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Ask HN: Recommended monitor for a small desk

1 points by msencenb ↗ HN
Most reviews I find are for massive monitors, but my desk doubles as my bedside table in our small house, so I'm looking for something that is compact but still lovely. I'll be using a newer MacBook Pro (M3/M4) on it, primarily for software engineering.

Anyone in a similar situation that likes their current setup? At the moment I just prop the laptop up on a travel stand, but that's getting a bit cramped.

11 comments

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colund
There are reports of blurry text on monitors with resolutions around 1440p or less than UHD. macOS doesn't always scale fonts optimally on these, which can make coding feel straining over time. My recommendation is to look into a 4k or higher monitor for sharper text rendering on macOS, even on a smaller screen size.
selectnull
That depends on the size. For 27" or larger, the recommened resolution is 1440p (non-retina) or 5K (retina). 4K is ok if you're going for smaller sizes.

More information here: https://bjango.com/articles/macexternaldisplays/

Just recently bought 27" Dell and I'm quite happy with it (for coding).

msencenb
Which dell did you end up going with?
selectnull
Dell P2723DE
JSDevOps
What’s the refresh rate on that?
selectnull
60Hz
JSDevOps
This is a similar monitor at a similar price at least in the UK but it benefits from the 120hz refresh rate

Dell UltraSharp 27 Monitor - U2724D

msencenb
Thank you, this was the advice I was looking for!
sksxihve
I don't have a recommendation for, but against BenQ monitors, the one I have looks nice but sometimes the refresh gets out of sync (best way I can describe it) and it causes a migraine inducing flicker in the screen that isn't fixed by power cycling the monitor. Dark backgrounds seem to set it off more too.