Monitor recommendation 27"-32"

[Ranger07]

I'm looking for a monitor to connect my MBP M1 to, I'm used to the retina screens on iMac, iPad etc so when I ordered a Samsung 32" LU32R590CWPXXU 32" Curved 4K last week and set it up yesterday, I'm really disappointed with the lack of clarity on it. All the text lacks sharpness and the colours aren't the best.

I'm going to return it and look for something else, I thought it looked to good to be true at £339 but have now realised you get what you pay for.

Can anyone recommend a large monitor that doesn't feel like a massive downgrade from a retina screen? I know now that I'll have to increase the budget quite a bit

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[Darg]

Have a look at the dell u4025qw. It's pretty much top of the PC consumer level monitors at the moment in terms of resolution and connectivity etc. You obviously won't get near a £4600 monitor without spending some proper money. That Dell is around £1600.

 

[Andre]

As a left field, as you don't say what you want to do on it, the Huawei Mateview is a wonderful screen, got two of them for developing on. 28", 3:2 ratio 3840x2560
Had mine coming up on a couple of years now and wouldn't be without them

 

[silvagti]

From what I've read MacOS is pretty temperamental when it comes to scaling text properly on a monitr especially if you need to run it at non-native resolution which is probably why the 32" didn't look great. I'm currently using a 34" ultrawide (3440x1440) which works OK in MacOS but the image isn't retina quality and doesn't look as good as when I use Windows on it either.

If you want to keep to a budget a 28" 4K monitor might be better as you could scale that to 1440p and it should look sharper than a 32" model. Otherwise you're into having to buy a 1440p monitor and running it at native resolution which will be sharp but you'll notice some pixelation on text IME.

Did you have a budget in mind? The 40" Dell monitor @Darg suggested looks good but is a bit pricey at £1600 especially as it's not OLED.

 

[Darg]

Yea to be clear I'd only recommend that Dell as a "budget" alternative to an Apple pro display. If you don't need perfect colour accuracy and instead just want a nice sharp image there will be many cheaper options.

 

[JediFragger]

Dude is gonna go from £339 to £1600+, are you people mad? Be realistic ffs.

 

[Darg]

Dude is gonna go from £339 to £1600+, are you people mad? Be realistic ffs.

Hah, read my last message. He gave no idea of budget though just said he wanted something as good as apple displays. I just gave him the top end "budget" apple display alternative. I don't know enough to recommend anything cheaper.

 

[Ranger07]

Thanks for all the suggestions guys, been checking them out, probably sub £1k would be ideal.

If I was stretching the budget to the Dell at £1600 would I not be better with the Apple studio display ? I know its smaller but might perform better with apple products?

Amazon have it at £1329 at the moment which is a better deal than Apple direct

 

[silvagti]

Assuming the OP wants to stick to nearer their original budget would an IPS 27” monitor at 2560x1440p (or maybe a larger ultrawide [34” 3440x1440 ) running at native resolution be a better option than the 32” 4k one they tried?

Or would a 28” 4k monitor running at scaled to the equivalent of 1440p look OK given the relatively high pixel density ?

Be nice if there was a more sanely priced (~£500) option than the Apple studio display! Though I can appreciate that if you’re using it for work every day and only use MacOS that the Apple display might be the best solution if you can budget for it.

 

[Darg]

If I was stretching the budget to the Dell at £1600 would I not be better with the Apple studio display ? I know its smaller but might perform better with apple products?

I couldn't tell you, I'd look up reviews for the Dell and see if any mention how it performs with your Mac laptop. From what I have read the Dell would be the better monitor by a healthy margin. The apple is only 60hz refresh rate whereas the Dell is 120hz. That not only makes gaming much better but should make desktop usage better too.

 

[JediFragger]

Dell has 11mill pixels though, it'll hammer anything out there for gaming currently inc 4090!

 

[Darg]

Dell has 11mill pixels though, it'll hammer anything out there for gaming currently inc 4090!

OP wanted high pixel density.

 

[Ranger07]

After reading a ton of reviews I decided to opt for OLED and went with the Samsung 34" Odyssey OLED G85SB, seems to have a good write up and managed to use my sons UniDays account to snag it for £959

Really appreciate all the advice and comments, its arriving tomorrow so I'll let you know what it's like set up

 

[JediFragger]

Really appreciate all the advice and comments, its arriving tomorrow so I'll let you know what it's like set up

Ok fair enough, but the AW3423DWF is exactly the same panel and £665 atm. I'm guessing it was more to do with the look though? They do look v nice

 

[silvagti]

After reading a ton of reviews I decided to opt for OLED and went with the Samsung 34" Odyssey OLED G85SB, seems to have a good write up and managed to use my sons UniDays account to snag it for £959

Really appreciate all the advice and comments, its arriving tomorrow so I'll let you know what it's like set up

Cool. Should hopefully be pretty good for MacOS at its native resolution.

Would be keen to hear your thoughts once it arrives.