# Replacement screen questions



## Nate Johnson (Aug 17, 2020)

I currently use a 32" Vizio tv as an external monitor to my MBP via hdmi. It was a hand me down during a friends move and I don't have the remote nor access to any settings on the tv itself. This was an experiment to see how I'd feel using a bigger screen, and man, I really do dig it. System prefs has it at the 1080p setting, which I assume is native to the tv itself (I didn't change it anyways). I like the size that Logic is displaying in, it's very comfortable. However, its a little pixel-y compared to the Retina screen on the Macbook, and I've always just assumed I could do better. Not to mention the thing that really drives me nuts is that since its a tv, it doesn't wake up with the computer, I have to manually turn it on every time. And since I don't have the remote, I have to reach behind it for the button. Not to mention I can't make any other adjustments (what kind of tv doesn't have a settings button/navigation on the tv itself?!?)

So yeah, time for an actual computer monitor, 32" and under $500. What am I looking at? Is 4k going to look any sharper? I'll admit ignorance when it comes to judging screen resolution and how it correlates to what I'm looking at. Other than setting x makes open windows/text look big or small. What other specs do I need to consider?

It's also very possible that I'll be replacing the MBP with a new Mac Mini, if that affects anything.


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## gst98 (Aug 17, 2020)

If you want more space / real-estate for your work, you need more pixels.

In my opinion 27" monitors need to be 4k+. If you look at Apple screens you can see what they have decided is appropriate, because they always have a consistent pixels-per-inch across the range. The 15" is 2.5k, the 27" screens are 5k and the 32" screens are 6k.

What this means is if you go any lower than those numbers running at native resolution, then your latop would have more screen real-estate than you're external monitor / these numbers are what you need for the external monitor to look as nice as your latop screen.

If you want to get rid of blurry-ness, you need to get a higher res screen and scale it. For example, a 4k screen will be like sticking 4 of those 1080p screen you have together. The blurry-ness will be exaclty the same. But when you scale it, you stretch that the image of 1 1080p screen acorss 4 of them, meaning you have 4 times as many pixels to smooth those lines out.

If you do this, it of course means you haven't gained any real estate for working, so I compromise and go for a middle setting that both smooths out the image quality, but also gives me plenty of screen space for working.

So it depends on your preference. I wouldn't go any lower 4k for anything above 27 inches. If you want a 32 inch screen, then a 4k 32" will look noticeably worse than a 27" 4k - its just bigger. Personally I would say go 4k at 27" becuase its a market with lots of competion now, the prices are good and you'll get better colour reproduction within the $500 budget.


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## rnb_2 (Aug 17, 2020)

I'll echo @gst98 on this - 27" is a good size at 4k, and run it at a simulated 2560x1440 (same as a 5k iMac) to get the best tradeoff of clarity and extra working space. 32" might give you the ability to go up to 3008x1692 for more working space, but I think you'll get a better panel for your budget with a 27".

I think you'll want to stick with an IPS display, and a lot of lower-cost gamer-oriented displays are VA/MVA panels - if anybody has experience with big VA panels that contradicts this, please chime in.


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## Nate Johnson (Aug 17, 2020)

Alright, I think I'm starting to get the 'picture' here. I'm still wrapping my head around it, but I'll start considering 27" options as well.

If anyone has a favorite 27" please shoot me over a link...


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## ptram (Aug 17, 2020)

I have a 4K 27” HP Z27, that looks great. I use it at a 2304x1296 resolution on my Mac, since I sit a bit far from it (there is a digital stage piano in the middle), and the suggested resolution of 2560x1440 is a bit small for me.

The distance from the display should also influence the size of the display. If you sit very far from it, maybe a 32” is not all that bad.

Paolo


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## gst98 (Aug 17, 2020)

tomorrowstops said:


> Alright, I think I'm starting to get the 'picture' here. I'm still wrapping my head around it, but I'll start considering 27" options as well.
> 
> If anyone has a favorite 27" please shoot me over a link...



You can still look at 32" monitors if thats what you want, but a 4k 27" that you sit a little closer to is the same as a 4k 32" that you sit a little bit further back from. The difference is that the 32" will be more expensive.

If the reason you want a monitor is for more room to fit stuff on your screen, or a smoother picture you only care about the number of pixels.

Personally I really like LG monitors and TVs, I really like colours, their single "joystick" design is so much simpler and easier to use than dell and samsung, plus they are really reasonably priced.


