Your explanation in the previous video was spot on, I learned a lot from it and you've saved me from making a bad purchase.

I think most ppl did not get the point of the previous video. He is a heavy video editor, he only cares about color and performance. It really depends on your situation. If you want to get super sharp text and don't care about performance, just get the highest resolution possible. If you care about performance more than sharp text, follow the 110/220 dpi rule. If you want everything, spend more money, 5k 27" or Apple's original monitor.

I really liked how you handled the comments by stating your opinion and usabiliy...and not imposing your view on others...really nice

I understood and related to your first video as helping me understand my dilemma with a 4K 27" Dell monitor and my Mac Mini. Thanks for addressing the questions!

Awesome follow up to the original video on this topic. Your video editing is also getting better as demonstrated from the original video into this follow up video. Keep up the good work.

Just ordered a 27" 4K display and happened to watch your previous video. I have a 13-inc M1 MacBook Pro too. Definitely have to scale it to 1440 or a bit lower. Your video really helps. Thank you.

Bro thank you for the info. I'm glad that you made this second video. Haters will hate with or without us 😜

New sub! I think you did a masterful job explaining something that I could never understand. I’m not there yet fully, but sure learned a lot from you. Thank you for taking the time to make this video! Not enough pancake though.

I thought the first video was great. You explained the issue in incredible depth at a fast pace, so in order to benefit from the research you did (God bless you, you saved me from pulling my hair out trying to run that whole thing down) the listener had to pay attention, but also not get caught up in the details which were just part of the overall explanation. I'm not the sharpest knife in the ... the ... drawer (see!) and I understood it completely. The thing I came away with most, is that you really take the time to know your shit and can explain it in a relatable understandable manner. Peace

After Pt. 1: Im definitely going to buy 27 2k. After Pt. 2 05:57 : Meh, here we go again

I just got a 1440 27inch display. Looks great. Works great. On a 14 inch MBP M1 max. I saved a good bit of money over the Studio Display, but still sort of wish I sprang for it. This is an Eizo Color Edge with Adobe RGB and hardware calibration, so better in some ways than the Apple Display, but it is not nearly as nice to look at as the MBP screen or my old 5k iMac. Beautiful calibration and print matching however, which are more important to me overall.

My friend, you did a great great GREAT job explaining in the previous video, so do not mind about many of those comments. Bests regards forma Venezuelan viewer!

Well, I loved your video about scaling, I found it very helpful!

Honestly, I thought your first video about this topic was rather clear, makes good sense. Message is unless you can accommodate a monitor with minimal size of 32” in 16:9, don’t bother getting 4K. I am using dual monitors - one is the Dell P2715Q 27 inch 4K and a Dell U2415 24 inch 2K and am experiencing the same problem with the 4K monitor and wondered why I even bothered spending the money on it. My desk size can only have two monitors no larger than 27’. Really appreciate your vid and now making this follow up response to the naysayers. Thank you

Your explanation in the other video was perfect, maybe some people are too lazy to pay attention. I've looked for this answer for a long time. I have a 2019 MacBook pro with the intel i9. For years I've been wanting to upgrade my 27 inch Thunderbolt display which is 1440p, to a 4K monitor. The Thunderbolt display is a a great monitor but by now it is ancient. Back in march, I finally got a 27 inch LG 4k monitor. BUT, after first time hooking it up, the performance was so underwhelming that I literally disconnected the monitor, placed it back in the box, and never used it. I do photo and video editing. I was hoping that maybe later getting an m1 chip MacBook could solve the issue.

Actually your original video on the subject helped clarify and emphasize something very important regarding the subject at hand, namely that there is a performance hit when using 4K monitors on a macbook when the scaling comes into play. AND when you are pushing the system to its limits This was critical in understanding the larger topic of not having the 6K studio monitor for Mac.

You saved me days of frustration (and $) and I am so grateful. Thanks for the Q&A as well... This is about learning the secret sauce of tech....

I liked your previous video and agree 100%. Had exactly the same issue on my mac and I thought I was crazy. Rude people should just stop complaining and go out and buy the 4K monitor. It's their money, so they can waste it if they want to. It helped me and I am sure there are others like me. Thanks!

