The *COMPLETE* list of 27" 5K Displays?

[EugW]

Interesting. I had no idea this thread existed and had started a different thread. Thanks to @PaulD-UK for bringing me here.

Those numbers fail to take into account the distance from the viewer.

Retina resolution is 60 pixels per visual degree.

A 27" 4K monitor is retina from 21 inches away (or more, obviously).
A 27" 5K monitor is retina from 16 inches away.

At any given distance, 5K will look better than 4K. Most importantly, this thread us about 5K.

I have a 2017 27" 5K iMac (218 ppi) and a 28.2" 4K+ Huawei Mateview 28.2" 3:2 screen (163 ppi) sitting beside each other. The 27" is somewhat crisper for text but the Huawei still looks very good and has little glare because it's a matte finish. The 28.2" is my primary machine now, since it's running an M1 Mac mini.

I sit at about 21-24" away. Overall I'm quite pleased with the text quality. My main complaint is that it has noticeable light falloff at the edges, which I think is a combination of an effect of their matte finish paired with true light falloff at the edges due to an centre-heavy backlight. I don't notice it on most video, but I notice it if I have a white browser window at the edge. I said it's not just due to the backlighting because if I physically move my head to the side and look at the edge straight-on, the falloff is much less noticeable. ie. There is a loss of brightness with more severe viewing angles.

On the flip side, I get more resolution options on this monitor than I get for my 27" 5K iMac. I don't run the 2560x1707 resolution for this monitor, which would be the equivalent text sizing of the 27" iMac. The reason is I always found the default text size on my 5120x2880 / 2560x1440 iMac a bit too small. Instead, I run 2304x1536 which is perfect for me. The equivalent resolution on the iMac would be 2304x1296, but for some stupid reason, Apple doesn't offer that resolution. The only way to get 2304x1296 on a 27" iMac or Apple Studio Display is to run a third party application.

That's why for 5K, a 29 or 30" would clearly have been much better

Yes, my holy grail is a 5K 29-30" 16:9 screen (~200 ppi). The "looks like" 2560x1440 resolution would be perfect at that screen size, with bigger text than on the 27". However, one potential option I could consider is a 5K 34" 5120x2160 screen (163 ppi). I would probably run at something like 3072x1296 which would produce similar sized text to a 5K 29-30" 16:9 screen. However, I don't really want something that wide, and they're quite expensive. I will continue to tough it out with my 4K+ 28.2" screen (163 ppi), holding out hope that someone will release a 5K 30" or 6K 32" in the next couple of years that doesn't break the bank. Even if it means needing true HDMI 2.1 support with up to 8K compatibility, I'd gladly upgrade to a Mac mini Pro or even Mac Studio to get that functionality.

 

[cinedog]

The new Samsung Viewfinity S9 is out in South Korea!

• Reddit thread in r/Monitors about the announcement blog post
• Early look YouTube video
• iMore article

 

[motrek]

The new Samsung Viewfinity S9 is out in South Korea!

• Reddit thread in r/Monitors about the announcement blog post
• Early look YouTube video
• iMore article

$1300? What's the point?

I can get a 27" 4K Dell monitor with matte coating and height-adjustable stand for $400.

If I'm not going to pay Apple $1200 extra for some more pixels, I don't know why anybody thinks I might pay Samsung $900 extra for some more pixels.

 

[currocj]

#isitmatte? update: yes
dealbreaker

Just look at that ghosty/cloudy mess on the left and gorgeous image on the ASD on the right (with requisite light glare!)

 

[i486dx2-66]

$1300? What's the point?

I can get a 27" 4K Dell monitor with matte coating and height-adjustable stand for $400.

If I'm not going to pay Apple $1200 extra for some more pixels, I don't know why anybody thinks I might pay Samsung $900 extra for some more pixels.

The point is that this is the 27" 5K display thread, not the 27" 4K display thread.
If 4K is good enough for you, then this is not the place for that discussion.

The Samsung, EVEN IF its $1300 (which it is likely to be less than, due to Samsung's history of having sales), is in line price-wise with other 27" 5K displays, and it offers features others do not. It might not be perfect, but it will find its place in the market.

