Looking to buy a decent 4K 27" Monitor. Which one should I get?

[ValkyrieDragon]

I'm looking to buy a monitor with a high Pixel Density. (greater than 200 ppi). I primarily design a lot of things, therefore I'm very used to apple's high PPI displays. I scoured the internet but couldn't find anything close to what I'm looking for. Perhaps, I'm searching in the wrong places.

 

My intention is to hook it up to my PC running Windows 11 as well as my 2021 Mac Mini. I need a good display that's going to last me a while. Any good recommendations? Let me know. Thanks.

[Andrewtst]

1 hour ago, ValkyrieDragon said:

I'm looking to buy a monitor with a high Pixel Density. (greater than 200 ppi). I primarily design a lot of things, therefore I'm very used to apple's high PPI displays. I scoured the internet but couldn't find anything close to what I'm looking for. Perhaps, I'm searching in the wrong places.

 

My intention is to hook it up to my PC running Windows 11 as well as my 2021 Mac Mini. I need a good display that's going to last me a while. Any good recommendations? Let me know. Thanks.

If you need 200 ppi in 27", you need to go for at least 5120 x 2880 resolution (5K).

 

27" 5120 × 2880 = 217 ppi.

 

Not many choice in this case - https://pcpartpicker.com/products/monitor/#r=768004320,576002160,512002880,512002160&F=355600000,812800000

 

 

Beside above this, I know LG also had one 27" 5K monitor - https://www.lg.com/my/monitors/lg-27MD5KL-B

 

They is also few Ultrawide 34" in 5120 x 2160, but this only 180 ppi

https://pcpartpicker.com/products/monitor/#r=768004320,576002160,512002880,512002160&F=355600000,863600000

 

PPI Calculator - https://www.calculatorsoup.com/calculators/technology/ppi-calculator.php

 

 

 

[hishnash]

1 hour ago, Andrewtst said:

I know LG also had one 27" 5K monitor

This model is knows to have a load of issues, I have seen a few of them have faulty connections due to bad soldering. And the plastic front costing is really sub-optimal.


I have used the dell Dell UP2715K is is a very good monitor but I don't think they make it any more so is very hard to find. 

With the HP Z27q you need to make sure the one you find lists the 5k resolution as they use the same part number for a much lower resolution model.. Also I cant find any of the 5k on the market at the moment.

 

The other option (not listed here) is the Apple Studio display (costly but fits the bill in DPI).  However attaching a PC to it can be a pain as it requires your display signal to be over TB3/4 cable and if you want full 5k at full bit depth unless you have a rathe modern GPU (that supports Display Stream compression over USB-C) this is not easy and even if you do getting the signal to include UBC-C so that you can use the ports on the back and audio and camera is even more painful. You would need to check first that your PC setup would support it. 

 

[jaslion]

1 hour ago, Andrewtst said:

Beside above this, I know LG also had one 27" 5K monitor - https://www.lg.com/my/monitors/lg-27MD5KL-B

This monitor is such a crapshoot avoid at all costs.

[ValkyrieDragon]

1 hour ago, Andrewtst said:

Not many choice in this case

Agreed. Like you pointed out, the ones I found always fell below 200ppi. The only other option I see is to get apple's studio display but it's a pain to get it to work with a PC. 

 

[Andrewtst]

2 hours ago, hishnash said:

This model is knows to have a load of issues, I have seen a few of them have faulty connections due to bad soldering. And the plastic front costing is really sub-optimal.


I have used the dell Dell UP2715K is is a very good monitor but I don't think they make it any more so is very hard to find. 

With the HP Z27q you need to make sure the one you find lists the 5k resolution as they use the same part number for a much lower resolution model.. Also I cant find any of the 5k on the market at the moment.

 

The other option (not listed here) is the Apple Studio display (costly but fits the bill in DPI).  However attaching a PC to it can be a pain as it requires your display signal to be over TB3/4 cable and if you want full 5k at full bit depth unless you have a rathe modern GPU (that supports Display Stream compression over USB-C) this is not easy and even if you do getting the signal to include UBC-C so that you can use the ports on the back and audio and camera is even more painful. You would need to check first that your PC setup would support it. 

 

Ya agreed it all, the Apple Studio Display probably the best but for attaching to PC is nightmare.

