Why there are no 40" 4k monitors?

[ZnU]

While true, Windows actually renders the UI natively at the scale you select—at least if you stick to the preset 100/125/150/200% options. Most things look crisp at all these sizes.
You have the option to select an arbitrary scale factor as well, but I have never seen this produce good results—though I have not tried it on Windows 8.1

Perhaps Microsoft is in fact doing hinting hand-tuned for those particular resolutions. That's a reasonable approach. (For anyone who doesn't know what I'm talking about with 'hinting' see here. That discusses fonts, but the same thing applies to drawing any vector at arbitrary sizes on a pixel grid.)

In theory that's true, but I remain unconvinced. Current UI elements are already going beyond the Nyquist limit as they frequently consist of high contrast, single pixel width lines, so you would need a lot of resolution to hide the scaling artifacts.

In the worst case scenario — something like a bitmap image containing alternating single-pixel white and back lines — non-integer scaling is basically always going to be a mess. But I think at 200+ PPI you wouldn't see too many problems with it in everyday cases, and at 400 PPI you'd see practically none.

This is why I don't think the retina scaling options on the MacBook Pros are acceptable, and I wish they would offer higher resolution panels. (equivalent to twice the resolution of the previous "high resolution" panels)
When using the scaled resolutions, Apple still renders the UI at 2× and then scales the final image down to match the display resolution. Text quality really suffers in my opinion. (based on the 13″ rMBP I own)

Sure, I suspect Apple offered these options as, basically, a quick and dirty hack for when you needed to run at a different resolution. They didn't want to invest that much effort in offering 'real' non-integer UI drawing scale options because they didn't really want people to run with non-integer scaling on a regular basis.

I think to end up with sensible results on desktop retina displays, though, the time has really come to bite the bullet and do this.

 

[yauwing]

When dealing with these displays where 1× is too small, and 2× is too large, Windows' scaling does look a lot better than the way OS X handles it. (either not giving you the option, or rendering at 2× and scaling the image to fit)

[/QUOTE]

They can do just what IOS did. In IOS apps submitted must submit icon artworks at different resolutions - such as 57 x 57, 114 x 114 and 120 x 120 - for iPhone/ipod apps.
Additional 72 x 72, 144 x 144, 152 x 152 76 x 76 icons needed if support iPad also.

There is no need to scale, just load the files

Every icon is sharp and good no matter what device or IOS version users are using

 

[Michaelgtrusa]

Then the new Sharp display is a complete waist of money at the moment.

 

[goMac]

I used to use a 40" monitor. It sounds good, but in practice it's unusable. You're unable to see the entire screen area so you're constantly moving your head. Very uncomfortable.

 

[Beta Particle]

I used to use a 40" monitor. It sounds good, but in practice it's unusable. You're unable to see the entire screen area so you're constantly moving your head. Very uncomfortable.

I use a 46" display right now, and it's never been a problem - the only issue is that I'd like more resolution. I'll be upgrading it to 4K as soon as a suitable replacement comes along.

Unfortunately the latest displays from Sony, which I was hoping to replace this with, do not have DisplayPort or support 4K in RGB, so it looks like I will be waiting another year. (I will not buy an edge-lit display)

 

[Rich.Cohen]

(I will not buy an edge-lit display)

I'm curious, why not?

 

[Beta Particle]

I'm curious, why not?

My current display is an LED backlit one which has excellent uniformity and contrast.

Edge-lit LED displays have generally poor uniformity and contrast - especially at 40" and up.

Sony are introducing some new LED backlit models this year, but they do not have DisplayPort or support 4K in RGB - only 4:2:0 YCbCr. (reduced color resolution)