Is a 4k monitor worth buying?
 

Hi! I'm in the market to upgrade my old LCD monitor. I heard of 4k but not sure if it is worth getting due to little 4k content. I probably might need a graphics video card capable of 4k, am I right? I appreciate any replies, but more preferably 4k users as they already own it and can tell me the pros and cons. Thx

Unless your eyesight is excellent and your monitor is big, will you discern 4k? I don't think I would.


For me, 640x480 is grainy: 1024*768 or 1200*800 is just fine. I barely notice 1920*1080, unless I study the picture. My eyes are ok, but not what they were. I have a 1600*900 17.3" laptop, and a 28" hdmi monitor. In another location, we were projecting 1280*720 on to a large screen, and we didn't get one word about low resolution.


If you're going to 60", then maybe.

It also depends on what you plan to use it for and how it will be used. What is your need or desire for UHD resolution?

Unless you have some special cases where you need and can use the higher resolution, the junkier resolution monitors (FHD) are more cost-effective than the "4K" UHD ones. Just-in-time purchasing is usually the way to go with computer hardware. Though things seem to have plateaued badly for a very long time now: It bothers me though that the FHD resolution is worse than what we had around 10 years ago (1920 x 1280 then vs 1920 x 1080 now) yet still costs about the same. The biggest difference I've noticed is the size of the monitors has gone from 22" diagonal to 24" diagonal, with an occasional 27" available, off the shelf at some common stores. The 22" displays are about the maximum size I find comfortable at the desk. Larger is better only further away, in which case there is little to no advantage in having UHD.

i have a 20 or so inch monitor with 1680x1050.
considering i got it for free, i couldn't be happier.
but sometimes i would crave a little more res. maybe make do with bitmap fonts once and for all, be able to see these beautiful new fonts the way they're intended to be seen.

i'm not exactly sure what "4k" means; i guess it's just a hip way of saying hi-res?

but it stands to reason: a lot of computing power goes into graphics, and the more resolution you have, the more the rest of your system must be up to it.

I have 24", there is no point going fullscreen any more, I watch even videos windowed. Which is not necessarily a bad thing. I do not foresee going 27".

A 4k monitor can be a good investment because more 4k content may be available in the future.

The 1080p standard is pretty sharp to me already. Of course, I can't compare 4k to 1080p because I never seen 4k content and my old display monitor will not shouw the true 4k experience.

I was looking in amazon.com and 4k monitors are quite expensive so I'll probably stick to the cheaper 1080p monitors for now. Perhaps maybe down the road, I'll get a 4k monitor.

Anyways, thx to all who replied. :-]

The unofficial official head of my LUG does not like them at all. He was doing a demo with a monitor with 4k capabilities and finds the full 4k resolution extremely annoying. When used as a display for the meeting on a 50-something inch monitor, text in 4k mode was so small as to be unreadable in the meeting room from even a few feet away.

I have no personal experience with them other than that.

Right now, this level of equipment is normally only used for press "pre-flighting" and motion picture editing.

Money burning a hole in your pocket? ;)

Surprised at all the "no's".

Can you imagine how good text (including in terminals and IDEs) would look on a 4K monitor? I would love to have one for coding, writing, LQ-posting, and other text-heavy uses.

Keep in mind 300 dots per inch is considered the bare minimum for a printer, while an average 1920x1080 22" monitor is a third as good.

I don't have a 4k monitor, so I don't have any experience with that.

All I can add is that after looking at my 14" Thinkpad's 1080p display, my 22" Samsung 1080p monitor doesn't look nearly as sharp. Especially noticeable with text.

It seems you should be noting the DPI of your prospective monitor purchase. It's a measure that takes resolution and size into account.

I'd wait a while the prices will be dropping on both the monitors and the video cards

if you do it today you will be kicking yourself 6 months when the prices drop at least 33%

now if you have money burning a hole in your pocket and don't care that the prices will be dropping GO FOR IT !

Why do you think prices will be dropping 33% in 6 months?

Personally, I'm looking at this one:

https://www.asus.com/ca-en/Monitors/MG24UQ/

Yes, the graphics card need to able deliver 4K resolution.

prices are always dropping...
last year's favorite is always much cheaper than this year's.
and: buy used if you want to save money.
a friend used to say: i'd never buy a new car. the sheer act of buying it reduces its worth by (arbitrary number)percent.

just my 2ct (actually, now that you're reading it it's only 1.8ct).

That's about $500 CDN (listed sale price) now.

I'm bumping this thread in 6 months to see if the price projections were accurate.

the NEW is starting to ware off 4K is 2years old
the next generation of monitors is due to come out
with faster refrish and wireless connection
new ways of controlling back lighting
etc
etc
etc

I'm curious about this announcement. Tell us more...

Manufacturers will bring out something 'better' just after you have purchased the 'best' available right now, it is called business.

Six months to two years down the line is when the next 'big thing' gets released, but they are usually working on the one for release after that one already. It is the way that manufacturers stay in business, some people always have to have the latest/best of everything.

I used to have a 19" 1440x900 monitor, but I gave it away, it was just too big for my desktop usage.
I replaced it with a nice little 11.6" 1366x768 monitor - (but I mainly use a 17" 5:4 1280x1024).

Just yesterday I was looking for a 17'' notebook with a 4k panel. Kind of funny because I was happy with FHD for years, but suddenly became aware last week that the chars in the consoles do look better on my 14'' FHD notebook than on the 17''... . :p
So probably to sum it up, no need for 4k until your brain makes the switch ;) (and probably only for panels from 17'' onwards)

Text & fonts were created in the days of low resolution & memory.Some are extremely crude. I would be surprised if things looked better on 4k. Have you vector fonts?

they were also created to print things out. not so crude.
they are also still being created and improved all the time.

anyhow, my perception tells me clearly that fonts look better the more pixels they use - the larger they are - which on a 4k monitor wouldn't be larger but more dense, nicer.

of course, vectorized fonts we talk about.

i can see how bitmap fonts wouldn't look very good on a hi res monitor.

Want to test both your eyes and your graphics systems? The link below is just one example of a video shot in 4K UltraHD. It is a tour of the International Space Station so it takes a moment to realize it is all ergonomic, human sized, and soon you can see the many labels everywhere and note the clarity of the numbers and letters. The best part is that there is a Settings button which allows us to experience different resolutions. It can be particularly instructive to choose "doubling". Doing this shows just how complex and fine graphic images are and how the value of pixels adds up to impact our eyes and brains. There are thresholds at which doubling is an immense gift to the eyes and others that are much more subtle.

Like much of technology we also acclimate. Just think of processor power, what speed once impressed us can, going back, be absolutely painful and we wonder how we ever put up with it let alone thought it was fast. T recall a time on a similar forum where a case was being made for never needing more than 1MB if video ram since that would render 1024 x 768 on a 17 inch screen, Now both that resolution and size seems inadequate and it isn't all just from the switch from CRTs.My current video card which is soon due for an upgrade has 2048 MB video ram by comparison.

In any case, see for yourself the incremental differences in resolution for as far as your system will take you. Do be certain of your rig's capabilities before you switch.

--- A 4K Tour in Space ---