I had been planning to get a new 27" iMac whenever they appeared,
but that looks unlikely now, so I guess I will be considering a
Mac Mini or low-end Studio. Does anyone have recommendations for
an alternative to the ridiculously-priced Studio Display?

-- Richard

On 9 Mar 2022, Richard Tobin wrote
(in article <t0a77j$1k80$1@macpro.inf.ed.ac.uk>):

> I had been planning to get a new 27" iMac whenever they appeared,
> but that looks unlikely now, so I guess I will be considering a
> Mac Mini or low-end Studio. Does anyone have recommendations for
> an alternative to the ridiculously-priced Studio Display?
>
> -- Richard

Depends what you want really. If I look at the I/O, the power delivery, the
5Kness of it all....a harsh person might suggest it’s a rebadged LG 5K with
the camera of an iPad and the guts of a HomePod Mini glued into it. Not, of
course, that I -am- such a harsh person. Obviously.

But put it this way - I like my LG 5K. Camera isn’t as good as there’s
is, but I’m fine with that.

Cheers,
Ian

In article <t0a77j$1k80$1@macpro.inf.ed.ac.uk>, Richard Tobin
<richard@cogsci.ed.ac.uk> wrote:

> I had been planning to get a new 27" iMac whenever they appeared,
> but that looks unlikely now, so I guess I will be considering a
> Mac Mini or low-end Studio. Does anyone have recommendations for
> an alternative to the ridiculously-priced Studio Display?

it's a very fair price given that it has an a13 processor that supports
siri, has a thunderbolt/usb-c dock that can fast-charge a macbook pro
14", has very good speakers that support spatial audio, has a webcam
that supports center stage and there is an optional counterbalanced
stand that makes it effortless to adjust its tilt/position.

also keep in mind that its a13 processor is a generation later than
what's in an apple tv 4k. theoretically, the display alone could be an
apple tv that would be faster than an existing apple tv 4k.

On 9 Mar 2022, Ian McCall wrote
(in article<0001HW.27D8E1F202BD823B70000198C38F@news.individual.net>):

> isn’t as good as there’s is,

Ouch. I apologise, hang my head in shame and shall do grammatical penance by
re-reading the first three chapters of The Silmarillion.

Cheers,
Ian
..

In article <090320220830277244%nospam@nospam.invalid>,
nospam <nospam@nospam.invalid> wrote:

>it's a very fair price given that it has an a13 processor that supports
>siri, has a thunderbolt/usb-c dock that can fast-charge a macbook pro
>14", has very good speakers that support spatial audio, has a webcam
>that supports center stage and there is an optional counterbalanced
>stand that makes it effortless to adjust its tilt/position.
>
>also keep in mind that its a13 processor is a generation later than
>what's in an apple tv 4k. theoretically, the display alone could be an
>apple tv that would be faster than an existing apple tv 4k.

In other words, it's full of stuff I have no use for. What I'm
looking for is a good quality monitor of similar size and resolution.

-- Richard

In article <0001HW.27D8E1F202BD823B70000198C38F@news.individual.net>,
Ian McCall <ian@eruvia.org> wrote:
>But put it this way - I like my LG 5K.

LG seem to want 1150 pounds for it, so not enormously cheaper (the
Studio display is 1349 on the education store). Also it doesn't seem
to be in stock anywhere. Fortunately I'm not in a desperate hurry.

-- Richard

In article <t0abq7$1mel$1@macpro.inf.ed.ac.uk>, Richard Tobin
<richard@cogsci.ed.ac.uk> wrote:

>
> >it's a very fair price given that it has an a13 processor that supports
> >siri, has a thunderbolt/usb-c dock that can fast-charge a macbook pro
> >14", has very good speakers that support spatial audio, has a webcam
> >that supports center stage and there is an optional counterbalanced
> >stand that makes it effortless to adjust its tilt/position.
> >
> >also keep in mind that its a13 processor is a generation later than
> >what's in an apple tv 4k. theoretically, the display alone could be an
> >apple tv that would be faster than an existing apple tv 4k.
>
> In other words, it's full of stuff I have no use for.

that may be, and is true for many people. the point is that the price
is fair for its features and capabilities.

