Can anyone use or see 4k or QHD+ at 100% font size for 15" or do you need it scaled?

I hate scaling it as it defeats the purpose of fitting a lot of info on a 15" laptop

 

Eyesight not as good as it once was.

With eyes well rested (rare), new prescription/glasses ($1.5K) and interesting enough article, I can use such a screen for maybe 20 or 30 minutes at the most. And maybe twice a week (the subsequent times it is much less before my eyes fatigue; 10 to 12 minutes if I'm lucky).

Yeah; scaling defeats the purpose of showing lots of info vs. a 1920x1200 same-size screen. But that is not it's main purpose.

The higher pixel count screen is almost always easier to work on for hours on end (scaled) than a lower res (native) solution.

Easier on the eyes should be your main goal. And for a couple of times a month; show off to your friends and foes alike how eagle eyed you are too.

 

Can anyone use it? Yes, some, but probably not most/the average person.

I'm forced to use it at 100% scaling via RDP but use 150% otherwise.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

You will have to scale otherwise you will go blind in a while .. 4k on 15" is not a good idea.. IMO 4K should be on screens >24"..

 

Is it really that bad? What about setting different resolution, e.g. 1920x1080, on 4K screen? How does it look?

 

That is scaled.

 

Yes, it really is that bad. 4K on a 15" requires 200% DPI scaling. At least.

As for downscaling the resolution itself to 1080... well you will notice it's less sharp. After all, it's showing off each pixel as 4 identically colored pixels.

 

It's less sharp than native 4K, but if the GPU is really showing 4 identical pixels for each logical pixel, then it's no worse than a 1080p panel at the same size.

Unfortunately the resampling algorithms of GPUs are general purpose, which means they will introduce some blur on purpose. You will get 4 pixels with similar colors, but not identical.


BTW, I can use 4K 15" screens with 100% scaling just fine.

 

Just to be clear; you can use the native 3840 × 2160 pixels (full time?) with no scaling, correct?

Good points about the resampling too.

 

I haven't seen 4k display live yet but I did see Lenovo's t5-something with the "3k" version (whatever that is, between 1080p and 4k anyways). At 100% scaling while I was able to see everything, it was just too small to be comfortable to use. Maybe 10-15 years ago my eyes would have been better With that in mind, 4k is too much for me even without testing.

 

I stand by my statement that 4K on 17" and below is a joke. 1920x1200 is the max I would ever put on a 15", and QHD only makes sense on at 17-18"

 

I agree that would be the consensus for most people, but as a hardware capability, I wouldn't be so quick to label it as such.

For example, when my pro cameras started offering resolutions past about 6MP or so, I had a hard time justifying buying anything newer than what I already had. But eventually, something changed. The new camera's advantage was not only in resolution, anymore. It included increased dynamic range, less banding for the darker parts of the scene and much less clipping (in %age) in the highlights. And when shot in uncompressed RAW format; the latitude of the original files were an order of magnitude better than what I had previously (damn! I had to spend $xxxK once again for new bodies...).

The resolution by itself wasn't important (I have printed stunning 20' long images from a 2.7MP file, for many clients, after all...) but the additional benefits that the high resolution sensors brought (along with better RAW converters, better on camera algorithms to take advantage (properly) of the additional hardware capabilities) could not be ignored anymore.

With the monitors discussed here; the same benefits can be seen by having a screen that is less fatiguing to look at for longer periods of time, a more realistic rendition of the original scene, more detailed highlights and more detailed shadows and for most people; a film like viewing experience vs. seeing discrete dots on a screen meant for detailed fonts and (a lot of) reading.

Just a note that true 4K and QHD are not the same thing... (only 4K is the closest to a real 'standard').

 

I'm aware, but 2560x1440 seems to fit 17" and 18" just fine in my opinion. UHD/4K is too much at this screen size at native res, at least for most people's eyes, not to mention nothing can properly drive those resolutions yet as far as gaming is concerned. I think FHD and WUXGA will be the computer standard for at least another 2-3 years before graphics hardware catches up and windows scaling becomes as good as OS X (if ever...)

It will probably be another 15-20 years before we see UHD/4K broadcasts. We don't even get 1080P signal yet....

 

+1

How does anyone in his right mind buy a 4K screen laptop?

 

Native res and scaled (to look identical, font size-wise) between same sized monitors with native 1920x1080 and a 4K resoluton is night and day difference to me.

Gaming? Blah.

I am quite sure I have seen 4K broadcasts coming soon (in certain parts of the world)?

QHD (2560x1440) is an anomaly in res and design/execution that doesn't give my eyes a noticeable (or at least a worthwhile) advantage over 1920x1200) in most panels I've seen for notebooks.

 

I don't know where you live, but every OTA signal here on the east coast USA has been either 480i, 480P, 720P, or 1080i. Verizon and Comcast won't even bother with 1080P because they don't have the bandwidth to deliver for everybody (only select on demand titles).

I agree on the QHD vs WUXGA thing...only problem is WUXGA has been out of production for 6 years now, which is truly unfortunate. IMHO this is the ultimate notebook resolution for 15-18". I miss 16:10 so much

 

Just wondering,, because I have to use it at 125% now and on some websites I have to zoom in using a great addon called nosquint.

Problem is at work I run win 8.1 which I can scale differently on my laptop and external screens. At home I run win7 and it can't scale 2 different monitors with different settings.

 

Is there a technical limitation of running Win7 on the home system? Upgrade to Win10 (and afterwards a clean install, of course) for free (for now) and these worries are over.