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## Nate Johnson (Aug 18, 2020)

Looking at the 27” options of course begs the consideration of going with 27” 8 core iMac, instead of the Mini and a new screen. More power and better screen for only $500 more. Or, if I get the Mini and just live with my current screen, I save a grand. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm


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## gst98 (Aug 18, 2020)

It's pretty crazy that the iMac with this 27" 5k screen came out in 2015, and today there are still only a few 5k monitors on the market, and none of them have as good a colour reproduction. You have to spend a £1000 to get one that even comes close to it.

fwiw, I'm about to swap my old iMac for a 10-core 2020 iMac. They've done an amazing job on this last iMac and really made it good value for money, it even beats out most of the iMac pros unless you get into the 16-core territory. If I were you, I wouldn't think twice about the iMac over the Mini. The mini was an okay machine when it came out, but two years later its just not good value in comparison with the iMac.


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## Scamper (Aug 18, 2020)

Concerning 27" monitors, I just got a new one as well.
There's currently a new Dell 27" IPS screen with 1440p, which is on a sort of introduction sale. I got it and it's great. Built very sturdy, looks great with a tiny bit of setup and it's also 165Hz, so even the Desktop experience has never been more fluid. Wouldn't want to go back to 60Hz.









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A larger monitor and larger resolution might be nice too have, but right now I like this size and resolution. There's a good amount of space to use, but everything isn't super tiny and good to read.


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## rnb_2 (Aug 18, 2020)

gst98 said:


> It's pretty crazy that the iMac with this 27" 5k screen came out in 2015, and today there are still only a few 5k monitors on the market, and none of them have as good a colour reproduction. You have to spend a £1000 to get one that even comes close to it.
> 
> fwiw, I'm about to swap my old iMac for a 10-core 2020 iMac. They've done an amazing job on this last iMac and really made it good value for money, it even beats out most of the iMac pros unless you get into the 16-core territory. If I were you, I wouldn't think twice about the iMac over the Mini. The mini was an okay machine when it came out, but two years later its just not good value in comparison with the iMac.



Gamers have driven the market, unfortunately, and 4k is the sweet spot for them, as 5k is just more pixels for the GPU to drive. We should have budget 5k 27" screens and good (but not $5k) 32" 6k displays by now, but volume is all in the 4k space, at ever-increasing screen sizes (the antithesis of Retina). It's only the 5k iMac that has kept 5k 27" screen manufacturing going so that there can be standalone 5k 27" displays.

When I put my Mac mini system together in late 2018, the value proposition for the iMac line was pretty poor. They hadn't been updated since 2017, and because Intel only offered hyperthreading on the i7 desktop chips (and top-end chips were still just quad-core), you had to spend a ton to get middling performance. Even the 2019 update didn't do much to address this, as the base machines moved to 6 cores, but still just i5 with no hyperthreading, leaving only the expensive 8-core i9 for people who needed more performance.

I would agree that, if you're looking at a 27" display and a Mac mini right now, the 2020 iMac is a much better option. You'll get a fantastic 5k screen and, since the i5 now has hyperthreading, even the base 27" is similar to the i7 mini in performance, with no need for an eGPU to avoid integrated GPU bottlenecks. At Apple's prices, it's really no contest: an i7/32GB/512GB mini retails for $1899 (some retailers discount heavily - check https://prices.appleinsider.com/current_gen for the best current prices); for an extra $100 you can get the mid-range iMac with a faster processor, a good GPU, and they'll throw in a free 5k screen that's among the best displays in the industry. You'll have to add RAM, but you can get 128GB for what Apple charges to upgrade the mini to 32GB; you can save money on the Mac mini by installing your own RAM, of course, but that's not nearly as straightforward as the iMac, and I still don't think the numbers are in the mini's favor. I say this as a happy mini owner who doesn't really like the 27" iMac (for reasons pretty specific to me).


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## gst98 (Aug 18, 2020)

rnb_2 said:


