# Suggestions for 27" monitor resolution



## spectrum48 (May 22, 2018)

Hi, I want to switch from a 24" 1920x1200 monitor to a 27" one. Which resolution do you think is better for a developer workstations?

1) 27" 2560 x 1440 Pixel
2) 27" 3840 x 2160

My main goal is to reduce eye stress since I use this monitor for a lot of hours (both for my job and for my hobbyist activities).

I'd go with the larger resolution but using bitmap fonts I'm afraid it would be harder to find a comfortable font size with such high resolutions. 

Price difference between the two models is not a problem since monitor is  the main tool for my job and should last years.

Thanks!


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## robroy (May 22, 2018)

spectrum48, I chose a pair of Eizo EV2730Q screens, which run at 1920x1920 (they're perfect squares).

These weren't cheap, and yet they're worth every penny to me, because my eyeballs are glued to them all day long, Monday through Friday.

Their light sensors and automatic brightness feature works well.  I haven't chosen to play around very much with their human presence detection feature yet (I just use regular DPMS).

When running a full-screen xterm with nearly its largest font (the 10x20 font; aka "Huge" in xterm's interactive font menu), I have 191 columns rows and 95 rows columns per screen.

I usually run a sysutils/tmux session on each screen, which allows me to migrate panes between the screens.  It has turned out to be a really nice set up for all-day comfort at the command line.

EDIT:  I got my columns'n'rows mixed up, and fixed that.


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## spectrum48 (May 22, 2018)

Thank you for sharing your experience. I'm looking for an Eizo too; my choice is between two Eizo screens:
Eizo EV2780 - 2560 x 1440
Eizo EV2785 - 3840 x 2160


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## pming (May 22, 2018)

If your OS provides the ability to change resolution scale, I don't see a reason not to go for the 4K option.


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## robroy (May 22, 2018)

spectrum48, you're welcome.

Here's a bad photo of my two EV2730Q screens, in case anybody's curious; the buck's in there for scale.  The photo's fuzzy but of course, the text on the screens is crystal-clear hahaha; I guess I should forget about becoming a screen salesman.


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## robroy (May 22, 2018)

spectrum48, have you used screen scaling software before?

I encountered it for the first time recently, on my work laptop, and I'll say this:  it can lead to annoying surprises.

Example:  I use RDP to access a Windows host from a scaled screen, and then try using GIMP on that remote Windows host to take screen-shots.

'the result?  GIMP produces screenshots of the wrong screen region, because it doesn't get along with the scaling feature.  I'm then forced to use a different process to get the screen-shots.

I personally don't think higher resolution displays are worth it, because these glitches bug me and slow down my work.

For this reason, my vote goes towards the lower resolution screen (of your two choices).


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## spectrum48 (May 22, 2018)

pming said:


> If your OS provides the ability to change resolution scale, I don't see a reason not to go for the 4K option.



I never though about that.. the monitor will be used with FreeBSD to connect to a VNC server running on DragonflyBSD so this could be tricky.. I was thinking more about leaving original resolution scale and address problems with each program. As an example, chrome has the 
	
	



```
--force-device-scale-factor
```
 option to double its own resolution.


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## spectrum48 (May 22, 2018)

robroy said:


> spectrum48, you're welcome.
> Here's a bad photo of my two EV2730Q screens, in case anybody's curious; the buck's in there for scale.  The photo's fuzzy but of course, the text on the screens is crystal-clear hahaha; I guess I should forget about becoming a screen salesman.



This seems a great setup! The 3840 x 2160 screen should have 1.5 times smaller pixels than yours if I'm not mistaken so my idea was to scale up chrome by a 1.5 factor (since we have non control on web sites' fonts) and use larger fonts on other programs.


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## spectrum48 (May 22, 2018)

robroy said:


> For this reason, my vote goes towards the lower resolution screen (of your two choices).



Yes, the lower resolution will surely avoid some problems. My main concern is that it's only slightly higher than my current one (2560 x 1440 on 27" is similar to 1920x1200 on 24") so I'll "only" gain some screen size.


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## robroy (May 22, 2018)

Yeah, I agonized over going with higher resolution panels for months before going with these.  It's unfortunate that there's no such thing as an Eizo showroom, at least anywhere around here!

This setup does work very well for me, and has probably paid for itself many times over by now, by helping me spot things in log files more quickly, and so on.  But, ultimately I think other factors contribute even more to performance haha (getting enough sleep is probably #1).