> What I'm
> looking for is a good quality monitor of similar size and resolution.

lg

On 9 Mar 2022 at 13:58:31 GMT, "Richard Tobin" <Richard Tobin> wrote:

>
> In other words, it's full of stuff I have no use for. What I'm
> looking for is a good quality monitor of similar size and resolution.

There is precisely one, the LG 5k.

It's an unreliable piece of crap.

Cheers - Jaimie
--
"People can be educated beyond their intelligence"
-- Marilyn vos Savant

Richard Tobin <richard@cogsci.ed.ac.uk> wrote:
> In other words, it's full of stuff I have no use for. What I'm
> looking for is a good quality monitor of similar size and resolution.

Much was made in another forum of the way that Apple's 'retina' uses doubled
pixels to ensure sharpness, so a 4K display is a hidpi 1080p desktop. If you
try and increase the desktop resolution the picture is scaled to fit your
monitor, meaning it's no longer 1:1 mapping onto pixels and therefore
fuzzier.

If they have a 27" 5K (ie 1440p doubled), on the same basis that works out
to be a 20.3" 4K. Which is a bit small.

So that leaves you looking at 5K and 8K displays... of which there aren't
very many.

There are also '4K+' monitors like the Huawei Mateview which is 28"
3840x2560. £500 on Amazon (who seem very confused about the resolution,
calling it 2160p, 2400p and 2560p in the same listing!):
https://www.amazon.co.uk/HUAWEI-MateView-Monitor-3840x2160-Ultra-thin/dp/B09C6JZPZG?
No idea how it compares quality wise, but the ppi (165) isn't quite as good
as the 27" iMac (218ppi). And so in 'true retina' mode you'd get an
effective 1920x1200.

Discussion thread about it (TL;DR):
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/mini-paired-with-hauweis-new-4-5k-3-2-monitor-imac-killer.2298993/

Theo

In article <0ii*l+MIy@news.chiark.greenend.org.uk>,
Theo <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:

>Much was made in another forum of the way that Apple's 'retina' uses doubled
>pixels to ensure sharpness

I'm sure that 30 years ago I would have loved that, but I doubt that
could really see much difference now.

My current iMac is pre-retina, 2560x1440, and I wouldn't want to
reduce the number of text windows I can display, so 4k with pixel
doubling would be worse.

Perhaps I should go for a lower resolution without pixel doubling?
And how do you control whether it does pixel doubling?

The Samsung SJ55 34" looks interesting: at 3440x1440 the pixel size
appears to be identical to my current iMac. Same height but a third
wider. No speakers though.

-- Richard

In article <t0cp4i$d8$1@macpro.inf.ed.ac.uk>, Richard Tobin
<richard@cogsci.ed.ac.uk> wrote:

>
> >Much was made in another forum of the way that Apple's 'retina' uses doubled
> >pixels to ensure sharpness
>
> I'm sure that 30 years ago I would have loved that, but I doubt that
> could really see much difference now.

the difference is easy to see, especially for those whose vision has
degraded.

> My current iMac is pre-retina, 2560x1440, and I wouldn't want to
> reduce the number of text windows I can display, so 4k with pixel
> doubling would be worse.

the number of windows is not reduced.

the content is exactly the same, except that everything is sharper and
with a wider colour gamut, and in some cases, higher dynamic range.

> Perhaps I should go for a lower resolution without pixel doubling?

only if low quality is the goal.