Thanks a lot for these technicals infos. I'm about to buy a MB pro M2. What I've understood from your advices is the LG UltraFine™ 27MD5KLP-B would be a good option with the Mac since it is in the retina zone. I edit a lot of 4k, 6k videos and use After effects also all the time.

i realise I am late to this follow up. I enjoyed your first but blimey, the FCP comment, you really do just wnt to start a fight!!! Nice job

Thanks for the followup video. Question: If I don't mind small texts/icons. Running at native resolution (no scaling), which one do you recommend? 1440p or 4k, on 27inch. Mostly used for photo editing.

Well explained, now it all makes sense to me. In all fairness, though, and as much as I cannot stand windows: the mac os scaling/resolution settings always felt inferior, but apparently they do so for a reason.

I'm late to this discussion but I've been using a wall mounted (over my desk and using the HDMI 4:4:4 pass through) 42" 4k LG C3 as a monitor for a while and it's amazing. It scales to the "good zone" at about 105ppi. I have to lean in to less than 10 inches away before I can MAYBE see a pixel. The color and gamut is amazing as well. The HDR and brightness is among the best, easily. I currently dual use with my pallette on a 27" and workspace on the 42". I'm going to dual 42" it soon. You can get 42" C3s on sale for under $900 just about anywhere.

Just so you know: Windows have lots of problems with scaling too.

Learned a lot from the last video!

Thanks you for both these videos; timing couldn't be better. Looked at the 1440p monitor to go with my M2 Mac mini but unlike many others it doesn't have 10bit. Is that a problem for you. Looking to use with 10bit drone footage. Best to you, great job.

Thanks so much for this additional video.

I agree with everything you’ve said in this video apart from the response to the question about 120hz vs 60hz. I used to be someone that thought “eh, who needs more than 60”, but now - it’s SO hard to go back once you use that high refresh rate. It’s just amazing and hard to put into words how fast everything feels. I literally feel more productive because of it. So I’d recommend to people to go for a gaming monitor that can be calibrated well for creative work - those do exist. Out of the box the colors might be whack but once you calibrate those, and get it looking identical to your macbook - it’s life changing. And I am also using a 13” m1 macbook pro 2020 version. It’s lovely using it on a high refresh monitor with good colors. I was thinking about upgrading to the 16” macbook pro to have more screen real estate, but this monitor has changed everything for me.

I found your first video very helpful and clear and I live in Germany…so my english skills are not the best 😅. Mac-hater are everywhere and you shouldn’t answer to this. I understand your point and thank you so much 🙏🏻.

im currently looking for a monitor to use in blender as well and your videos provided a ton of answers. one question i still have is, did you try and change the scaling preferences within blender on the 4k monitor? im thinking that would give a win/win of 4k resolution as well as solving the small icon issue within blender

10:53 if "double 1440p" is the sweets spot for Mac, would you say the Lg Ergo Dual Up monitor can work? It's a monitor with 2560 x 2880 (like two 1440p monitores stacked up), a roughly square resulution that delivers good real state for a vertical timeline for video editores. Thank you for the content!

I was hoping you'd talk about people's response videos to your last vid. I saw a few people who ran tests with a 27inch 4k monitor scaled at different resolutions and found no performance issues at all.

Hello, thanks for the information. I bought the same monitor and I have a question, what color profile do you use for the monitor? (options from display settings) Are you using the default PA278CV or the Generic RGB Profile? Also which of the monitor's presets are you using? Thanks!

Thanks for the videos! Something I just thought of now. In this video when you say 5k will be better than 4k. In terms of scaling, that only applies if you're using it scaled down to the 1440p right? If you use the 5k natively, then everything will be even smaller than it was on the 4k native right?

Hi, if my laptop can only support fhd, will monitor with fhd, qhd or uhd do any difference on the video output on monitor?

i confuse to choose between ProArt279CV 4K and ProArtd 278QV 2K display for Macbookpro 16" 2019 Intel. Any suggestion?