Nosquint looked promising until I saw it was a ff addon. Firefox; lol... uhm, no.

 

What's wrong with firefox?

 

Too slow to load. Doesn't display websites accurately. Forms don't fill in correctly or sometimes, even show up at all. Ugly ui. Too many 'cool' kids using it.

Do I really have to go on? Lol...

Disclaimer:
IE has worked for me since Netscape Navigator was wiped off the face of the computing world. Everything else is buggy, beta and a poor second choice for my usage.

 

See:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/10298/philips-begins-to-sell-43-4k-ips-display-for-799


4K at usable monitor sizes (and IPS and affordable too).

 

interesting, I have no qualms with Firefox regarding performance and the UI is far more functional for me than that of chrome or IE. to each their own I guess.

EDIT
I guess it's been a while since I checked performance differences. Seems like chrome is the better browser these days. I have both on the computer, I just tend to use firefox for whatever reason. Will have to make the transition eventually

 

Choice is a beautiful thing.

Performance is but a single aspect of what I consider important.

Balance (between all workflow aspects) being the key. And actual real world improvements (if attainable/possible) the biggest indicator to change my workflows.

Change for the sake of change is a nowhere path that I choose to not follow.

 

FWIW Firefox is the most privacy-aware of major browsers. I value it much more than minuscule difference in browsing speed - but everyone has own priorities.

 

What makes it so?

 

@tilleroftheearth ability to completely disable WebRTC & geolocation, and great add-ons to disable unnecessary tracking namely Privacy Badger and Flashblock.

 

The availability of addons for a certain program doesn't mean it is something that is missing/needed for others?

Any links that show any browser is better than another with concerns of privacy?

If your equipment is on the 'net, 'private' is the last thing you are.

 

@tilleroftheearth in this particular case, it means that Chrome, IE, Edge are all missing certain features. I actually do have some amount of privacy thanks to the mentioned above browsing settings, vpn and corresponding firewall policies - at least enough to use any network without sensitive data being exposed to its owners. I believe it is as good as it gets without becoming paranoid and sacrificing many useful features. Of course, Windows 10 is also set up according to my privacy needs.

 

4k resolution on a 15" screen makes no sense to me. I have a 27" 4k Dell monitor and I still scale it because at 4k resolution everything is still small.

 

Sorry if I don't take your word for it (this time).

You are fooling yourself about being able to use any network privately though. Unless you actually do not connect.

 

See post#21...

 

@tilleroftheearth at the moment, breaking encryption I use would require infinite amounts of time... and if FBI or CIA asks, I'd rather give up the passwords, flying well under their radar. Bottom line, while Windows overall leans towards less privacy, and is much less secure than Linux especially out of the box, it can be mostly fixed to provide good enough security and privacy levels.

 

If it is Windows 10, NO! It is a rootkit, it is MALWARE. It is NOT SECURE? No matter how much you tweak it, because some update will break that.

 

Is there any way to set 125% scaling on an external monitor and 100% scaling on internal? Windows 8.1 is supposed to allows this but I can't figure it out.. Only option otherwise is Windows 10 lol..

@Phoenix , @Mr. Fox , @TBoneSan , @tilleroftheearth any idea about this?

I have an Acer XF270HU 1440p monitor... I feel so bad to return it but will be forced to as the res is killing me with 100% scaling..

 

Win10x64Pro (the O/S that let's you use your hardware to it's potential).

 

Doing that now, might as well give it a shot

@Phoenix , what is the program you always recommend to use to use on Windows 10 to get 8.1 scaling ratios etc?

 

Windows 10 DPI Fix

 

With the exception of graphically heavy programs where the GPU can't keep up, yes.
It's not that dense. Plenty of people run Linux desktop programs on 4"~6" Android phones, and some run Windows VMs on Intel phones. With modern phones having at least 1080p screens that's a lot denser than 4K on 15". (Linux GUIs tend to be scalable though.)

However it's important to keep in mind that being able to to recognize every character or symbol on the screen instantly at any time is not necessary for operating on interfaces one is already familiar with. Even if some letters look blurry we still know what each button does, and can select things just fine by memory.

Personally, 4K on 15" (my 3.2K 13" daily driver is slightly less dense) is approximately the upper limit of what my eyes can handle with a comfortable view distance. And I do find myself moving my head forward a bit from time to time when something is hard to read. My browser's default scaling is 125% or 150% to make unfamiliar webpages easier to navigate. Local GUIs are always familiar, so it doesn't matter.

On a 15" laptop I would prefer 2.5K or 3.2K over 4K if I could chose whatever technically possible. But the reality is we often don't have any choice between 1080p and 4K. The high res panels tend to be way better in other aspects, so why not.


It's normal if some people find 2.5K+ screens too dense on laptops and demand 1080p or lower options with good quality. There's nothing wrong with that. But calling people who can utilize high res panels and purchase them out of their minds like some have been doing here is going way too far.

 

Something like 3840 x 2400 with 20" or 2560 x 1600 with 17" would be better combinations. Without scaling UHD is pushing it even for 20" and I would prefer 2560 by 1600. For 15" I really don't think that any of the usual resolutions above 1920 x 1080 make much sense.
And for notebooks they should bring back 16:10 screens and bigger screens by the way - what's that with UHD 13" 16:9 screens and 2560 by 1440 smartphone 5.5" screens while all the big gaming notebooks at 18" only have 1920 x 1080 resolution? Sometimes I think that the display industry is building things mostly because they can and not because people can make good use of it.