> And how do you control whether it does pixel doubling?

you don't. that's the whole point.

unlike windows, mac os handles hi-dpi properly, without users needing
to do anything to benefit from the higher resolution and sharper
rendering.

it's basically the same as laser printers going from 300 dpi on the
early ones to 1200 dpi on recent ones, giving higher quality results.
nobody wanted to disable 'pixel quadrupling'.

you *could* manually set the display to its native resolution, except
everything would be super-tiny and very difficult to read, which is
generally a very bad idea, especially if your eyesight isn't what it
used to be.

Richard Tobin <richard@cogsci.ed.ac.uk> wrote:
> I'm sure that 30 years ago I would have loved that, but I doubt that
> could really see much difference now.
>
> My current iMac is pre-retina, 2560x1440, and I wouldn't want to
> reduce the number of text windows I can display, so 4k with pixel
> doubling would be worse.
>
> Perhaps I should go for a lower resolution without pixel doubling?
> And how do you control whether it does pixel doubling?

There's no 'pixel doubling' setting as such. Simply that there are two
resolutions: the physical resolution of the monitor, and the virtual
resolution of the buffer where the desktop is drawn. At a late stage in the
graphics pipeline the latter is scaled to fit the former. It just so
happens the retina modes have a fixed 1:1 ratio from virtual to physical so
the scaling doesn't affect the image.

(and, separately, 'Settings' allows you to select drawing with S/M/L
icon/window sizes onto that full-resolution buffer)

You can set any virtual resolution you want and it'll get scaled to the
physical resolution of your panel. Natively windows are rendered with 1:1
scaling of virtual to physical pixels, but with third party tools you can
change the resolution - I've used SwitchResX which allows custom virtual
resolutions:
https://www.madrau.com/

and in Mavericks days I used another app called FDM. Seems impossible to
search for it now since that's a term relating to 3D printers. I also
came across:
http://easyresapp.com/
https://www.thnkdev.com/QuickRes/
https://manytricks.com/resolutionator/
which look like they do much the same thing as FDM.

Theo

In article <100320220834556232%nospam@nospam.invalid>,
nospam <nospam@nospam.invalid> wrote:

>> >Much was made in another forum of the way that Apple's 'retina' uses doubled
>> >pixels to ensure sharpness

>> I'm sure that 30 years ago I would have loved that, but I doubt that
>> could really see much difference now.

>the difference is easy to see, especially for those whose vision has
>degraded.

That seems... unlikely. Why would degraded vision make it easier to
see a difference?

>> My current iMac is pre-retina, 2560x1440, and I wouldn't want to
>> reduce the number of text windows I can display, so 4k with pixel
>> doubling would be worse.

>the number of windows is not reduced.

Using pixel doubling on a 4k screen would give 1920x1080, which is
less that 2560x1440.

>> Perhaps I should go for a lower resolution without pixel doubling?

>> And how do you control whether it does pixel doubling?

>you don't. that's the whole point.
>
>unlike windows, mac os handles hi-dpi properly, without users needing
>to do anything to benefit from the higher resolution and sharper
>rendering.

What I want to know is how to make sure that it doesn't turn, for
example, a 3440x1440 screen into a 1720x720 one. Presumably it has
some threshhold resolution above which it does pixel doubling by
default.

-- Richard

In article <2ii*AbOIy@news.chiark.greenend.org.uk>,
Theo <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:

>There's no 'pixel doubling' setting as such. Simply that there are two
>resolutions: the physical resolution of the monitor, and the virtual
>resolution of the buffer where the desktop is drawn. At a late stage in the
>graphics pipeline the latter is scaled to fit the former. It just so
>happens the retina modes have a fixed 1:1 ratio from virtual to physical so
>the scaling doesn't affect the image.

Well in that case the question becomes how does it decide when to
use a retina mode.

>You can set any virtual resolution you want

And I guess that effectively answers it.

What I'm mostly concerned about is being able to have several text
windows (xterm, emacs, etc) side by side with readable text. It's
nice to have fancy video but I have a television for that, which is
far better than any computer screen.