Could I expect to see performance issues on my m2 max mbp with the LG 40 inch ultra wide?

How about if I use the 27" 4k monitor on it's native resolution or on 1080p? There should not be issue in that case, right?

My m2 MBP has an issue when connecting it to external monitors, the screen starts flickering or refreshing in a weird way, would you know why this happens? Also on a 27 inch 4K BenQ monitor, connected via an usb c to display port cable

Why don´t you use a app that scales the UI for the res you want? Like the SwitchResX ?

Yea, I tried a 43" 4K. Native was still too small for the interface elements. I mean, it was OK, but still rough. I did not want the 1920x1080 native scale. Everything was too huge. Scaling was wonky. The intermediate scales were fuzzy and I did pick up some lag/flicker. I went back to some old 2007 Apple Cinema Display 30" and my eyes were so much happier. So, I am sticking with 2560x1600 displays until 6k displays are more common. I am not gaming...so I need height as well as width.

I bought a 2560x1440 32 inch gaming monitor over a 4K 32 inch after watching your video explaining why you returned your 4K monitor. By god the text is horrible but everything else is just fine. Now I have to switch to 4K.

Do you have any pictures of what the ui looks like on your monitor with your settings?

What do you say if I am looking for a 19 to 21 inch monitor for mac studio max m1? thank you

I’m sitting here with my new Apple Mac Studio and trying to sell my old all in one Mac , can I just use the old Mac that is 5k with studio?

I understood it and I ended up getting the same monitor and it works great! Thanks!

is the 34” curve pro art model be ok for m1 pro 16g ? just for day trading looking at charts

I don’t have any scaling options on my Asus monitor running Ventura. It’s annoying, so when I have to work on certain things, i just switch from 1440p to 1080p.

I am still supper confused. As people are saying that a native 27inch 2k monitor configured on 1440p res looks better then the 27inch 4k set on the same res o.0 ???

that is my thing. I use today a Ryzen 9 3900x windows 10 ...and I just bought a 4k Proart 27'' ....But I pretend to buy a M2 16gb macmini. I most use Indesign and Photoshop / lightroom. Do you think its better to return?

Which operating system you use is a personal choice. Cannot really switch between and Mac OS just because of scaling issues just like most of us aren’t switching between Android and iOS every fewm months, so I don’t understand those comments at all. Just seems like a way to take a dig at Apple products. Now I’ll watch the rest of the video…

So what 24ish inch monitor would be good for MacBook?

Mac has a tendency to set 4K displays to scale with LoDPI (non-retina). This makes the image quality slightly blurry and makes the text especially not crisp. The app betterdisplay forces HiDPI (retina) mode which tremendously improves the crispness of the images and especially makes the text sharp similar to native macbook and ipad dispalys. I highly recommend it as it will solve most mac image quality issues.

Is this scaling thing a Mac OS thing /linux thing? Or is it Apple wanting to sell more retina displays?

I use 24" 1920x1080p as an external monitor for my MacBook Air M1 and it doesn't look blurry at all. And I edit videos every days on it since 2021 and never experienced any performance issues neither. I wanted to buy a 4k monitor tho but now I'm not sure If it's a good idea 😅

Hello, what exact cable are you using? 😊

Thanks, I found your video early or I could face the same issue.

In FCPX (I don't know about other NLEs), its very confusing. With my 4k monitor in 4k, it shows the video at real resolution vs screen resolution : 1/4 of the screen for a 1080p video when selecting 100% size in the viewer. And when I scale, always keeping the viewer at 100%, everything is bigger...except the viewer video. Which is now about 1/6 of the screen. It is 960x540, when I try to screenshot it. I'm not saying the math isn't logical in the scaling process, but for a working point of view, its a deal breaker.

Can someone recommend best 27" Monitor for Mac Studio Silicon under $1,000? Cheers!

