# Ideal resolution for a 27" monitor: 3840x2160 vs. 1920x1080 pixels



## Boltrane (Apr 25, 2022)

I'm shopping for a 27" monitor, and there's a huge range in resolution. The low end, 1920 x 1080 pixels, would be easy on my eyes, as everything would be comparatively larger on the screen: eye strain is a real issue! But at the high end, 3840 x 2160, so much more could be fit on the screen -- for example, plugins like Kontakt Player that I tweak back and forth with track controls.

Does anyone have experience with high- versus low-resolutions and how they affected your work?


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## thevisi0nary (Apr 25, 2022)

I like 1440p for 27". 4k to me ends up really small on a 27" if you scale beyond the equivalent size to 1080p.


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## Boltrane (Apr 25, 2022)

Yes, I've just learned that a 2560×1440 resolution is available on some 27" monitors. Doing the math, I see that that resolution over a 27" screen is close -- in the apparent size of text etc. -- to my existing 1920x1080 res over 21". A sweet spot between the low and high ends?


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## ptram (Apr 25, 2022)

I don't know if it's the same in Windows, but on a Mac a HighDPI resolution is a must. So, a 4K monitor ends up being the equivalent of a Full HD one.

Since I want more real estate, I use SwitchResX on my Mac to get a resolution higher than 2x, that is enough to make things appear smooth, without stealing too many pixels.

Paolo


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## MichiganMan (Apr 25, 2022)

Fully agreed on the 1440p at 27". I've got three 4k monitors all set to that. Any smaller and my old eyes can't quite handle it!


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## jm345 (Apr 25, 2022)

I have a 27" monitor that uses 2560x1440. That seems to be the best solution for me for DAW work.


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## proxima (Apr 25, 2022)

I want ~100-110 dpi everywhere, so 2560x1440 @ 27". But even better is doubling that (5K) and running in hidpi/retina. Sadly, 5K monitors somehow remain stupidly expensive (e.g. Apple's new monitor at $1600). Honestly this always made the 5K 27" Intel imacs feel like a really good deal.

So my iMac has a 2560x1440 Dell attached on one side, and a 3440 x 1440 34" curved screen above my piano. Everything shows up at the same size, but my imac screen is significantly sharper for reading. hidpi/retina is less crucial for DAW work.


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## rnb_2 (Apr 25, 2022)

proxima said:


> I want ~100-110 dpi everywhere, so 2560x1440 @ 27". But even better is doubling that (5K) and running in hidpi/retina. Sadly, 5K monitors somehow remain stupidly expensive (e.g. Apple's new monitor at $1600). Honestly this always made the 5K 27" Intel imacs feel like a really good deal.
> 
> So my iMac has a 2560x1440 Dell attached on one side, and a 3440 x 1440 34" curved screen above my piano. Everything shows up at the same size, but my imac screen is significantly sharper for reading. hidpi/retina is less crucial for DAW work.


Yes - 2560x1440 is the best resolution for a 27" display, and Apple quadrupled that to get the 5k display (which displays everything at the same size as a 2560x1440 screen, only sharper).

Unfortunately, gaming/Windows/TV has the display market stuck at 4k at ever-increasing sizes, which is why 5k is still so expensive. In a world where every display size has the same resolution and Microsoft hasn't provided a decent rationale for needing more pixels, consumer displays are now basically being sold as "bigger is better", just like TVs - a 32" screen with the same resolution as a 27" screen for just a bit more money has to be better, right? It doesn't help that Microsoft has never had an "ideal" dpi like Apple has (for over a decade, ~110dpi @1x, 218dpi @2x for a desktop display) - 4k is considered "good enough", regardless of whether it's a laptop screen or a 32"+ desktop display (or a 40"+ 4k TV).

LG is the only company that makes a 5k panel, and PCs (and TVs) don't use it, so the market is too small to drive the price down. It's essentially a Mac-only resolution, which is why Apple had to get back in the display game after bowing out 5+ years ago. They thought that the market would evolve to higher resolutions and thus serve Mac users, and it simply hasn't.

I do what many do - get a 4k 27" display, and run it at the first "More Space" setting on my Mac, which gives a reasonable simulation of a 5k screen on a 4k display. It's not particularly easy on the GPU, since it's rendering 60 5k frames per second off-screen, and scaling those in realtime to 4k for display. Microsoft does something similar with their display scaling percentage (ie, 200% on a 4k screen should look like a sharper 1920x1080 display, and lower percentages will give more space at the cost of some fidelity), but there is still a fair bit of (mostly older) Windows software that doesn't handle scaling properly.


