* High-ish DPI is desirable. 27" 4K displays are a good start and look pretty sharp at 150% scaling. 5K screens were still pretty overpriced last time I looked, and there weren't many options available, but you can use them at 200% comfortably. Avoid monitors that would require you to use fractional scaling if you're running NVIDIA on Linux
* even for non-gaming uses, high refresh rates are comfortable, IMO. 120hz or higher is fine. Going higher has diminishing returns.
* OLED panels are desirable.
* if you're making a multi-monitor setup, avoid introducing displays that require different levels of scaling. You'll avoid headaches, though KDE improved that drastically in recent years.
Is it even possible to have 5K, 120 Hz and HiDPI together? I also want all three, but the last time I checked, literally the only 5K 120 Hz monitor you could buy was Dell’s 40-inch curved UltraSharp. Which does look nice and has gotten rave reviews, but 5K at 40” just seems too low density for what I want, and there’s literally no other 5K 120Hz monitor out there, unless I’m overlooking something.
I’ve been carefully watching CES hoping someone would announce another one, but so far no dice - Dell did bump their 27- and 32-inch 4K UltraSharps to 120Hz, which is a welcome development, but if you want more than 4K you’re still out of luck.
EDIT: The next hope if that doesn’t happen is that Apple refreshes their 5K and 6K displays with 120Hz when they update the Mac Studio, which is supposedly happening this spring. It would be a logical time for it now that the latest Macs have Thunderbolt 5 (TB4 literally didn’t have enough bandwidth to do 5K@120, much less 6K), but so far there don’t seem to be rumors to this effect, and historically Apple waits a very long time between monitor updates.
Going from 2k / 27" to 4k / 27" screens severely reduced my eye strain after a long day of code-staring. Both were IPS panels so I can only attribute it to the incredibly sharp text rendering.
It just looks better. Text specifically will look much crispier in a 4K 27" monitor at 150% scaling than a 1440p 27" monitor at 100% scale, despite both having the same working space.
Yeah.. Exacly this. I recently started to look for monitor, and dug up site with DPI etc. That high DPI monitors annoys me a lot, its actually very hard to get anything w/ Pixel Size larger than 300um. Smaller pixel put a lot of strain on my old eyes... And upscaling really suxx.. unless you do 200% with means you need to buy expensive gear like 150um pixel size.. and upscale x2...
* 40 inch 21:9 aspect ratio. 34 is too small and 43 and above are too big
* QHD i.e. 3440 X 1440 resolution - why? Because it renders the programming fonts perfectly - many will complain about pixelation but for me it just seems perfect. This translates to a PPI of approx. 93 which is the same as for a 24 inch FHD monitor. Scaling spoils it for me
* Curve - not too less nor too aggressive - LG OLED is 800R which is way too much - on the other hand 2300R is too less - I think 1800 is ideal
* 60 Hz or more refresh rate
* Accurate color reproduction
* Matte finish / antiglare
Sadly, a curved monitor with the above specs does not exist. The only one as I mentioned is the LG OLED which has a far too aggressive a curve. There are some lesser known brands which come as flat which I currently use but I wish there was one that met all of the above.
Even outside of gaming, people's needs are going to vary a great deal. Some people are sensitive to refresh rates, some people really need great color reproduction, etc.
But since you asked what I optimize for... I'm cheap, and tend to opt for inexpensive, no-frills, but reliable 4K monitors. I have several Philips 278E 27-inch 4K monitors. I don't see these on Amazon any more, so maybe this model has been discontinued, but they ran about $250 USD or so. I use a couple on my main workstation for coding, my wife has a couple (that are secondary to an Apple Studio Display), and I have a floating one for the workbench. I find this model to be a sweet spot for my needs. They aren't as beautiful as an Apple display, but they're sufficient.
Potential cons include no camera (I have a separate camera on top, although it sometimes obscures some of the display due to narrow bezels), lousy speakers (I use headsets), and they seem oddly sensitive to electrical fields in the environment (for example, they'll turn off momentarily if I static shock myself on something nearby).
I stopped doing the multi-monitor thing in favor of a single gently curved ultrawide. Coupled it with some window positioning shortcuts/gestures and it’s a dream for me
I’ve had a 28” 4K from LG for four years, and I this year just got a 27” 5K from Samsung. High PPI makes text/code look better. I’ll eventually ditch the 28” 4K for something better (like a 32” 6K or 8K). I really don’t have any other requirements for a work monitor other than modern display PPI.
Running on Mac though, if Linux or windows the choices might be different.
I'm actually planning to buy one too.
I agree with most of the comments about 120Hz refresh,
But I disagree about 4k (not enough content) and this is more personal my last monitor was 32" and it was a huge pain to travel with and I don't have a mansion to be far away from the monitor... so I think I'm aiming this time for 24".
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* even for non-gaming uses, high refresh rates are comfortable, IMO. 120hz or higher is fine. Going higher has diminishing returns.
* OLED panels are desirable.
* if you're making a multi-monitor setup, avoid introducing displays that require different levels of scaling. You'll avoid headaches, though KDE improved that drastically in recent years.
I’ve been carefully watching CES hoping someone would announce another one, but so far no dice - Dell did bump their 27- and 32-inch 4K UltraSharps to 120Hz, which is a welcome development, but if you want more than 4K you’re still out of luck.
EDIT: The next hope if that doesn’t happen is that Apple refreshes their 5K and 6K displays with 120Hz when they update the Mac Studio, which is supposedly happening this spring. It would be a logical time for it now that the latest Macs have Thunderbolt 5 (TB4 literally didn’t have enough bandwidth to do 5K@120, much less 6K), but so far there don’t seem to be rumors to this effect, and historically Apple waits a very long time between monitor updates.
I love being able to plug a single cable into the laptop and everything work, and not have a bulky docking station on my desk.
* 40 inch 21:9 aspect ratio. 34 is too small and 43 and above are too big
* QHD i.e. 3440 X 1440 resolution - why? Because it renders the programming fonts perfectly - many will complain about pixelation but for me it just seems perfect. This translates to a PPI of approx. 93 which is the same as for a 24 inch FHD monitor. Scaling spoils it for me
* Curve - not too less nor too aggressive - LG OLED is 800R which is way too much - on the other hand 2300R is too less - I think 1800 is ideal
* 60 Hz or more refresh rate
* Accurate color reproduction
* Matte finish / antiglare
Sadly, a curved monitor with the above specs does not exist. The only one as I mentioned is the LG OLED which has a far too aggressive a curve. There are some lesser known brands which come as flat which I currently use but I wish there was one that met all of the above.
But since you asked what I optimize for... I'm cheap, and tend to opt for inexpensive, no-frills, but reliable 4K monitors. I have several Philips 278E 27-inch 4K monitors. I don't see these on Amazon any more, so maybe this model has been discontinued, but they ran about $250 USD or so. I use a couple on my main workstation for coding, my wife has a couple (that are secondary to an Apple Studio Display), and I have a floating one for the workbench. I find this model to be a sweet spot for my needs. They aren't as beautiful as an Apple display, but they're sufficient.
Potential cons include no camera (I have a separate camera on top, although it sometimes obscures some of the display due to narrow bezels), lousy speakers (I use headsets), and they seem oddly sensitive to electrical fields in the environment (for example, they'll turn off momentarily if I static shock myself on something nearby).
Running on Mac though, if Linux or windows the choices might be different.
I hate monitor are so bloody expensive