> we still haven’t been able to get the colours quite right, in any setup.
Yeah, instant non starter for a $1k display. And the HDR section makes it sound like HDR support is purely there to tick a checkbox and not actually usable on the device. Not even counting the fact that the author had to swap the display as soon as they received it to get a non-defective one.
There’s a reason Apple displays are still the gold standard. Everyone else just skips the quality control part. If you trawl the high DPI display subreddits, you’ll find plenty of stories of people exchanging displays many times (3, 4, 5 or more) until they get a unit with an “acceptable” amount of dead pixels/color shift.
For tech that’s in the $1k-$2k range (or above), it’s just unacceptable.
> There’s a reason Apple displays are still the gold standard.
Apple is not the gold standard, Eizo's ColorEdge monitors are. Built-in hardware calibration is non-negotiable for color critical work. Monitors drift over time.
> Built-in hardware calibration is non-negotiable for color critical work
No it is mostly a convenience gimmick. Support for external hardware calibration is important though. But far more important feature, implemented properly only by Eizo and no one else I am aware of - is uniformity compensation. Benq has it, so does Dell, but they all come with sever limitations compared to Eizo.
Talking about unusual monitor aspect ratios, what I would really want is a 3840x2400 monitor. 1920x1200 is somewhat common and easy to find, but 2400p is only available on a few laptops.
Why 2400p? Because it is the LCM of 400, 480 and 600, so it would allow perfect integer rescaling of my favourite MS-DOS and early Windows games.
The Sotsu "Flip Action Elite" (I think that's the product name? it was in a recent mrwhostheboss thin tech video) is exactly that: 3840x2400, 16", 450 nits, 14.3mm thick, and definitely had "slice the top off a laptop" vibe to the design... I don't know if you can actually find them though, but it looked really shiny :-)
My graphic designing ass feels like this is about the perfect ratio for a screen. And this thing seems quite sturdy.
But even if I had the budget to afford it most probably I'd pass - having to handle settings with a remote control instead of with the OS via a ddc interface or something seems quite odd, or maybe it's just me that grew so used to this "old" Apple Thunderbold Display.
Also that it doesn't have internal speakers, mic or webcam - I really like the thunderbolt display "peripherals" and make my desktop way less cluttered that it should be with just any other monitor, so the hypothetical case of having to get also speakers, mic and a webcam sounds like a serious downgrade. Can't care less about the 120Hz thing but maybe it's because I've never used a high-rate display.
I wish they do a "P20 Pro" of sorts that adds this things.
I’ve been on the fence about the P20 for a while. Some people report getting janky units. BenQ has a 3:2 monitor with 3840x2560 resolution, 120Hz refresh.
Yeah, I much prefer the higher PPI and metal chassis of the Kuycon, but its apparently spotty QC and uncertain brand reputation would make me lean towards the BenQ RD280UG if 3:2 aspect ratio were my dealbreaker. It's just too much money to be taking risks with.
I do applaud the company for bringing a new interesting option to the market, though. Integer scaling HiDPI is rare enough (though thankfully is finally becoming more common), but integer scaling HiDPI with a ratio that's not 16:9 is practically a unicorn. If they can get QC under control I wouldn't mind buying from them in the future.
I really need a 3:2 desktop monitor but it's just impossible. AFAIK there's only the BenQ one (well it seems that now there's two) and it's out of my budget. I would have no problem settling with a 1080p one but there's just no manufacturers :(
Coding is so much nicer on those. I have a Huawei Matebook 14 from a few years ago, and at my previous work I had a Framework, this ratio is just night and day it's so much better
I don't really get this monitor when a 4K 32in QD OLED exists. Running the 32in at 100% scaling will yield more usable space on the left and right, essentially the same height, way better colors, way better refresh rates, and no oddities like the weird remote. The 32in is also likely the same price or cheaper, from a real manufacturer with a real warranty.
32" is too large, it makes you turn your head a lot, and the distortion at the corners is noticeable. You can put it farther away (which requires a nonstandard desk), but it sort of defeats the purpose.
To me, 28" 4K is near the sweet spot: it's exactly 4 14" screens of my ThinkPad. I wish the screens had higher resolution and smaller size though.
How shallow is your desk? I'm on a pretty regular sized desk and have no issues with a 32in monitor.