Honestly, I never thought about this at all when considering a monitor. I just picked up one of the new Mac Mini M2 Pro and now looking to pair a decent monitor and was just thinking 4k all the way. Even though I'm pretty sure this new machine will handle the upscaling and then downscaling just fine, I just don't like the fact that it would have to do that at all and use unnecessary burden on the system, however unnoticeable it may be. So I understood your original video to mean that 4K isn't always as cut and dry as it seems, which to someone like me (not an expert tech person) it at least gave me some pause to consider screen size as well as resolution. For a system as optimized as apple's new hardware, I don't like the idea of things not being as optimized as possible (as in, performing extra tasks all the time because I chose a less that optimal configuration). So thanks for the original video and this one.

I had the gigabyte fO48U and it was really nice, but 4k resolution but I always found myself resizing everything back larger

does that mean a 34 inch 4k monitor work as good as the 27 inch 1440p one?

Windows PCs have this exact problem. Only that they passes the problem to the user. Most users are scaling without noticing or have a tiny user interface and don't look it as a problem.

Hey just found out this second part video. What waffles? Lol you explained it perfectly in the first video.

You shouldn’t apologize you were exactly right 4K is totally useless on a Mac Book Air. Proper scaling is everything. On 4/10/24 I bought a 27 inch ASUS PA278CV For $249 on Amazon plugged it into my MacBook Air M1 worked perfectly right out of the box. It came with a USB-C connection and cable, so it charges my MacBook with 65 W of power. The 1440 scaling is perfect and the colors are great. It came with a three-year warranty and a guarantee of pixels who could ask for more only $249?💻🖥️🤪 I tried the Dell 27 inch 4K $299 monitor put it back in the box after two hours of use. As you had stated, the scaling had the Goldilocks syndrome,never seemed quite right too small or too big plus the colors were washed out compared to the ASUS. Also, the Dell only had a one-year warranty makes you wonder if they know some thing we don’t. You only get the three-year warranty if you bump up to the more costly $400 and up monitors.👺🖥️

What about 3440 x 1440 ultra wide monitors?

Im really confused i want to buy a wide monitor but i’ll be using it with a mac studio , but i want it to look good if i spend that kinda money , I’ve never had issues with 1080p monitors so i might be ok , as I’m no gear snob , i just want something that works ..

Given that Apple appears to target 110 dpi for system menus and windows, anything that departs too far from that results in text that are too big or too small. What I noticed is that focusing on the vertical lines of physical pixels per screen size helps to simplify things. Potential problems can happen with 4k screens which has 2160 vertical lines. On a 27 in monitor this is around 160 dpi and on 32 in monitor, this is 140 dpi. Since they are both not anywhere near 110 dpi, scaling is needed. What is clear is that under demanding scenarios which most of us probably would not notice, performance can be compromised. How does Apple do it? On a 32 in XDR with 3384 vertical lines, Apple uses 2 lines for each display line so that it acts like a monitor with 1692 lines resulting in 108 dpi. And the 27 in Studio with 2880 vertical lines scaled to 1440 lines results in 109 dpi. Since Apple’s monitors are using 2 physical lines for each display line, you do get sharper text and dividing by 2 is a simple operation, the performance burden is minimized. What this says is that if we use a 4k monitor which has 2160 vertical lines, if it is a 32 in monitor, we need to scale it to 1692 vertical lines like the XDR. But there is no way to get to 1692 from 2160 that is evenly divisible. So there will be “shimmering” during scrolling and this operation is probably computationally more taxing than just dividing by 2. However, 2160 times 3/4 is 1620 lines and 103 dpi which should avoid “fractional” scaling and probably computationally less taxing. The text would be a bit larger than ideal but this could improve performance and visual quality. But without 3rd party software this option is not offered out of the box. For 27” monitors, this problem is potentially less problematic by using 2/3 scaling which is 2160 scaled down to 1440 for 109 dpi. Since this scaling is evenly divisible, 3 physical lines per 2 display lines, we should experience less visual distortions and hopefully less performance issues. But if one’s use is very demanding then I suppose even doing the 2/3 scaling can be a problem. I have a 4k 32” monitor like many MacBook users and I chose the 1692 line scaling option. While I have not experienced performance issues because I am not doing anything graphically intensive, I do see that it isn’t as sharp as my MacBook’s screen. But at the normal viewing distance it is “good enough” for me. But since everyone’s visual acuity is different and everyone’s requirements are unique, there is no way for anyone to say if getting a 4k 32” monitor is always good or bad. In fact, I know that some people with good eyes are perfectly comfortable with 140 dpi that result in tiny text, and use their 4k monitor at its native 2160 lines setting. I suppose if you have the cash, some would say just buy the XDR!