 

[motrek]

The point is that this is the 27" 5K display thread, not the 27" 4K display thread.
If 4K is good enough for you, then this is not the place for that discussion.

The Samsung, EVEN IF its $1300 (which it is likely to be less than, due to Samsung's history of having sales), is in line price-wise with other 27" 5K displays, and it offers features others do not. It might not be perfect, but it will find its place in the market.

My point wasn't that 4K is good enough, it's that 5K isn't so many more pixels that the monitors should cost 3x or 4x as much.

It's 77% more pixels.

5K was impressive technology in 2014. That was 9 years ago. It's supremely disappointing to me that it's still even possible to buy a 27" monitor that isn't 5K. Instead, we're being asked to pay more than 3x the amount of a mainstream monitor.

 

[cinedog]

My point wasn't that 4K is good enough, it's that 5K isn't so many more pixels that the monitors should cost 3x or 4x as much.

It's 77% more pixels.

5K was impressive technology in 2014. That was 9 years ago. It's supremely disappointing to me that it's still even possible to buy a 27" monitor that isn't 5K. Instead, we're being asked to pay more than 3x the amount of a mainstream monitor.

One reason this thread was created is specifically because Mac users want 5K for clean 2x scaling. I'm not going to go through the specifics (There's a lot explanation in this forum. Here's a good article.) but if you use a Mac and view text heavily, it's really annoying. For me 4K and 1440P feel blurry. And I'm not some extreme nitpick; it's the whole reason most of us are here on this thread.

Unfortunately, due to lower demand and low supply, companies are able to up charge. There aren't that many options for 5K on the market. It's sad to say but $1300 will still sell because of this. What's more disappointing is that had the monitor been priced closer to $1000, it would have drawn a lot of the market away from the Studio Display. Maybe Samsung did the calculations and figured that even if they were able to capture a large amount of the 5K monitor market, it still wouldn't be worth their time.

 

[motrek]

One reason this thread was created is specifically because Mac users want 5K for clean 2x scaling. I'm not going to go through the specifics (There's a lot explanation in this forum. Here's a good article.) but if you use a Mac and view text heavily, it's really annoying. For me 4K and 1440P feel blurry. And I'm not some extreme nitpick; it's the whole reason most of us are here on this thread.

I've seen that article but it's kinda stupid because it doesn't take viewing distance into account. But whatever, 5K is obviously better than 4K. I understand that, and I would prefer to have a 5K monitor.

Unfortunately, due to lower demand and low supply, companies are able to up charge. There aren't that many options for 5K on the market. It's sad to say but $1300 will still sell because of this. What's more disappointing is that had the monitor been priced closer to $1000, it would have drawn a lot of the market away from the Studio Display. Maybe Samsung did the calculations and figured that even if they were able to capture a large amount of the 5K monitor market, it still wouldn't be worth their time.

Maybe? If somebody wants to pay around $1300-$1600 for a 27" 5K monitor, they can just buy the ASD. New ones go on sale for $1500 and Apple sells refurb units for $1350.

If you want something a bit cheaper, you can get an LG UltraFine 5K which seems to go on sale for around $1100 new fairly often.

I guess I don't really see a point to keeping a list of 5K monitors that cost more than $1100. And I'm still disappointed that I can't get one from Dell for like $600.

 

[kvic]

One reason this thread was created is specifically because Mac users want 5K for clean 2x scaling. I'm not going to go through the specifics (There's a lot explanation in this forum. Here's a good article.) but if you use a Mac and view text heavily, it's really annoying. For me 4K and 1440P feel blurry. And I'm not some extreme nitpick; it's the whole reason most of us are here on this thread.

Good article? The fact that the author had to use simulated pictures to make a few 'scare-mongering' points tell me a couple of things:

1. He was lazy and didn't attempt to reproduce the exact 'scaring' effects on a 4K display or any non-Apple display
2. He may actually have tried but failed to reproduce the effect in a satisfactory way to scare people and hence made his points.

Don't get me wrong. It's a good introduction to Apple newcomers. But it probably helps and hurts in about the same amplitude regarding disseminating honest and correct information.