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## SirDice (May 23, 2018)

spectrum48 said:


> My main goal is to reduce eye stress since I use this monitor for a lot of hours (both for my job and for my hobbyist activities).


Resolution is not as important as refresh rates. Most monitors only do 60 or 75Hz. Look for higher refresh rates. Last year I bought a 2K 27" monitor with a refresh rate of 165Hz (ASUS ROG Swift PG279Q), it was quite expensive (compared to any monitor I've bought before) but it was the best money I ever spent.


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## spectrum48 (May 23, 2018)

SirDice said:


> Resolution is not as important as refresh rates. Most monitors only do 60 or 75Hz. Look for higher refresh rates. Last year I bought a 2K 27" monitor with a refresh rate of 165Hz (ASUS ROG Swift PG279Q), it was quite expensive (compared to any monitor I've bought before) but it was the best money I ever spent.



Thank you, this is something I never took into consideration. There is this "gaming monitor" from Eizo which seem similar to yours (slightly lower refresh rate):
http://www.eizoglobal.com/products/foris/fs2735/index.html


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## spectrum48 (May 23, 2018)

Phishfry said:


> Display Port or HDMI connections??



It doesn't really matter: I have to add a graphic card anyway so I can choose the monitor and add later the needed card.


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## SirDice (May 23, 2018)

Phishfry said:


> Display Port or HDMI connections??


Mine has both Displayport and HDMI but the HDMI is limited to 60Hz. So if you're looking for higher refresh rates make sure both the graphics card and the monitor have Displayport.


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## Phishfry (May 23, 2018)

I deleted that because it seems HDMI is for TV's and Display Ports are for Computer Monitors.
There are expensive TV's with Display Port.
From my reading DisplayPort is an open standard too.
Glad to hear that it does offer more too.
I thought there was 120Hz HDMI at 1080p? I didn't know it was limited to 60Hz.


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## SirDice (May 23, 2018)

Phishfry said:


> I thought there was 120Hz HDMI at 1920p?


Sort of, HDMI 1.3 does 1920 × 1080 at 120 Hz or 2560 × 1440 at 60 Hz. I think the newer HDMI standards (2.x) also support higher refresh rates for higher resolutions. There's also been some updates for 4K and things like HDR. But today's most common HDMI version (1.4b) is stuck at 60Hz for 2K resolutions. So that's definitely something to be aware of and something I didn't know either until I tried hooking up my monitor with HDMI.


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## Phishfry (May 23, 2018)

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/331322-33-120hz-hdmi
Yes that sounds right according to that post:
1.4a is used now and 1.4b proposed with higher bandwidth.


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## rigoletto@ (May 23, 2018)

I would recommend EIZO FlexScan, which supposed use the rejected panels for the ColorEdge Series. ColorEdge use the BEST panels one can buy and those rejected ones are usually far beyond most of panels of "high end" monitors from other brands, but robroy already did that.

NEC also usually have high quality panels too. And they are cheaper than an equivalent EIZO in USA. In Europe, the things usually are on the contrary.

I usually first choose the best panel I can buy, later I look for the rest. 

I reduce I stress you should look for one of those "Flicker Free" monitors.

robroy

OMG, you got a couple of those square ones. Nice.


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## rigoletto@ (May 23, 2018)

Phishfry said:


> There are expensive TV's with Display Port.



The only TVs I found with Display Ports were from Panasonic.


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## spectrum48 (May 24, 2018)

lebarondemerde said:


> I would recommend EIZO FlexScan,



Yes, the two models I was choosing from are both EIZO FlexScan, but now I'm considering SirDice's suggestion of looking at higher refresh rates instead.


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## shkhln (May 24, 2018)

I'm pretty sure LCD refresh rate doesn't have any effect on eye strain. No opinion on resolution.


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## spectrum48 (May 24, 2018)

Ok.. so it seems I underestimated the complexity of the screen choice. I'll study this topic better with all your inputs.


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## SirDice (May 24, 2018)

shkhln said:


> I'm pretty sure LCD refresh rate doesn't have any effect on eye strain.


Yes, and no. It has to do, among other things, with the eye's flicker fusion threshold. Apparently mine are bit more sensitive than usual as I can sometimes pick up the 50Hz flicker of a lightbulb. I also suffer, from time to time, from ocular migraines.


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## shkhln (May 24, 2018)

Yeah, there exists a problem with PWM induced backlight flicker. It is not related to refresh rates though.


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