-- Richard

In article <t0d4bv$634$1@macpro.inf.ed.ac.uk>, Richard Tobin
<richard@cogsci.ed.ac.uk> wrote:

> >> >Much was made in another forum of the way that Apple's 'retina' uses
> >> >doubled pixels to ensure sharpness
>
> >> I'm sure that 30 years ago I would have loved that, but I doubt that
> >> could really see much difference now.
>
> >the difference is easy to see, especially for those whose vision has
> >degraded.
>
> That seems... unlikely. Why would degraded vision make it easier to
> see a difference?

it doesn't.

the point is that any vision degradation when looking at a higher
quality original (i.e., retina display) will be better than if the
original started off blurry (non-retina).

in other words, if someone does have vision issues, then they should
get a sharper display.

> >> My current iMac is pre-retina, 2560x1440, and I wouldn't want to
> >> reduce the number of text windows I can display, so 4k with pixel
> >> doubling would be worse.
>
> >the number of windows is not reduced.
>
> Using pixel doubling on a 4k screen would give 1920x1080, which is
> less that 2560x1440.

a 5k retina display is 5120x2880 pixels, with an effective resolution
of 2560x1440 points, exactly the same as what you have now, except that
everything will be sharper and with a wider colour gamut. there will be
no reduction in number of windows or anything else.

if you instead choose to go with a lower resolution 4k display, then
there will be less space available. that has nothing to do with retina.

if you choose a higher resolution 6k or 8k display, there will be more
space available than with a 5k display.

In article <t0d5dk$634$2@macpro.inf.ed.ac.uk>, Richard Tobin
<richard@cogsci.ed.ac.uk> wrote:

> >There's no 'pixel doubling' setting as such. Simply that there are two
> >resolutions: the physical resolution of the monitor, and the virtual
> >resolution of the buffer where the desktop is drawn. At a late stage in the
> >graphics pipeline the latter is scaled to fit the former. It just so
> >happens the retina modes have a fixed 1:1 ratio from virtual to physical so
> >the scaling doesn't affect the image.
>
> Well in that case the question becomes how does it decide when to
> use a retina mode.

it's always retina mode, which is why it works so well.

think of it as a very sharp 2560x1440 point display, that uses multiple
hardware pixels per point.

there are third party utilities that can manually override that to use
native resolution, except that would make everything very, very tiny to
the point of not being usable.

mac os does provide for something in between 2x and a native 1x, which
provides more space, but with a very slight loss in sharpness since
scaling is no longer an integral doubling. the content will be a bit
smaller than at 2x, but still usable, and the difference in sharpness
is almost impossible to notice.

<https://i.stack.imgur.com/TFwE2.png>

most people leave it at the default setting.

On 10/03/2022 11:58, Richard Tobin wrote:
> In article <0ii*l+MIy@news.chiark.greenend.org.uk>,
> Theo <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
>
>> Much was made in another forum of the way that Apple's 'retina' uses doubled
>> pixels to ensure sharpness
>
> I'm sure that 30 years ago I would have loved that, but I doubt that
> could really see much difference now.

I find it much easier to read text on a Retina screen than a non-Retina
screen, and my eyes are pretty crap too. The extra sharpness for the
same visual size makes everything much more legible.

Non-Retina is like squinting at a fax with lines dropped out - probably
not a good analogy.

--
Chris

Richard Tobin <richard@cogsci.ed.ac.uk> wrote:
> Well in that case the question becomes how does it decide when to
> use a retina mode.

I'm not sure it does as such: it knows what virtual resolution to render to,
and the S/M/L in settings tells it what point size to render fonts. At some
point there must be decisions whether to render a 100ppi bitmap icon or the
200ppi bitmap, but most of the desktop is drawn in a vector fashion so it
doesn't matter.

The reason this is interesting (although irrelevant here) is you can get it
to generate an 8K virtual resolution and scale it to a 4K display.
Obviously things are very small, but there's some times when it's useful (eg
screenshotting a large area of Google Maps or something in one go).

