I am looking for a decent, and not too expensive, 4k display in the 24 to 27-inc range that I can primarily use to work from home but also for a bit of gaming and photo editing.
Absolute favorite would be a 4k 27-inch with 144Hz refresh rate but from what I have seen there are only one geared towards gamers.
My current favorite is the HP Z27 (https://store.hp.com/us/en/pdp/hp-z27-27-inch-4k-uhd-display).
What kind of displays do you guys use?
edit: Added the missing “display” to the title
I went with the HP Z27, based on the Wirecutter recommendation. It can handle my personal laptop, my work laptop, and my Nintendo Switch without moving cables around.
Do you use macOS? If so, can you confirm that it allows you to scale it to 1440px retina?
Checking, option-clicking the scaled resolutions in Preferences shows 2560x1440 as available. Setting it, the monitor stays at 3840x2160. (Overcommunicating here just in case.)
Do you connect all your devices via USB-C or what do you mean by “without moving cables around”?
(I went with the Wirecutter’s recommendation for a Z27 as well). The built-in hub’s USB-C connector is DisplayPort-capable, so between the HDMI port, two DP ports(Mini and full) and two USB3 Type-A connectors, it’s easy to leave cables connected and just hotplug when necessary. The stereo jack is even connected to the audio portion of the hub, so my music is coming through my new desktop’s Radeon.
That’s doable, but my laptop is too old! I used to move the DVI plug for my monitor from one sort of dongle to another.
I have the Dell UltraSharp U2718Q and find it to be totally fine, even with gaming. Wirecutter says it’s their budget 4K screen. Would be nice if it had USB-C but not something I need.
Yeah, I have the 2715Q. Bought two for $435 each in 2018 for work. I have been very happy with them for office use. Anything less than UHD is just horrible on the eyes after using retina screens for almost a decade now. I don’t get how anyone stands it (Google doesn’t issue UHD monitors to staff which I think is pretty nuts).
Have three of these (computing family), they’re great and I’m totally satisfied. However, does not meet the refresh rate you mentioned.
Older macbook pro drives two of them very nicely except for videoconf. All three have a problem wake from sleep, both OSs. I have to reset a monitor about once a month, which I can now do in less than a minute. Still wouldn’t hesitate to recommend. They’re beautiful and relatively affordable.
Same display here. I love it. I have the HDMI cable connected to my (personal) Mac mini and a mini-DP cable loose to plug in my work laptop when I want to work.
I’ve heard this year’s model has USB-C.
Precisely for this reason I just bought the LG 32UK550-B for around 340 EUR.
It’s a great monitor but a word of caution if you use MacOS: for some reason, not all scaling option are available to all monitors.
I can only choose to run it at native resolution, where everything is way too tiny, or scaled to 1920x1080px, and everthing is way too big. It does not provide me the option to run it at 1440px retina. This sucks quite a bit.
I’m still trying to figure out why, given that at work we are provided with a 4k monitor and I’m running it at 1440px without any issues. Maybe it’s because the work monitor runs via USB-C, whereas the one I bought is connected via HDMI.
EDIT: I’m fairly sure the monitor I use at the office is the HP EliteDisplay S270
I have a very similar LG monitor – believe the model number is slightly different due to white labeling.
My nightmare of troubles was solved when I moved away from HDMI which was apparently too low-bandwidth to drive 4K above 30Hz (yuck), and to a reliable USB C 3.1 / Superspeed+ cable because the one I pulled from a grab bag at work was apparently a USB C 3.0 cable and didn’t support the right Displayport alternate modes.
I also learned at least a bit about all the distinctions above and truly regret that I did.
I now have a comfortable setup I am happy with a decent amount of scaling options and can at least tell you what options I have, if it would help… I’m not entirely certain I am or if I could run at “1440px retina” because this new world of scaled resolution is near incomprehensible to me :)
Oh yeah, USB C version scheme is true nightmare material.
My monitor doesn’t offer USB C connectivity, however supposedly I’m using a HDMI 2.0 cable wich should support 4k 60Hz and above. I don’t have a Display Port to USB-C adapter to test if maybe the situation is different over Display Port.
I managed to get a “Thunderbolt 3” dock from work and went DP -> dock (MDP) -> USB-C Displayport to my Macbook. It was a mind-bogglingly difficult mess to work through – which is why when the “mandatory WFH” order went out I was sure to go pick up all the gear because I knew I’d never reproduce this at home.
I use a USB-C -> (mini-)DisplayPort alt mode cable, and it is so much better than the world of hurt that is HDMI (which I used before). From HDMI cables with too low bandwidth to glitching after the system resumes from sleep (though IIRC that only happened on Linux).
I use RDM (Retina display manager) to access more resolution modes then otherwise available, have you tried something like this?
Yep, I tried RDM and also SwitchResX without any success.
Ah switch res x would been my next thing to try, that success. Something I’ll look out for when buying 4k monitors in the future, thanks for the heads up.
Get a top-shelf DP cable, and switchresX, I needed that to drive my LG 31” correctly from my older macs, I haven’t tried it with my new 16” tho.
I got two of the LG 27BL65U-W a few months ago when it was on sale at Newegg for $260 and have been very happy with it. I had also checked out the HP Z27 but thought it was too expensive.
It doesn’t have USB ports or provide USB-C charging, which is a plus for me because that makes it cheaper, and I use an external dock anyway.
It seems to be hard to find in stock. For some reason, it’s classified as a “business” monitor. I’m not sure what that even means. But it’s worth checking out comparable LG models, like the 27UL500-W.
I use a LG 27 inch 4k60hz screen (27UD58P-B)
Have had a set of them for 4 years and they’re very good I think. I don’t know if they work with Mac OS, but they work fine in Windows and Fedora
I had a wuxga+ (1920x1200) 24” display (hp la2405x, paid something like 80€ used). During the first days of lockdown I got a second display, same size but different brand: Lenovo (thinkvision).