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## cedricm (Apr 26, 2022)

But for their high price, I love high-resolution screens to death.

For audio, it really depends on your computer: can it handle 4K without making noises?

I do not agree that 1440p is the best resolution for 27".

My 15.6" notebook has 1800p resolution, and its fantastic.

I don't know how scaling works on Mac, but on Windows 10, it's fine, especially with applications optimized for high DPI screens.

If you find the pixels too small at 4K, I recommend using 200 % (or 150 %) scaling. Even so, I guarantee the experience will be night & day, especially with optimized apps.


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## Hadrondrift (Apr 26, 2022)

A monitor of 27" @ 2560x1440 is the sweet spot for me as well. Presumably this also has something to do with the age-related decline in sharpness of vision. If I were still in my twenties, I might be able to do 1800, but that would still be very small indeed and no longer a pleasure to operate Kontakt for instance.


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## David Kudell (Apr 26, 2022)

Boltrane said:


> 2560×1440 resolution


This!


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## Alex Fraser (Apr 26, 2022)

rnb_2 said:


> do what many do - get a 4k 27" display, and run it at the first "More Space" setting on my Mac, which gives a reasonable simulation of a 5k screen on a 4k display. It's not particularly easy on the GPU, since it's rendering 60 5k frames per second off-screen, and scaling those in realtime to 4k for display.


Yup, another vote for this. You get "just about" Retina quality for much less ££.
2560 x 1440 is a good place to be on 27 inches.

And can vouch for the processor hit. My MbP (intel) is not a fan of the extra workload.


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## parapentep70 (Apr 26, 2022)

Boltrane said:


> Yes, I've just learned that a 2560×1440 resolution is available on some 27" monitors. Doing the math, I see that that resolution over a 27" screen is close -- in the apparent size of text etc. -- to my existing 1920x1080 res over 21". A sweet spot between the low and high ends?


That's what I have and it looks ideal to me. I have a 24'', 1920 x 1200 (pixels a bit too large), 27'' 2560x1440 (ideal, my main monitor) and at home they also use a 43'' 3840x2160 (also ideal, a tiny bit larger pixels than mine).

I'd never buy any 27....32'' monitor with 4K resolution. Even less to use it at lower (non-native) resolution. I would also consider these new 37? 38? super wide monitors (3840x1440, I believe).


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## David Kudell (Apr 26, 2022)

Yeah you have to be really careful about the size to resolution ratio. I thought I found the ultimate monitor for me - this huge Dell 40“ ultra wide which is 5K Res, but the text is so tiny, I can’t use it as a main monitor. Works well as a secondary display for the Cubase key editor and mixer though.


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## vitocorleone123 (Apr 26, 2022)

Unless you sit with your face 1-2 feet (I forget the math) away from the screen, you won’t see a benefit of 4K in a 27” monitor. It’ll just make things smaller and harder to see. If you’re young and/or have perfect vision, that’s no big thing. For everyone else, it’s usually not the best choice.


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## rnb_2 (Apr 26, 2022)

vitocorleone123 said:


> Unless you sit with your face 1-2 feet (I forget the math) away from the screen, you won’t see a benefit of 4K in a 27” monitor. It’ll just make things smaller and harder to see. If you’re young and/or have perfect vision, that’s no big thing. For everyone else, it’s usually not the best choice.


Agree on this - running at native resolution on a small 4k screen is not recommended. However, running at a scaled/HiDPI resolution (somewhere between exactly ½ native - using twice as many pixels to make everything much sharper - and native) has benefits in text readability and related eye fatigue. After years of reading on iPhones and iPads, stock non-HiDPI resolutions look a bit blurry to me. My display on my second desk is a 2560x1440 24" Lenovo panel, so a bit higher DPI than a 27" at the same resolution, which helps sharpen things up a bit, but it's still not as nice as my BenQ 4k pretending to be 5k.


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## ptram (Apr 26, 2022)

The screen resolution I use in my 4K 27” is 2304 x 1296. I find it perfect for the distance I sit at.

Paolo


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## widescreen (Apr 27, 2022)

I would never ever buy a monitor with 1080 pixels on vertical. 1920x1200 should be the least for working, these 120 pixels mean more than they seem to. My last 27" had that resolution, my day-time work 24" monitors still have it. 1080p is made for TV/films and gaming.