> Gamers have driven the market, unfortunately, and 4k is the sweet spot for them, as 5k is just more pixels for the GPU to drive. We should have budget 5k 27" screens and good (but not $5k) 32" 6k displays by now, but volume is all in the 4k space, at ever-increasing screen sizes (the antithesis of Retina). It's only the 5k iMac that has kept 5k 27" screen manufacturing going so that there can be standalone 5k 27" displays.
> 
> When I put my Mac mini system together in late 2018, the value proposition for the iMac line was pretty poor. They hadn't been updated since 2017, and because Intel only offered hyperthreading on the i7 desktop chips (and top-end chips were still just quad-core), you had to spend a ton to get middling performance. Even the 2019 update didn't do much to address this, as the base machines moved to 6 cores, but still just i5 with no hyperthreading, leaving only the expensive 8-core i9 for people who needed more performance.
> 
> I would agree that, if you're looking at a 27" display and a Mac mini right now, the 2020 iMac is a much better option. You'll get a fantastic 5k screen and, since the i5 now has hyperthreading, even the base 27" is similar to the i7 mini in performance, with no need for an eGPU to avoid integrated GPU bottlenecks. At Apple's prices, it's really no contest: an i7/32GB/512GB mini retails for $1899 (some retailers discount heavily - check https://prices.appleinsider.com/current_gen for the best current prices); for an extra $100 you can get the mid-range iMac with a faster processor, a good GPU, and they'll throw in a free 5k screen that's among the best displays in the industry. You'll have to add RAM, but you can get 128GB for what Apple charges to upgrade the mini to 32GB; you can save money on the Mac mini by installing your own RAM, of course, but that's not nearly as straightforward as the iMac, and I still don't think the numbers are in the mini's favor. I say this as a happy mini owner who doesn't really like the 27" iMac (for reasons pretty specific to me).



Tbh most gaming monitors I see aren't even 4k. Everyone uses 1200 or 1440 because thats what they're playing their games at. The priority is the refresh rate, which has gotten pretty amazing recently. I suspect when apple bring out the 27" arm iMac, that will be turned into a 32" with 6k. 

Honestly the thing that annoys me with the iMac is that you have to _order_ it with vesa. I need Vesa to use it on my studio desk, so I have to get it, but I worry that when it comes time to sell it, no one will want to buy a vesa iMac. I'm not sure why the iMac Pro functions diffrently to this - just one of those strange Apple descisions I guess.


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## gst98 (Aug 18, 2020)

Scamper said:


> Concerning 27" monitors, I just got a new one as well.
> There's currently a new Dell 27" IPS screen with 1440p, which is on a sort of introduction sale. I got it and it's great. Built very sturdy, looks great with a tiny bit of setup and it's also 165Hz, so even the Desktop experience has never been more fluid. Wouldn't want to go back to 60Hz.
> 
> 
> ...



Using a high refresh rate is nice, but I don't see how it helps with music production. 4k actually gives you the extra space to improve your workflow.


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## Scamper (Aug 18, 2020)

gst98 said:


> Using a high refresh rate is nice, but I don't see how it helps with music production. 4k actually gives you the extra space to improve your workflow.



Sure, it's more of a "nice to have" improvement, but since the screen size and resolution is fine for me, I prefer that over 4k.


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## gst98 (Aug 18, 2020)

What I was saying to the OP is that if you use a 1440p monitor, you gain nothing over your latop screen. It has the exact same real estate, except its stretched over 27 inches and so its less clear which is what he was asking about.

I'd like to have a higher than 60hz screen, but the market is pretty much: you have high refresh rate, or you have high resolution. There are very few monitors that have both, and they are really expensive. One day we'll get both, but its been pretty slow moving.


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## Pictus (Aug 18, 2020)

With any choice you make, make sure does it does NOT use PWM for the backlight dimming! 
Why PWM is bad https://www.notebookcheck.net/Why-Pulse-Width-Modulation-PWM-is-such-a-headache.270240.0.html

Check the reviews sites for PWM:









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I also would avoid TN panels...


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## rnb_2 (Aug 18, 2020)

gst98 said:


> Tbh most gaming monitors I see aren't even 4k. Everyone uses 1200 or 1440 because thats what they're playing their games at. The priority is the refresh rate, which has gotten pretty amazing recently. I suspect when apple bring out the 27" arm iMac, that will be turned into a 32" with 6k.
> 
> Honestly the thing that annoys me with the iMac is that you have to _order_ it with vesa. I need Vesa to use it on my studio desk, so I have to get it, but I worry that when it comes time to sell it, no one will want to buy a vesa iMac. I'm not sure why the iMac Pro functions diffrently to this - just one of those strange Apple descisions I guess.



Yeah, I should have been more precise - 4k is the maximum that a gamer looks for, and is what the really high end runs at, but gamers have also had influence in the development of ultra-wide screens instead of higher resolution.

I didn't realize that the VESA mount situation on the iMac hadn't changed - the iMac Pro probably got it as part of the redesign necessary for the internals. No redesign for the "regular" iMac means no universal VESA mount.


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## rnb_2 (Aug 18, 2020)

Pictus said:


> With any choice you make, make sure does it does NOT use PWM for the backlight dimming!
> Why PWM is bad https://www.notebookcheck.net/Why-Pulse-Width-Modulation-PWM-is-such-a-headache.270240.0.html
> 
> I also would avoid TN panels...



Yeah, nobody should be buying TN panels any more - the viewing angles are awful.


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