I think it’s a very good setup. I got a three-display stand and on the third one I’m using a tray to hold my laptop (so that it’s at eyes height).
Less than 200€ total, very functional.
I’ve had a Dell P2415Q for 5 years and I am considering getting a second despite a generally mixed experience.
The first one I received was defective, the first replacement completely DoA (with a university asset tag!), and the final replacement only mostly works. One of the DisplayPort inputs doesn’t work, which I didn’t notice for a few years.
At this point the main irritation is that it doesn’t always come out of sleep mode. I sometimes have to cut power to it. This is made more annoying by how slow it is to wake up. (Right now it is sitting next to an HP E272q which doesn’t have this issue.) I am on Linux with the NVidia binary driver.
The menus are also quite slow, so moving cables is faster than switching inputs.
Despite all this I’m considering getting another. 24” 4K displays with decent color gamut are thin on the ground. 27” ones seem more common, but I don’t have space to move those an appropriate distance back. The crazy thing is they are they same price as five years back — $430.
I have this same display and have the same problems with Linux+NVidia.
Lots of people talking about LG. My anecdote: I had two LGs, one of which was flickering. I manage to send it in for warranty repair, but LG refuse to send a refurb to me, they absolutely have to repair the one I send them. OK, fine. It’ll be a week they say. Three weeks goes by, no monitor. It eventually arrives, only to have been made worse by a huge white splotch on the screen. I call them again. “Oh no, we couldn’t have done that. We think you did it and so it’s not covered under warranty.” I had to bitch at them for weeks to give me the money back for the monitor they broke.
I just sold both of them as soon as the other one came back and bought Dells. I trust Dell to actually do right by me (e.g. send me a refurb instead of forcing me to wait for them to repair). I feel similarly about HP, so the Z27 is probably a good call. I’ll never buy an LG product again (not even one of their OLED TVs, I’ll get a Sony instead).
LG UltraFine 5kmonitor. Works great on Thinkpad running Linux. Not exactly cheap, though.It’s an amazing display. Get someone else to buy it for you though!
I have been using the Dell S2716DG for about a year now and have loved it so far. It’s a 27-inch 1440p 144hz monitor with G-SYNC, which is probably overkill for non-FPS games especially now that Nvidia supports Freesync monitors.
In the end I went with the LG 27UL600 instead of the HP Z27 because the LG has 99% sRGB Colour space coverage (the HP has around 70%) and it was over 200 CHF cheaper. Thanks for all the feedback!
Good choice! I have the 27UL600-W as well. Great monitor.
Good idea to get a 4K monitor. I recently upgraded as well and terminals are so much nicer to read.
I got a LG 27UL850. Works fine for me, and it isn’t much bigger than the 23(?) inch Dell it replaces, just a bit wider. Didn’t try the USB-C yet. No problems with Linux.
LG 27UL600-W
It was GBP 300 back in January. It seems to have got more expensive since.
Cribbing from their page on it…
I have it on a ‘proper’ stand (the sort that clamps to your desk) and raised up enough that I can put my 15” MBP 2015 on the desk below it nicely.
I mention the model of laptop because it’s important - it has mini-DP and HDMI sockets.
I connect to it with a mini-DP to DP cable and it runs at 60Hz.
It’s ‘retina’ at normal working distance. One reason I got it was I’d been spoiled by my MacBook screen and didn’t want to see pixels any more. It ‘looks like’ 3008 x 1692 virtual pixels at the middle ‘scaled’ resolution I use. Sometimes I play with that via the EasyRes utility. If I’m sitting down then I am slightly closer to the screen and can increase the resolution. If I’m standing up I tend to be slightly further away from the screen so I might alter it so on-screen items are bigger.
I think the -W in the model number just means ’white - as in, the back of it is white, but the front bezel is black.
Not quite 4k but I used the LG Ultrafine 5k combined with a 5k-iMac, it also plugs into my MacBooks whenever I need it for them. Works great, no problems, best monitor I’ve ever owned.
Had some problems with the WQHD version of the Z27 where the USB-C connection would stop working every few weeks, turned out that the settings would revert to power saver mode at some unknown interval of time which in turn disabled USB-C, pulled my hair for a while before I figured out what was happening the first time. It also only supplied 15W power over USB-C so it wasn’t really enough to charge my laptop while using it so I had to still use an external charger which felt like a step backwards.
I have 3x Asus PB287Q displays. They’re a bit large to be 4k, but I’ve gotten used to it (I run 2x retina), and in honesty it’s kidna nice having everything be a little large, but still crisp. Recommended.
I also have the LG 31” “real 4k” with 4096x across, on another desk. Needs a lot of signal bandwidth so you really do need to spend on cabling, but oh lawd that panel is beautiful. It shows colours I’ve never seen on an another computer display.
What’s the model number on the LG 31”?
I’m using the 1440p variant of the HP Z27 with a MacBook Pro and it’s served me very well. IMO 1080p/4K resolution is better on a 24” monitor, while 27” should be 1440p/5K. To each their own; I’m sure that the 4K Z27 is awesome too.
This time around I wanted an alternative to a multi screen setup, and went for a 43” (!) monitor: https://www.lg.com/us/monitors/lg-43UD79-B-4k-uhd-led-monitor
It doubles as a decent TV, and indeed it has a tiny remote, but it’s actually an awesome monitor. Once I got used to it, and dusted off my old XMonad setup, I’m totally sold and liking it more than multi monitor setups!
This thing has a ton of inputs too, and cool ways to display them at once. Using a 60fps 4k HDMI for playstation, and Display Port over USB-C for my laptop.