I currently have a display with a native panel resolution of 1920x1080, rendered at 1920x1080 in macOS. Last night the backlight started having issues, and I’m looking to replace it.
If I replace it with a 4K panel and still use 1920x1080 as my resolution in Settings → Display, will macOS basically just render every pixel as a 2x2 block on the 4K panel? Or will macOS use the additional panel capability to smooth the edges of text and such so that I’ll actually get an advantage from the additional available pixels?
You will get an advantage. This is how Retina displays work. You need to have it in a hidpi mode. Occasionally displays don’t give the right info to macOS for it to enable all of the correct hidpi modes natively but I suspect 4k@2x will be totally fine 99.9% of the time.
How many inches? Most of the 4K 24” panels no longer exist
Yeah, the size of the panel matters. I’ve found that a 4K 27" display works best for me if I use a display resolution of 2560x1440. It looks pretty good, much better than a native 27" 1920x1080 display.
If a 27" display is what you’re looking for though and you can at all manage it, I’d look really, really hard at a 5K monitor. The difference in clarity between scaled 4K and “native” 5K (scaled 2x to 2560 x 1440) is both subtle and profound in terms of clarity and text readability.
I am in the territory where I need a monitor 32 inches or more. There are some monitors in that range that would seem to fit my needs.
I would absolutely love something with better resolution than 4K. I need to do a little bit of research, but I also need to do it fast since I need a monitor.
Think carefully about what you think you need versus what you actually need.
A 32” 4K monitor running at 1920x1080 will certainly sharpen the text which will aid you a lot in being able to read it clearly. But, unless you have a 32” 1080 monitor today (I’m assuming 24” or 27”) the effective size of everything will be bigger.
Generally speaking most people should be able to see things slightly better on a retina display which is somewhat smaller than their previous non-retina display because of the extra sharpness. It’s not just text, either. Anything that is not a bitmap will take advantage of the same benefit and even bitmap images can be improved if the resolution of the source image is high enough. (Think of a 100x100 pixel image rendered as a 50x50 pixel thumbnail on non-retina. On Retina, all 100x100 pixels are rendered in the same logical size so the picture is clearer.)
The other thing to consider, if it’s an option, is how far away you sit from the screen. I like 27” as a physical size. If I had to get a 32” screen, I would want to move it further away unless it had commensurately more resolution.
My advice… with these kinds of things borne in mind, go and look at some monitors in person. They don’t have to be the ones you might buy. Just look at the relative merits of different sizes and pixel counts as they apply to you.