But as I have now one 32" with 1440p (which would be similar to 27" with 1920x1200) and one 32" with 4K I can switch whatever suits best. Main DAW window on the 4K, detailed editing on the 1440p. I still miss a third one, but where to take the space from...


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## simfoe (Apr 27, 2022)

Depends on your OS. If Windows, 1440p will be just fine. On Mac, you'll want 4k due to the way it scales monitors with a certain DPI.

I just bought a Huawei Mateview (4k, 28.2", 3:2 ratio) and it looks superb on Mac, and scales just fine. My previous 1440p monitor had horrible jaggy text whatever I did, and looked awful on Mac but great on Windows.

I actually think Mac is also fussy with certain models of monitors even if they are 4K, it's something to do with certain monitors not presenting the right details to the OS (I forget the acronym - E something) so Mac OS assumes and you end up with crap scaling. Thankfully certain monitor models have this sorted out, the Mateview being one, the LG 27UP850-W being another and it looks great.


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## widescreen (Apr 27, 2022)

simfoe said:


> Depends on your OS. If Windows, 1440p will be just fine. On Mac, you'll want 4k due to the way it scales monitors with a certain DPI.
> 
> I just bought a Huawei Mateview (4k, 28.2", 3:2 ratio) and it looks superb on Mac, and scales just fine. My previous 1440p monitor had horrible jaggy text whatever I did, and looked awful on Mac but great on Windows.
> 
> I actually think Mac is also fussy with certain models of monitors even if they are 4K, it's something to do with certain monitors not presenting the right details to the OS (I forget the acronym - E something) so Mac OS assumes and you end up with crap scaling. Thankfully certain monitor models have this sorted out, the Mateview being one, the LG 27UP850-W being another and it looks great.


I didn't know that. One reason more to stay with Windows. 

But perhaps there is a way to tweak that on Mac? As Windows has many ways to tweak scaling to fit personal needs.


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## rnb_2 (Apr 27, 2022)

simfoe said:


> Depends on your OS. If Windows, 1440p will be just fine. On Mac, you'll want 4k due to the way it scales monitors with a certain DPI.
> 
> I just bought a Huawei Mateview (4k, 28.2", 3:2 ratio) and it looks superb on Mac, and scales just fine. My previous 1440p monitor had horrible jaggy text whatever I did, and looked awful on Mac but great on Windows.
> 
> I actually think Mac is also fussy with certain models of monitors even if they are 4K, it's something to do with certain monitors not presenting the right details to the OS (I forget the acronym - E something) so Mac OS assumes and you end up with crap scaling. Thankfully certain monitor models have this sorted out, the Mateview being one, the LG 27UP850-W being another and it looks great.


The only scaling issues I've heard about recently were issues with some ultrawide displays when the original M1 Macs came out, and that was fixed fairly quickly. If there are issues with particular 4k displays, I haven't heard about them, but that doesn't mean they don't exist. 1440p is actually just fine on the Mac (as mentioned, I have a 1440p 24"), as long as you run it at the native resolution - the original 27" iMac was 1440p, after all.

That Huawei sounds interesting - I'd love to have a 3:2 display, as 16:9 has always put too high a premium on vertical space. You could tell that Apple had lost some pull with panel suppliers when the iMac switched from 16:10 (which was certainly better) to 16:9. Unfortunately, we can't get any Huawei products in the US, and I'm not aware of any 3:2 displays available here.



widescreen said:


> I didn't know that. One reason more to stay with Windows.
> 
> But perhaps there is a way to tweak that on Mac? As Windows has many ways to tweak scaling to fit personal needs.


The native display tweaking on the Mac probably isn't as extensive as on Windows, but it usually does the job just fine. There are 3rd party utilities that offer more granular control of resolutions, but I'm not sure if they solve scaling issues that are at the OS or hardware level.


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## topaz (Apr 27, 2022)

27 1140 was too small for me. Try it and if not up to a 32.


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## SandChannel (Apr 27, 2022)

David Kudell said:


> Yeah you have to be really careful about the size to resolution ratio. I thought I found the ultimate monitor for me - this huge Dell 40“ ultra wide which is 5K Res, but the text is so tiny, I can’t use it as a main monitor. Works well as a secondary display for the Cubase key editor and mixer though.


Hey, David. Having seen your set up in your videos, can you mention what you are using currently?


