaling issues, so apparently to my eyes scaling doesn’t seem to be an issue.
Great news! Send us some pics of the setup
 
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SRemington

macrumors member
Original poster
Mar 10, 2022
33
77
Great news! Send us some pics of the setup
Here you go! I might swap the Air for a hypothetical Mac Mini with an M1 Pro chip or similar at some point. Clutter is also minimal because there is a hook on the back of the monitor for some basic cable management.
 

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MrGunny94

macrumors 65816
Dec 3, 2016
1,148
675
Malaga, Spain
Here you go! I might swap the Air for a hypothetical Mac Mini with an M1 Pro chip or similar at some point. Clutter is also minimal because there is a hook on the back of the monitor for some basic cable management.
That looks amazing! Here's mine

IMG_1040.png


I like my Huawei Mateview but the scaling is a bit bad at 1507 or 1707.
 
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MrGunny94

macrumors 65816
Dec 3, 2016
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They’re insanely cheap in the UK at the moment.

Tangential question - what model webcam is that and does it fit the Mateview‘s thin bezel OK?
That's my temporary cam a Logitech C920s 1080@30. It does fit without an issue as you can see from the picture, doesn't fall or anything

Got each for 320€ quite good for the price!

I’ve been looking at this same monitor.

I understand PPI, but what do those 1507 and 1707 numbers represent?

1649747933119.png


These two resolutions are the only decent ones with these monitors. They are not half bad, if the Studio Display would be 1099€ I'd go for it but at 1899€ I'd rather stick to these two for 600 lol
 
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theluggage

macrumors G3
Jul 29, 2011
8,015
8,450
I understand PPI, but what do those 1507 and 1707 numbers represent?
On the Mateview "looks like 2560x1707" scaled mode gives you about the same physical size menu font, icons, dialogues etc. as the default "looks like 2560x1440" on a 27" 5k display.

(The Mateview display is about the same physical width as the 5k and about 7cm taller)

Optimum quality mode on the Mateview is "looks like 1920x1280" - exactly double the native resolution - which looks like "looks like 2048x1152" on the 5k. The menus, dialogues etc. in this mode might be a bit big for some.

These two resolutions are the only decent ones with these monitors.
I think that's partly a matter of personal preference and what software you are using, and how much non-integer "scaled modes" bug you.

The optimum "looks like 1920x1280" mode works for me - the extra height partly makes up for the bigger menus and dialogues.

I got the Mateview to help decide whether "upgrading" my 5k iMac to a Mac Studio would require spending £1600 on a Studio Display (if not I'll keep it as a second screen), so I've got it running off the iMac at the moment. Yeah, the Apple 5k screen is definitely the better display (not sure if its the pixel density or the bonded glass front, but it's got better contrast and more 'pop') but Mateview ain't bad, and the utility of getting 2 Mateviews for half the price of a Studio Display is looking pretty compelling.
 
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MrGunny94

macrumors 65816
Dec 3, 2016
1,148
675
Malaga, Spain
On the Mateview "looks like 2560x1707" scaled mode gives you about the same physical size menu font, icons, dialogues etc. as the default "looks like 2560x1440" on a 27" 5k display.

(The Mateview display is about the same physical width as the 5k and about 7cm taller)

Optimum quality mode on the Mateview is "looks like 1920x1280" - exactly double the native resolution - which looks like "looks like 2048x1152" on the 5k. The menus, dialogues etc. in this mode might be a bit big for some.


I think that's partly a matter of personal preference and what software you are using, and how much non-integer "scaled modes" bug you.

The optimum "looks like 1920x1280" mode works for me - the extra height partly makes up for the bigger menus and dialogues.

I got the Mateview to help decide whether "upgrading" my 5k iMac to a Mac Studio would require spending £1600 on a Studio Display (if not I'll keep it as a second screen), so I've got it running off the iMac at the moment. Yeah, the Apple 5k screen is definitely the better display (not sure if its the pixel density or the bonded glass front, but it's got better contrast and more 'pop') but Mateview ain't bad, and the utility of getting 2 Mateviews for half the price of a Studio Display is looking pretty compelling.
Exactly and the more vertical space is great for terminal users like myself :)
 

satchmo

macrumors 603
Aug 6, 2008
5,219
6,093
Canada
On the Mateview "looks like 2560x1707" scaled mode gives you about the same physical size menu font, icons, dialogues etc. as the default "looks like 2560x1440" on a 27" 5k display.

(The Mateview display is about the same physical width as the 5k and about 7cm taller)

Optimum quality mode on the Mateview is "looks like 1920x1280" - exactly double the native resolution - which looks like "looks like 2048x1152" on the 5k. The menus, dialogues etc. in this mode might be a bit big for some.


I think that's partly a matter of personal preference and what software you are using, and how much non-integer "scaled modes" bug you.

The optimum "looks like 1920x1280" mode works for me - the extra height partly makes up for the bigger menus and dialogues.

I got the Mateview to help decide whether "upgrading" my 5k iMac to a Mac Studio would require spending £1600 on a Studio Display (if not I'll keep it as a second screen), so I've got it running off the iMac at the moment. Yeah, the Apple 5k screen is definitely the better display (not sure if its the pixel density or the bonded glass front, but it's got better contrast and more 'pop') but Mateview ain't bad, and the utility of getting 2 Mateviews for half the price of a Studio Display is looking pretty compelling.

I have an older 24” Dell Ultrasharp 16:10 ratio running at 1920x1200? This works out to a paltry 93ppi and is pretty grainy.
With a similar resolution to the Mateview’s optimum quality, is it fair to say that the amount of viewable content will be similar, but just sharper in quality?
 

theluggage

macrumors G3
Jul 29, 2011
8,015
8,450
I have an older 24” Dell Ultrasharp 16:10 ratio running at 1920x1200? This works out to a paltry 93ppi and is pretty grainy.
With a similar resolution to the Mateview’s optimum quality, is it fair to say that the amount of viewable content will be similar, but just sharper in quality?

The proportion of the screen taken up by system menus, buttons, icons, dialog boxes etc. will be about the same - but you still have 2x the amount of detail and a physically larger screen, so as long as the applications you use support zooming (or, in the case of text editors, terminals etc. let you choose the font size) you will be able to fit considerably more content in each window.

It's important to emphasise that any 4k or higher display run at "looks like 1920 x ????" displays a lot more detail than an actual standard-def 1920x???? display unless you're running ancient, non-"retina"-compatible software. Also, forget any experience you have of running a standard-def LCD display at a non-native resolution (which is usually awful) - the "scaled modes" on 4k or higher displays are something different that effectively uses an internal, high-res version of the screen (usually twice the "looks like" resolution) and down-scales it to the display's actual resolution. The only real debates over the quality of "scaled mode" are (a) if you've got a weak GPU that can't handle the extra load or (b) if you're comparing quality with an Apple 220ppi+ retina display.

(yeah, a £400 160ppi MateView isn't as sharp as an £1600 220ppi Apple 5k... who'd have thunk it?)

NB: I used to have a Dell Ultrasharp 24" - it was a good display by standard-def standards but I seem to recall that it had a love-it-or-hate it anti-glare coating that was quite "grainy". However, with standard-def, you're gonna see pixels at 20" - with 160ppi they're hardly visible.
 
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