Good one! Subbed

Hoping to get a response, I have a 31.5" diagonal 4K monitor with a resolution of 3008x1692, using the calculator it gives me 109.56ppi which would be about perfect correct? The size of the menus all look good but the text is still a little blurry. Also, I noticed in Lightroom classic that the fan runs a little erratically on my M2 Mac Mini 24gb/1TB. Also for some reason every once in a while in Lightroom classic I have screen flickering.

Hi, can anyone help.. does 24inches 2k monitor works well for mac? with mac m2 air. I am currently using 21.5 1080p monitor and text clarity isnt that great.

I think people are missing the main point here, which is the PHYSICAL PIXELS of the monitor. This problem is not about PPI, but about scaling physical pixels. A 4K monitor has 3840 x 2160 pixels, which are micro points of light. When you reduce the resolution to 1080p (1920x1080), you basically use 2 physical pixels from your monitor to represent 1px of the image. The quality gets much better, and that's called RETINA. Now if you scale a 4K monitor to 1440p (2550x1440), you are telling your monitor to use 1.5 physical pixels from it to represent 1px of the image. But there's no such thing as 1.5 physical pixels! Each pixel is one point of light. You can use 2, 3, or more, but you can't use half or any decimal. That's why 5K is the retina display for 1440p resolution. I'm just wondering how Windows handles this...

Hi. So I had problems with my DELL 4K monitor (flickering sometimes, ghosting other times) and I purchased the Asus you recommend. It works perfect, just the USB-C stopped working after a week or so. ASUS doesnt provide support for MAC, they couldnt help me. With HDMI it works, but I would prefer the USB-C for my setup... - any advice? ideas?

Thanks. Can I confirm something: can macs always just put one pixel to one pixel (retina off)? Like as long as you don’t want retina, the only remaining consideration is dpi? And if you do want retina, then halve the dimensions and continue as you were?

Just a little info on displays in general: the percentile coverage of a color space does not make it xy% accurate, it just means, the display can cover the extreme colors xy%. The spec you showed at 7:05 is a lot more informative though, as it mentions a color accuracy of DeltaE

I just saw your video and 4k on the C3, for me the font is still too small, and I only get HdR settings in 1080p which is something I don't understand still.. I have been using a pc for the c3 now since I got it a week after Black Friday. MAC gatekeepers so much shit its annoying a f. I am running a m2 max , MacBook Pro with 96 gb of ram so I doubt I will have the issue you had, but the scaling is still . DUMB.

I'm looking for a monitor more for music production basically only using Logic Pro just want a bigger screen to edit on I have a MacBook Pro M3 pro chip

Any recs for a 24” monitor for MBP aside from the UltraFine?

M1 only support 60Hz anyway, I think you need to go up to M2/M3 to get support for 120Hz output from the ports

Thank you. I bought a 1440p monitor after watching your first video. If one doesn't want to spend money on high price products, one must compromise on one thing or another. Like you, I chose to save money rather than going for a 5k. Many thanks.

Good day dear sir.... i am considering to buy a second screen for my macbook pro 14m1. So i see that people praise the > LG 27UP850-W < and i was thinking to buy it right away tbh, but then i found 1 more option which is praised very much by other people as well.... wanted to ask what you think about it > Dell UltraSharp U2723QE < ?? would appreciate your response very highly sir! Also if i would like to go to 32 inch .... is there any advice for monitor you would like to provide for me ?? cause as much as i have researched i couldn't find LG 27UP850-W in 32 inches..... thanks in advance sir , your channel is great! (i am not a native english speaker sorry if i made some mistakes)

What if i had a 32 inch 4k monitor and i didn't mind the scaling at 1080p, would i experience any issues?