 

[dtb7]

I bet most people in this thread is here for the retina scaling, so we've seen the difference with our own setups using 4k monitors etc. I myself have one of these monitors, the Planar IX2790. It has multiple inputs, 2 1.4dp and 3 hdmi (no 5k support on those afaik). The ASD has one input, thunderbolt. Samsung is appealing because I can probably save money (x2 because I want dual retina displays), and I can connect to it without a thunderbolt cable, and it is being built w/ Windows support in mind as well. So I can use it for multiple machines.

 

[CWallace]

$1300? What's the point?

The "point" is that it's $1000 cheaper than the Apple Studio Display with nano-texture glass and a height-and-tilt-adjustable stand if that was what you were cross-shopping (and not the glossy ASD with the base stand or a VESA mount).

My point wasn't that 4K is good enough, it's that 5K isn't so many more pixels that the monitors should cost 3x or 4x as much.

5K was impressive technology in 2014. That was 9 years ago. It's supremely disappointing to me that it's still even possible to buy a 27" monitor that isn't 5K. Instead, we're being asked to pay more than 3x the amount of a mainstream monitor.

It is precisely because 5K is not mainstream that it costs so much. For almost a decade, LG was the only manufacturer of 5K panels and their only major customers was themselves and Apple and between them, they probably sold a few million units a year compared to the likely scores (if not hundreds) of millions of 4K displays sold each year.

Now that we have a second supplier in BOE, we are starting to see more models (Kuycon, for example), at prices close to half what Apple and LG want for the ASD/UltraFine. Alas, almost every one of them is sold only direct from the OEMs from China via AliExpress. Samsung is the first "major" OEM to offer a monitor with this panel and they packed it full of what many consider "fluff" to set it apart from the Apple Studio Display and LG UltraFine, but which also means the MSRP is closer to the base ASD price (even if it is $1000 cheaper than a feature-comparable ASD configuration).

 

[motrek]

The "point" is that it's $1000 cheaper than the Apple Studio Display with nano-texture glass and a height-and-tilt-adjustable stand if that was what you were cross-shopping (and not the glossy ASD with the base stand or a VESA mount).
...

Is there any indication that Samsung's matte coating is remotely comparable to Apple's nano-texture glass?

Remember that most cheap PC monitors come standard with a matte coating for $0 extra. It's not special.

This seems like a bogus price comparison to me.

 

[tornado99]

I don't own a 5K yet, but a few points from real life experience:

• 218 ppi is overkill. I see no difference between 185 ppi (4K 24") and 218 ppi (ASD). I do see a difference between 165 ppi (4K 27") and 218 ppi.
• Matte vs Glossy is overstated. I use a 4K 24" matte at work, and 4K 24" glossy at home. The second is only slightly better.
• Non-integer scaling is overstated. I run my 4K 24" at 172% scaling using BetterDisplay and text is as good as 200%. Curiously as you play around with the fine-grained scaling in BetterDisplay some % are sharper than others, although none are integer values.

There are all sorts of articles floating around about how awful fractional scaling is. Not my experience at all. If I get a 5K I fully intend to run it in greater than 1440p equivalent.

 

[EugW]

Is there any indication that Samsung's matte coating is remotely comparable to Apple's nano-texture glass?

Remember that most cheap PC monitors come standard with a matte coating for $0 extra. It's not special.

This seems like a bogus price comparison to me.

Yes and no. I see in some of the early review videos that there is some light falloff at the edges. Whether that is due to an uneven backlight or the matte screen or both, I'm not sure, but I suspect at least a significant component of that is from the matte screen. So yes, it is likely that Samsung's matte coating isn't the best solution.

That said, when the pricing is less than US$1000 street, some people might be OK with that, especially since it includes the stand with both tilt and height adjustment.

The other thing to note here is that some matte screens don't suffer as significant light fallout off-axis. So, it depends on the matte screen technology used; you don't need to have nano-texture to have a "good" quality matte screen. I'm not saying the Samsung is one of those though.