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## Pier (Apr 27, 2022)

I've been very happy with the image on a 27'' 4K monitor with Windows 10 since you have total control of the scaling.

I haven't been so happy with plugins and applications actually supporting 4K.

Some VST plugins in Ableton Live render at low DPI and ignore scaling settings. Plugins that I know 100% can render at hi DPI. Pigments in particular had tons of bugs with scaling. The GUI was cropped, it ran at like 30fps, etc. These problems didn't happen on Bitwig.

It's very common that even when the plugin window scales correctly and renders at 1:1 pixels, some UI elements are not scaled. So you get tooltips and dropdown menus at a very tiny size.

Steinberg has plugins in Cubase that are low DPI. Even Retrologue 2 can be resized to 200% but it only enlarges the pixels, and I find the GUI still too small.

Kontakt 6 is absolutely horrible in this regard. It just renders too small and it only makes the pixels bigger. Guitar Rig 6 gave me hope NI will at some point fix this, but who knows when.

Bitwig and Ableton Live themselves are great as their GUI seems to be vector rendered and can be scaled independently of the Windows scaling. Cubase will adapt to the Windows scaling setting, and then allow you to adjust the GUI scaling in cubase itself a bit higher or lower.

Studio One only adjusts to the Windows scaling setting. If you find the UI too big or too small you need to change all the Windows scaling which absolutely sucks.

U-He, Fabfilter, and KiloHearts are fantastic. They scale perfectly. All the GUI is rendered at 1:1 pixels at the desired size and runs at 60Hz.

It's pretty ridiculous that in 2022 there is still low DPI stuff out there.

In light of all this, I will say I would not recommend a 4K monitor for Windows yet if you intend on using scaling. At least not for DAW use. For general computing it's great (Chrome, Word, etc).

Personally I find a 27'' with 1440p to be a bit smaller than I like the UI. But I'm 42 and my eyesight is not as good as it used to be. I find 27'' at 1080p to be perfect if it wasn't for the huge pixels. I think if I could go back I'd look for something like 28-32 inches at 1440p.

Another option is using a big 4K TV without scaling which would be like using 4 x 1080p monitors glued together. That could work and I've seen a lot of people doing that.


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## David Kudell (Apr 27, 2022)

SandChannel said:


> Hey, David. Having seen your set up in your videos, can you mention what you are using currently?


iMac 27” is my main monitor, the 40” Dell on my left for my key editor and mixer, and an NEC 27” on my right for sample library windows and finder to browse for files.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Apr 27, 2022)

As Rick B says, 'sall about the dot pitch - the size of the actual picture.

For me, the standard .23 - .25mm range is right.

Enter the screen size and resolution into this calculator:






PX CALC: DPI Calculator with Dot Pitch, Size, Aspect Ratio, Pixels, and Megapixels


When you zoom to 100% in programs like Photoshop or Illustrator you're not actually seeing true print size, but if you know your monitor's DPI (dots per inch), also known as PPI (pixels per inch), you can work around this.



www.pxcalc.com


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## richiebee (Apr 28, 2022)

simfoe said:


> I actually think Mac is also fussy with certain models of monitors even if they are 4K, it's something to do with certain monitors not presenting the right details to the OS (I forget the acronym - E something) so Mac OS assumes and you end up with crap scaling.


That doesn't surprise me. I think historically Apple sticks very rigidly to published technical details and specifications, that may not be implemented in practice. I think that's a good thing to try and keep the electronics industry in check, but it does come at a cost for customers. If all manufacturers did it, then it would be good for everyone because it would force manufacturers to adhere to published specs and create a more universal environment, but that's not reality.


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## cel4145 (May 1, 2022)

57, and I was using a 24 in 1080p Dell monitor until recently. Switched to a 32-in curved screen 1080p ViewSonic. I just did not realize how much of a difference the larger size would be. It is less fatiguing for me to work on the larger size screen at the same resolution. 

However, I do use bifocals on my computer where the main lens is computer distance. So this very large curved widescreen may work better for me than someone with progressive lenses, because of the better peripheral vision I have at that distance.

That being said, and perhaps someone who understands monitor physics better than I do, you should be able to reset a 4K monitor to 1080p in display properties without any problem. 4K has exactly four times as many pixels. So when you switch to 1080p, it is rendering every point with four pixels. Unlike when you switch between display resolutions where it ends up being some fraction where you would be better off with a monitor that supports the resolution as the primary native display.


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