All it is, is that you like 2560x1440 rendered natively on a 27" screen and expect things to be rendered at that size, while your Mac can actually cope with running Blender like that. Which makes sense because for years Apple shipped 27” displays and iMacs with exactly that size and resolution combination, and then they doubled it to 5K. What you actually needed if you wanted to go 4K was a 5K 27" monitor and to run at 200% scaling so you get the crisp image of 5K and the 1440p 27” UI sizing you expect. What you don't like is 1920x1080 UI scaling at 27" because things are bigger than you expect, and you don't like native 4K scaling at 27" because things are smaller than you expect. Apple "choose weird resolutions like 5K" because it allows you to display a full resolution 4K image with UI controls around the video.

So do we get the 4k and scale down or just buy the 1440 , the 1440 is 150$ less more then happy to buy that one , I’ll be using it to video edit with my M1 Max

@Hunter King What I'd like to understand is what is the difference between "Resolution" and "UI Looks Like" in macOS System Information? It's still so so so confusing. I have a 32" UHD 3840X2160 monitor. When I select 2560x1440, macOS says "Resolution: 5120x2880, UI Looks like 2560x1440" .... why is macOS reporting the incorrect resolution of my 4K UHD monitor? It's very confusing.

I agree and have a m1 MacBook connected to a 5k Apple studio 27inch Display and it scales it down to 2560 X1440 resolution. Most people wouldn’t even know this unless they select the advance setting to “show resolution as list” than the ugly truth 😂 shows itself. Returning it for a 1440p since that’s the most optimal setting for the M1 MB Air.

Why does rtings recommend 27 4k for Mac when claim that's going to kill the gpu?

Would you recommend a 24" 1440p monitor (dual setup), or does the 110 ppi not scale to the "good zone" for 24"? Not seeing that option referenced in the Bjango article. Debating going up to a 27" 1440p, but wanted to see if I could get a crisper image by scaling dow, but dont want to negatively affect the native ppi.

The problem is... tadam... ASUS (with MacOS), you have to flash the firmware to work well with Mac OS

If 1440p is great then why my Lenovo p24h-20 with 2560x1440 gives me blurry text on the default resolution when connected to MacBook m2 pro but when I connect it to my Lenovo laptop everything is great? I just don’t get it

Buy 27 inch monitor Eizo with calibration or BenQ

Don’t listen to anyone claiming to use native 4k resolution on a 27” and find it comfortable. If they do, then they don’t use it to anything besides firing up a game or to binge netflix. You can manage to get into that even with small text and buttons. But then you’re pretty much using your monitor as a television/gaming monitor. You’re not doing any productivity on it.

Anyone could tell me if a 24” 1080p would be good to use with an m1 air?

FWIIW I watched your first video several times, and to me there is no detectable waffle going on. Whomever deployed that comment is obviously a practiced waffle-baitor. Someone who attempts to provoke waffle so they can then slam you for waffling. You handled the attack perfectly though by not waffling in your response. I got a lot from 1440p video #1 and the same for this video. Thanks!

If I’m honest, I initially disliked the video. I figured that if KZfaq rated shorter videos better, it could have been a 5 minute video instead of 15. But, I watched it again later and with more patience, and appreciated the detail you went into. The Bjango article was a cool find.

you can't change ui elements and font size wtihout scaline what the holy hell

Your part 1 explanation fixed my problem on my M1 Pro16in. Many thanks! Assuming you're still using the ASUS 27" 1440p, and if so, I'm curious if you still your recommended it after a year of use 🧐

Glad I picked up a Samsung m7 43" 4k when I bought my Mac mini last year. no scaling perfect size text. Too bad there's no M8 43" only 32" going to pick up a Mac Studio soon might just buy another Samsung m7 to go with it while they still have them in stock.

A 2k monitor in 27 inch is similar to a LED Cinema Display 27" monitor (10 year ago) made by Apple. It is a non-retina display but it is clear for a sharp font. That's why 2k at 27 inch is a decent resolution in this case.

not watching his videos because of the advice, but because of the eyes colour and long hair haha