I don't own a 5K yet, but a few points from real life experience:

• 218 ppi is overkill. I see no difference between 185 ppi (4K 24") and 218 ppi (ASD). I do see a difference between 165 ppi (4K 27") and 218 ppi.
• Matte vs Glossy is overstated. I use a 4K 24" matte at work, and 4K 24" glossy at home. The second is only slightly better.
• Non-integer scaling is overstated. I run my 4K 24" at 172% scaling using BetterDisplay and text is as good as 200%. Curiously as you play around with the fine-grained scaling in BetterDisplay some % are sharper than others, although none are integer values.

There are all sorts of articles floating around about how awful fractional scaling is. Not my experience at all. If I get a 5K I fully intend to run it in greater than 1440p equivalent.

I agree. I do see a difference between 163 ppi and 218 ppi but 163 ppi is actually pretty decent even with non-integer scaling for a desktop screen. 200 ppi would be great for a desktop, and would actually be my preference over 218 ppi due to bigger default text sizing in macOS.

It should be noted that Apple still ships Macs with non-integer scaled resolutions as the default, and nobody complains about it. ie. The M2 MacBook Air has a native 2560x1664 resolution at 224 ppi, but the default resolution setting is scaled to 1470x956. Specifically, Apple does NOT set its best selling Macs at a 2X scaled resolution by default.

However, which resolution are you running at 4K 24"? Are you running 1080p? Cuz if you are, no wonder it looks great, as it is 2X scaling, even if it is "just" 184 ppi.

 

[tornado99]

Both cases. 4K 24" 185 ppi at 5K 27" 218 ppi - 2X scaled resolution, and then roughly 1.75X. No discernable difference at normal viewing distance. Not surprising as the human eye has limited biological resolution.

Also, another point not documented anywhere is that PDF rendering is completely independent of fractional scaling. So even if you run your Retina monitor at 1.568434X PDFs will be identically sharp to 2X

 

[motrek]

Both cases. 4K 24" 185 ppi at 5K 27" 218 ppi - 2X scaled resolution, and then roughly 1.75X. No discernable difference at normal viewing distance. Not surprising as the human eye has limited biological resolution.

Also, another point not documented anywhere is that PDF rendering is completely independent of fractional scaling. So even if you run your Retina monitor at 1.568434X PDFs will be identically sharp to 2X

Not sure what you mean about PDF rendering, surely Preview runs just like any other MacOS app and renders to the user-selected virtual resolution?

But yeah, exactly, all this discussion of PPI is pointless without taking viewing distance into account. If you're looking at a 27" monitor from e.g. 10 feet away, it wouldn't matter one whit if it's 165 PPI or 218 PPI or 30 PPI. Likewise, if you're two feet away, the difference between 4K and 5K won't be discernible to most people. Why anybody is talking about PPI without also talking about viewing distance is beyond me.

 

[EugW]

Not sure what you mean about PDF rendering, surely Preview runs just like any other MacOS app and renders to the user-selected virtual resolution?

But yeah, exactly, all this discussion of PPI is pointless without taking viewing distance into account. If you're looking at a 27" monitor from e.g. 10 feet away, it wouldn't matter one whit if it's 165 PPI or 218 PPI or 30 PPI. Likewise, if you're two feet away, the difference between 4K and 5K won't be discernible to most people. Why anybody is talking about PPI without also talking about viewing distance is beyond me.

Good reminder about distance. For the record, usual ergonomic recommendations for the desktop states that seating should be at 20" or greater from the screen. I sit at roughly 22" although it probably ranges from like 20" to 25" or so.

184 ppi (4K 24") provides "Retina" at 19" or more distance, at least theoretically, with someone with 20/20 vision, whereas the distance for "Retina" for 163 ppi (4K 27") is 21". OTOH, it's 25" for 4K 32".

In this context, 4K 27" is fine for most people, but 4K 24" is potentially better, whereas 4K 32" is problematic. IMO 5K 16:9 or 16:10 at 30-32" would be in the goldilocks zone, but they don't seem to exist and I don't really understand why. For the mainstream, we don't really need to go to 6K+ at this size. 5K 16:10 at 32" also provides nice text sizing to at 2X scaling, better IMO than 6K+ at 32".