2 hours ago, jaslion said:

This monitor is such a crapshoot avoid at all costs.

Haha!

 

1 hour ago, ValkyrieDragon said:

Agreed. Like you pointed out, the ones I found always fell below 200ppi. The only other option I see is to get apple's studio display but it's a pain to get it to work with a PC. 

 

I suggest you should lower down the ppi, 200ppi is rather high and not so possible for now and probably not worth it as well.

[jaslion]

3 hours ago, Andrewtst said:

Ya agreed it all, the Apple Studio Display probably the best but for attaching to PC is nightmare.

Straight up impossible even. I'd say your best bet is to just get a 4k 27 inch.

[hishnash]

2 hours ago, jaslion said:

Straight up impossible even. I'd say your best bet is to just get a 4k 27 inch.

It is possible https://justin.searls.co/posts/connecting-a-gaming-pc-to-apple-studio-display/ has a guide for this but you need to make sure your setup has what it needs and be willing to by a `costly` display port adaptor.

This in the end can sort of be blamed on UBC/TB having a load of optional specs that almost no-one implements.  

 

 

6 hours ago, Andrewtst said:

200ppi is rather high and not so possible for now and probably not worth it as well.

Depends on what you do but if your doing a lot of content creation for high DIP devices (like phones etc) (content creation here could be design, software dev etc) having a display with a higher DPI can be helpful as it means your content at the design and development state is closer to the final product without needing to constantly go back to check how it will look on the target device... in the end of course it comes down to what you are used to and once you have been using a high DPI display for long enough many people find looking at a lower DPI monitor to be painful.  

[Andrewtst]

1 hour ago, hishnash said:

It is possible https://justin.searls.co/posts/connecting-a-gaming-pc-to-apple-studio-display/ has a guide for this but you need to make sure your setup has what it needs and be willing to by a `costly` display port adaptor.

This in the end can sort of be blamed on UBC/TB having a load of optional specs that almost no-one implements.  

 

 

Depends on what you do but if your doing a lot of content creation for high DIP devices (like phones etc) (content creation here could be design, software dev etc) having a display with a higher DPI can be helpful as it means your content at the design and development state is closer to the final product without needing to constantly go back to check how it will look on the target device... in the end of course it comes down to what you are used to and once you have been using a high DPI display for long enough many people find looking at a lower DPI monitor to be painful.  

Off course but in 200 PPI now is unrealistic. How many monitor actually can do that in 27".  That the reason I said it is better to lower down the requirement. 

 

I know the benefits of it but sometimes need to be realistic. If it is around 160 PPI then they is more choice of it as at least in this case a 27" 4K monitor can make it happened. 

[hishnash]

53 minutes ago, Andrewtst said:

Off course but in 200 PPI now is unrealistic. How many monitor actually can do that in 27".  That the reason I said it is better to lower down the requirement. 

 

very few as there really is just 1 panel still in production and I think it costs a LOT to make and a 5k controller will also cost a lot more as it will need to support DSC as well, 4k monitors can get way without this (at least if they are just doing 60hz)

The other option is to go for a 21" to 24" screen as they're more high DPI options in that size class. 

[Andrewtst]

On 8/16/2022 at 6:52 AM, hishnash said:

very few as there really is just 1 panel still in production and I think it costs a LOT to make and a 5k controller will also cost a lot more as it will need to support DSC as well, 4k monitors can get way without this (at least if they are just doing 60hz)

The other option is to go for a 21" to 24" screen as they're more high DPI options in that size class. 

The user put 27" and not anything below. 

 

Most 24" and 21" is only 1080p which even lower than request 200 PPI which is only 91 PPI for 24" and 105 PPI for 21". Even the screen is 1440p for both 24" and 21" also less than 139 PPI. 4K in 24" also did not meet the requirement as it is only 183 PPI.

 

Only 4K in 21" is meet the PPI requirement which is 209 PPI and it seems only one model which meet the 200 PPI on 21.6" Asus ProArt PQ22UC which is 203 PPI.

 

The most affordable 27" 5K monitor now is actually Apple Studio Display but this monitor only good for macOS not Windows as if I not remember wrongly even basic brightness control also not available when using in Windows due to it is software control that required macOS.