You said you wished the screens had a smaller size? You'd want a smaller than 28in screen? Wouldn't that get pretty uncomfortably close to view, even with scaling?
I recently scored an amazing deal on the Samsung Odyssey G8 G80HS, which is 32", 6144 x 3456 at 165 Hz for only $700 via perks at work [1]!!! Even if computers typically cannot game at 6144 x 3456 px, it is incredibly nice to simultaneously have the fast refresh rate to glide your mouse cursor around smoothly, and have the super high image resolution to read super crisp text. The monitor can also be run at half resolution but at twice the framerate of 330 Hz, which is amazing for older or competitive titles. The only downside is that the quality control is not too great (my friend ordered the same one and it was defective) and the plastic bezel of the monitor seems very generic.
I’m personally considering the 5K 27” 27GM950B from LG, but I’m hesitant and wonder if I should save the disappointment or inevitable and just spring for the Studio Display XDR. But its quite a jump and I don’t get paid for coding like that anymore so it’s harder to justify now, hah.
However, as another commenter mentioned in the thread it seems like nearly every non-Apple monitor has some sort of negative compromise outside of port selection.
That being said $700 is a steal for that monitor easily and the price overcomes a lot of possible downsides (at least for me it would).
For programmers, there's very little incremental gain by going from 4k/32" to 6k/32". I've tried both and there's a limit to how small the text can be, but then I'm kinda middle aged.
For graphics work, of course the answer might be different and I'm no expert. Personally I think screen size does matter, and I've noticed a fair improvment going from 28 to 32.
I’m a software engineer (or well, was since I’ve moved on) and a single Pro Display XDR was hands down the best display I’ve ever used for productivity and programming work. It’s night and day and going down to 4K at 27” or 32” is extremely painful not just from a clarity standpoint but for the amount of space. With the XDR I was basically able to have nearly full-width browser viewports on half the screen and the ide on the other half.
With 4K it feels like I have to do a lot of tabbing between apps on a single monitor.
But I get people’s experiences obviously vary since display preferences are extremely subjective and overall it seems like the 27” 5K and 32” 6K fans are in the minority.
I have 20/20 vision and a pretty normal desk setup. I run my 32 4K at 100% scaling in Windows, and while I could maybe push it down a little smaller, some of the least PPI-aware interfaces and text would start to be too small.
If you're running 6K scaled to 150%, you basically just have a slightly sharper 4K monitor - effectively 0 extra space. If you're not running it scaled, I'm betting you're sitting closer to the monitor than is recommended for long term use (or have like 20/10 vision).
With 5k its 200%, with the 6K I think it was 150% or 200%. I do site closer to monitors lol, but I never bought into the “just push the monitor back” argument to simulate higher PPI, you can always tell the difference (imo).
Apple mnitors for whatever reason use ancient 450nm backlight, which strains my eyes like no tomorrow. All modern 5k and 6k use 455-460nm backlight. Otherwise, yes, APples are good.
Interesting using the iPad that way for productivity.
It's too bad there isn't a 3:2 OLED (and if there is let me know). I shelled out for a AW3225QF OLED 4k at 240hz and it is beautiful... I would love to get a proper OLED side monitor for the blacks and contrast but instead stick with my Dell U24 as replacing it seems silly.
> we still haven’t been able to get the colours quite right, in any setup.
Yeah, instant non starter for a $1k display. And the HDR section makes it sound like HDR support is purely there to tick a checkbox and not actually usable on the device. Not even counting the fact that the author had to swap the display as soon as they received it to get a non-defective one.
There’s a reason Apple displays are still the gold standard. Everyone else just skips the quality control part. If you trawl the high DPI display subreddits, you’ll find plenty of stories of people exchanging displays many times (3, 4, 5 or more) until they get a unit with an “acceptable” amount of dead pixels/color shift.
For tech that’s in the $1k-$2k range (or above), it’s just unacceptable.
> There’s a reason Apple displays are still the gold standard.
Apple is not the gold standard, Eizo's ColorEdge monitors are. Built-in hardware calibration is non-negotiable for color critical work. Monitors drift over time.
> Built-in hardware calibration is non-negotiable for color critical work
No it is mostly a convenience gimmick. Support for external hardware calibration is important though. But far more important feature, implemented properly only by Eizo and no one else I am aware of - is uniformity compensation. Benq has it, so does Dell, but they all come with sever limitations compared to Eizo.