 

[hejrup]

1) Currently out of stock
2) I believe shipping is $53 when I priced it out in checkout
3) I also believe it ships from Hong Kong
4) Still waiting for a volume of reviews, so far just a smattering

a small number Kuycon G27X monitors appeared again on the Clickclack.io website yesterday.

But - for UK based people - I learned from their customer service that they are not shipping to any UK address.

 

[tornado99]

Not sure what you mean about PDF rendering, surely Preview runs just like any other MacOS app and renders to the user-selected virtual resolution?

But yeah, exactly, all this discussion of PPI is pointless without taking viewing distance into account. If you're looking at a 27" monitor from e.g. 10 feet away, it wouldn't matter one whit if it's 165 PPI or 218 PPI or 30 PPI. Likewise, if you're two feet away, the difference between 4K and 5K won't be discernible to most people. Why anybody is talking about PPI without also talking about viewing distance is beyond me.

My understanding is that pdf rendering is not done via the pixel-doubled framebuffer so rendering will be identically sharp whether you are running at 2x scaling or 1.68754x scaling.

I guess "normal viewing distance" is assumed in these discussions.

 

[Mr Screech]

I'd love to see a PWM dimming yes/no column.

 

[motrek]

My understanding is that pdf rendering is not done via the pixel-doubled framebuffer so rendering will be identically sharp whether you are running at 2x scaling or 1.68754x scaling.
...

PDF rendering as in, viewing PDFs in Preview? So the idea is that MacOS has a separate step in its rendering pipeline just for one app? That sounds pretty suspicious to me, although I guess not impossible. Where did you read this?

 

[kvic]

PDF supports both vector and raster graphics/materials. Vector materials are basically mathematical descriptions of graphical objects which can infinitesimally scale up or down without lost of fidelity until it's mapped to pixels. Raster graphics/materials will become 'blurry' and 'horrific' very soon when scaled up or down. So PDF with vector graphics is no different than other vector graphics e.g. TrueType fonts from the perspective of rendering to the framebuffer.

I believe it's impossible for people to understand how HiDPI works without some background in computer science or inner working of OS GUI. I saw some ppl attempt to explain as much as they can but I think it's not well received on the other end.

 

[motrek]

PDF supports both vector and raster graphics/materials. Vector materials are basically mathematical descriptions of graphical objects which can infinitesimally scale up or down without lost of fidelity until it's mapped to pixels. Raster graphics/materials will become 'blurry' and 'horrific' very soon when scaled up or down. So PDF with vector graphics is no different than other vector graphics e.g. TrueType fonts from the perspective of rendering to the framebuffer.

I believe it's impossible for people to understand how HiDPI works without some background in computer science or inner working of OS GUI. I saw some ppl attempt to explain as much as they can but I think it's not well received on the other end.

[MacOS] HiDPI has nothing to do with vector vs. raster graphics.

It's just, everything is rendered internally at double the user-selected "virtual" resolution and then scaled to the monitor's physical resolution. That's it.

tornado99 is claiming that instead of rendering PDFs at double the virtual resolution internally (the same way everything else is rendered), they're somehow rendered at the monitor's physical resolution, and I suppose copied directly to the monitor's frame buffer as the last step of the rendering pipeline. I'm skeptical that Apple has added a step to the operating system's rendering pipeline just to make PDFs look marginally sharper.

 

[kvic]

Sorry to interrupt the discussion. I was trying to help a little in my previous response in addressing exactly that. The answer is yes and no. Yes for vector materials. No for raster materials. For yes, PDF is no different than say other vector materials in terms of how it's handled by MacOS and rendered to the framebuffer. For no, PDF is no different than other raster materials such as bitmap, video or photos. The other day I came across some discussion on how video is treated in HiDPI mode...I thought that whole discussion was misinformation as well... lol

 

[tornado99]

Think I saw the info about PDF rendering on ycombinator, which tends to be people well versed in technical aspects of OS X. I don't think it is about vector vs bitmap, as normal desktop text does become slightly softer on certain non pixel-doubled modes.

Easiest thing is to test this empirically. Put your 5K into a fractional scaling mode in which you can see a difference in text/desktop elements. Then open a PDF and compare that to the exact pixel-doubled mode. I can never see any difference.