It’s time I sought some better informed opinions on this, to help me make a better choice.
I’m planning to purchase a new monitor for photo editing, for which I will be using darktable (migrating from Lightroom). One of the key ‘features’ I need is more real-estate: the right hand panel in darktable’s darkroom gets far too busy on my 1080p-sized monitor, but I’m not sure whether a QHD sized-monitor (2560x1440) is going to give me enough of an increase, or whether I should just go directly to a 4k (3840x2160) monitor.
The other key factor, which almost all reviewers fail to discuss, is pixel-pitch. Yes, the 4k Mac (as an example of a 4K monitor) gives a wonderfully detailed view with its pixel pitch of 163 ppi, but the pixels are tiny (0.15 mm or so), compared to what I learned years ago was good design for people with average visual acuity - which was a pixel size of about 0.25 to 0.29 mm. I personally have very poor visual acuity, while I need to ability to read documents easily - especially those using 6-point font
So which is more suitable for me: QHD with a 109 ppi pixel-pitch, but only 2560x1440 on a 27" display, or 4K with a 163 ppi pixel-pitch and tiny text, but 3840x2160 on a 4K display? I’m not motivated to go larger than 27", given the size of desk and room.
Having got past that ‘size’ decision point, what are the other important parameters - IPS? LCD back-lighting? OLEO display (or is this important only for touch screens?), in-built calibration tools? What else?
I cant really comment on your specific needs, but I recently upgraded monitor. I went for a BenQ PD3200U. And i got to say 32" wasnt as big as I expected. Now i wouldn’t want anything smaller. I run it at 3840x2160 and find it great for Darktable and Davinci resolve. And i don’t find text too small (and that can be adjusted anyway). Its IPS and factory calibrated to 100% sRGB, so missing larger gamut. I find it great for the price, and my prints come out as I see them on the screen.
I had not looked at this, but was attracted to BenQ in general. Now that I look, the price for this one in UK is less than I would have imagined. But this is from their 'Design Vue ’ series, not their ‘Photo Vue’ series. What made you take that choice?
Note that a QHD or 4K monitor might cause your OS to apply some scaling to keep the GUI readable. Windows does this (125% or 150%), but it can be turned off. This somewhat reduces the benefit of having more pixels. Also be aware that actual number of pixels shown for your image increases (by a factor of 4 when you go from HD to 4K), so you need more processing power to render your previews.
For what it’s worth, I have the 27" version of the same display as @Tore_Valberg (the BenQ PD2700U) and it’s large enough for me. Edit: it’s also very nice to edit my photos on.
A much more relevant feature to look for in a new monitor is the available color gamut and one that can display 10 bit colors. Pretty much anything has 98+% sRGB coverage these days, and there are many screens that reach 100% once properly calibrated. I would try to find a monitor within your budget that has a high coverage of Adobe RGB and DCI-P3.
To be honest I didn’t put much thought into that, I knew what size/resolution I wanted and searched up reviews on “best value for money” for my usage. 4K video editing and Photo editing. And in a price range that fits an amateur.
Indeed, in windows it set me to 125% automatically. I reset it to 100% and that works fine for me. But I can see how that may be small for. My dayjob is sysadmin, so its really handy to have many ssh sessions spread over my screen.