Talking about unusual monitor aspect ratios, what I would really want is a 3840x2400 monitor. 1920x1200 is somewhat common and easy to find, but 2400p is only available on a few laptops.
Why 2400p? Because it is the LCM of 400, 480 and 600, so it would allow perfect integer rescaling of my favourite MS-DOS and early Windows games.
The Sotsu "Flip Action Elite" (I think that's the product name? it was in a recent mrwhostheboss thin tech video) is exactly that: 3840x2400, 16", 450 nits, 14.3mm thick, and definitely had "slice the top off a laptop" vibe to the design... I don't know if you can actually find them though, but it looked really shiny :-)
Trivially available at B&H for about $750. Speaking of DOS games, it's about half the cost of an IBM VGA monitor from 1987, in today's dollars.
With a large enough OLED you can just leave some actually black borders and get perfect integer scaling in all cases.
External 16" 3840x2400 monitors are ~$150 on Amazon.
Sorry, I forgot to mention that you can find them in 16", but I would like at least 24" to use it as my main monitor.
The remote looks like something that belongs to a $50 fan purchase on Amazon with a brand name like LXGYMONCEON
Could they have just put "$1000" in the first line of the article? In fact they didn't mention it at all, and I had to look in the AMA zone.
You can tap on "P20" in the disclaimer at the beginning of the article, it redirects you to the products webshop where it says $899 USD
My graphic designing ass feels like this is about the perfect ratio for a screen. And this thing seems quite sturdy.
But even if I had the budget to afford it most probably I'd pass - having to handle settings with a remote control instead of with the OS via a ddc interface or something seems quite odd, or maybe it's just me that grew so used to this "old" Apple Thunderbold Display.
Also that it doesn't have internal speakers, mic or webcam - I really like the thunderbolt display "peripherals" and make my desktop way less cluttered that it should be with just any other monitor, so the hypothetical case of having to get also speakers, mic and a webcam sounds like a serious downgrade. Can't care less about the 120Hz thing but maybe it's because I've never used a high-rate display.
I wish they do a "P20 Pro" of sorts that adds this things.
I’ve been on the fence about the P20 for a while. Some people report getting janky units. BenQ has a 3:2 monitor with 3840x2560 resolution, 120Hz refresh.
Yeah, I much prefer the higher PPI and metal chassis of the Kuycon, but its apparently spotty QC and uncertain brand reputation would make me lean towards the BenQ RD280UG if 3:2 aspect ratio were my dealbreaker. It's just too much money to be taking risks with.
I do applaud the company for bringing a new interesting option to the market, though. Integer scaling HiDPI is rare enough (though thankfully is finally becoming more common), but integer scaling HiDPI with a ratio that's not 16:9 is practically a unicorn. If they can get QC under control I wouldn't mind buying from them in the future.
Ooh this looks nice. https://www.benq.com/en-us/monitor/programming/rd280ug.html
I got one of those about 6 months ago. It’s great. No complaints whatsoever.
I really need a 3:2 desktop monitor but it's just impossible. AFAIK there's only the BenQ one (well it seems that now there's two) and it's out of my budget. I would have no problem settling with a 1080p one but there's just no manufacturers :(
Coding is so much nicer on those. I have a Huawei Matebook 14 from a few years ago, and at my previous work I had a Framework, this ratio is just night and day it's so much better
There is a plenty of Chinese lower quality 28 3:2s
Anyone know how 60hz freesync works out in practice for casual gaming?
After having 120Hz for 2 years, Im never going back to anything lower. At 120Hz I feel connected to the machine
Using Arch with 120Hz feels like you are on a fixie.
So I guess that that's a good thing? What would coasting mean?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixed-gear_bicycle
It's a suprisngly apt analogy, considering with Arch you are always compiling ...
Did you mean Gentoo?
I don't really get this monitor when a 4K 32in QD OLED exists. Running the 32in at 100% scaling will yield more usable space on the left and right, essentially the same height, way better colors, way better refresh rates, and no oddities like the weird remote. The 32in is also likely the same price or cheaper, from a real manufacturer with a real warranty.