> >You can set any virtual resolution you want
>
> And I guess that effectively answers it.
>
> What I'm mostly concerned about is being able to have several text
> windows (xterm, emacs, etc) side by side with readable text. It's
> nice to have fancy video but I have a television for that, which is
> far better than any computer screen.

If that's what you want, you might look at bigger screens and not worry so
much about the PPI. I have a 40" 4K panel which is about 120ppi, ie it's
like four 20" 1080p monitors on a single panel. It's not retina but there's
loads of real estate for terminals, spreadsheets, PDFs, etc. I'm not using
it for movie editing so I don't care about that. On OSes without
hidpi settings 120ppi is about 'normal' desktop resolution, so no scaling
required.

(the model in question is a Philips BDM4065UC, about 6 years old now. There
are newer ones in the 39-43" territory - basically TV panels with monitor
inputs like Displayport)

Theo

On 10/03/2022 09:00, Theo wrote:
> Much was made in another forum of the way that Apple's 'retina' uses doubled
> pixels to ensure sharpness, so a 4K display is a hidpi 1080p desktop. If you
> try and increase the desktop resolution the picture is scaled to fit your
> monitor, meaning it's no longer 1:1 mapping onto pixels and therefore
> fuzzier.

Sort of.

I'm using a Benq 4K display and in the Displays control panel it gives
me two options:

- Default for display (which is 1290 by 1080)
This is extremely sharp but is a bit like reading a large print book -
everything's a bit too big.

- Scaled for display
A choice of 5 settings on a slider ranging from "Large Text" to
"More Space"

They are: 1920x1080, 2560x1440, 3008x1692, 3360x1890 and 3840x2160

All are legible, none are in any way "fuzzy" but the smallest is very
small print indeed. I stick with the 2560x1440 which is a good
compromise for me.

--
Bruce Horrocks
Surrey, England

nospam wrote:

[snip]

>> That seems... unlikely. Why would degraded vision make it easier to
>> see a difference?
>
> it doesn't.
>
> the point is that any vision degradation when looking at a higher
> quality original (i.e., retina display) will be better than if the
> original started off blurry (non-retina).
>
> in other words, if someone does have vision issues, then they should
> get a sharper display.

I've seen this in action. Some years ago an older user at a customer
wanted her PC screen set to 800 by 600 resolution, despite the fact that
the monitor's native resolution was 1280 by 1024. Her initial complaint
was that at the higher resolution all the text was smaller, so I set
Windows 7 to scale everything up by 150%, which brought the text to
about the same size as it would have been for 800 by 600 resolution; but
she still preferred the lower resolution setting which to me was
essentially blurred.

So although I would agree with your statement in principle, real world
users cannot necessarily be convinced.

[snip]

> a 5k retina display is 5120x2880 pixels, with an effective resolution
> of 2560x1440 points, exactly the same as what you have now, except that
> everything will be sharper and with a wider colour gamut. there will be
> no reduction in number of windows or anything else.

Does the Mac have the ability to drive the display at the full 5120x2880
pixels resolution? This would mean that one could have twice as many
windows in each direction, so 4 times the useful information on the
screen. I accept that all the windows would be half size, but for
people with good eyesight or proper close vision correction it would
simply be a matter of sitting nearer to the screen. This would be a
better option than using 4 separate screens each of 2560x1440
resolution, since there would be no break as windows were moved from one
region to another.

--
Graham J

In article <t0dg6j$13d$1@dont-email.me>, Graham J
<nobody@nowhere.co.uk> wrote:

> Does the Mac have the ability to drive the display at the full 5120x2880
> pixels resolution?

yes, but it requires a third party utility.

the problem is everything is too small to be useful, so apple chose to
not offer it directly, however, those who have super-human eyesight can
still do so if they want.

you can get a sample of just how small things are by booting a retina
macbook in verbose mode (cmd-v at boot), which displays a lot of text
at native resolution during the boot process, before the display
drivers are loaded.