32" is too large, it makes you turn your head a lot, and the distortion at the corners is noticeable. You can put it farther away (which requires a nonstandard desk), but it sort of defeats the purpose.
To me, 28" 4K is near the sweet spot: it's exactly 4 14" screens of my ThinkPad. I wish the screens had higher resolution and smaller size though.
How shallow is your desk? I'm on a pretty regular sized desk and have no issues with a 32in monitor.
You said you wished the screens had a smaller size? You'd want a smaller than 28in screen? Wouldn't that get pretty uncomfortably close to view, even with scaling?
The PPI of a 32” 4K is horrendous for anything that’s not media consumption or gaming though.
I recently scored an amazing deal on the Samsung Odyssey G8 G80HS, which is 32", 6144 x 3456 at 165 Hz for only $700 via perks at work [1]!!! Even if computers typically cannot game at 6144 x 3456 px, it is incredibly nice to simultaneously have the fast refresh rate to glide your mouse cursor around smoothly, and have the super high image resolution to read super crisp text. The monitor can also be run at half resolution but at twice the framerate of 330 Hz, which is amazing for older or competitive titles. The only downside is that the quality control is not too great (my friend ordered the same one and it was defective) and the plastic bezel of the monitor seems very generic.
[1] https://i.dllu.net/2026-09-09-20-40-23_b59cb931ec7bd913.png
I’m personally considering the 5K 27” 27GM950B from LG, but I’m hesitant and wonder if I should save the disappointment or inevitable and just spring for the Studio Display XDR. But its quite a jump and I don’t get paid for coding like that anymore so it’s harder to justify now, hah.
However, as another commenter mentioned in the thread it seems like nearly every non-Apple monitor has some sort of negative compromise outside of port selection.
That being said $700 is a steal for that monitor easily and the price overcomes a lot of possible downsides (at least for me it would).
For programmers, there's very little incremental gain by going from 4k/32" to 6k/32". I've tried both and there's a limit to how small the text can be, but then I'm kinda middle aged.
For graphics work, of course the answer might be different and I'm no expert. Personally I think screen size does matter, and I've noticed a fair improvment going from 28 to 32.
I’m a software engineer (or well, was since I’ve moved on) and a single Pro Display XDR was hands down the best display I’ve ever used for productivity and programming work. It’s night and day and going down to 4K at 27” or 32” is extremely painful not just from a clarity standpoint but for the amount of space. With the XDR I was basically able to have nearly full-width browser viewports on half the screen and the ide on the other half.
With 4K it feels like I have to do a lot of tabbing between apps on a single monitor.
But I get people’s experiences obviously vary since display preferences are extremely subjective and overall it seems like the 27” 5K and 32” 6K fans are in the minority.
Are you running any scaling on 5K 27 or 32 6K?
I have 20/20 vision and a pretty normal desk setup. I run my 32 4K at 100% scaling in Windows, and while I could maybe push it down a little smaller, some of the least PPI-aware interfaces and text would start to be too small.
If you're running 6K scaled to 150%, you basically just have a slightly sharper 4K monitor - effectively 0 extra space. If you're not running it scaled, I'm betting you're sitting closer to the monitor than is recommended for long term use (or have like 20/10 vision).
With 5k its 200%, with the 6K I think it was 150% or 200%. I do site closer to monitors lol, but I never bought into the “just push the monitor back” argument to simulate higher PPI, you can always tell the difference (imo).
Apple mnitors for whatever reason use ancient 450nm backlight, which strains my eyes like no tomorrow. All modern 5k and 6k use 455-460nm backlight. Otherwise, yes, APples are good.
What? 32 4K is 138PPI, which is better than 27in 1440P, and it's "retina" at 25in.
27” 1440p was not part of this discussion, I was referencing your comment comparing the P20 with higher PPI against the 4K 32”…
What's the name of the keyboard in the picture ?
It looks a lot like a ProtoArc XK03, but...slightly different. Maybe an older model?
Might actually be this instead: https://keychron.de/en/products/keychron-b11-pro-ultra-slim-...
Interesting using the iPad that way for productivity.
It's too bad there isn't a 3:2 OLED (and if there is let me know). I shelled out for a AW3225QF OLED 4k at 240hz and it is beautiful... I would love to get a proper OLED side monitor for the blacks and contrast but instead stick with my Dell U24 as replacing it seems silly.