Mac with 4K monitor advise

[Captain Morgan]

Mrs M is virtually 100% wfh and her 2013 27” iMac has done sterling service but of late she has complained of some random lockups.

The usage is general office tasks so not taxing so a m1 MacBook Air or Mac mini is on the cards.

The question is what screen? I’ve read that there can be some issues with 4K screens & scaling with these macs, obviously there is the Apple 27” 5k option but that’s a bit spendy.

So I’m wondering if the 4K scaling is really a issue if your doing office tasks & any recommendations on ~32” 4-5K screens.

As ever TIA for any advice.

[gingerpaul]

Anecdotal evidence but I run an M1 Macbook Air into a 4k screen every now and again and it's been fine for me.

[jukeboxs]

I have a similar setup - an M1 Mini with a 32" 4k monitor (BenQ EW3270U, £350-400), heavy spreadsheet / modelling / software work, no issues with scaling.

[wileeeeeey]

Captain, if the monitor you decide on is Dell I should be able to get you a code from work.

[Captain Morgan]

Captain, if the monitor you decide on is Dell I should be able to get you a code from work.

Cheers buddy, she’ll be buying via her ltd company would that preclude any voucher use?

[wileeeeeey]

Cheers buddy, she’ll be buying via her ltd company would that preclude any voucher use?

Ah, possibly. It’s just a code you copy/paste at checkout but it’s meant to be an employee perk for friends/family as the company buys a lot of Dell stuff.

[RobM]

Scaling concerns you may read about often come from people who work with specialised graphics software, where an exact scale is important.

For office use, eye comfort is really all that matters, and you will have no problems with a 4K display. There are also plenty of 1440p or ultrawide 1440p displays that offer different options.

[cbh]

For the use you wife is putting the Mac to, I'd suggest a backup and reinstall of software, it's amazing how much rubbish gets left hidden within the system software over the years.
Unless of course you want to spend and have something new and shiny.

[reecie]

It's to do with the DPI Apple use - 110 and 220. Which map to the 27" 1440p and 5Kp iirc. As said it mainly affects designers who need pixel accuracy but it can also have an effect on the Mac if you are doing GPU intensive tasks as it has to do rescaling on top to make things fit.

See



You are probably fine with getting a monitor that supports USB-C and power delivery so you have a single cable solution. LG make the Apple display so that is probably the closest

[Captain Morgan]

As ever thanks for the words of wisdom folk.

[MrSmith]

Scaling concerns you may read about often come from people who work with specialised graphics software, where an exact scale is important.

For office use, eye comfort is really all that matters, and you will have no problems with a 4K display. There are also plenty of 1440p or ultrawide 1440p displays that offer different options.

this^ i do high end retouch and photography work and use a 27in Eizo graphics monitor but specifically did not want a 4k one as the dot pitch is too small, when looking at images at 100% detail they are too small on a 4k screen if you want to work on some fine detail. if you zoom in then each pixel is interpolated which can mask the true pixel level sharpness. it’s then a compromise working on 4k editing on 2560x1140 but i don’d do that everyday.

27in 2560x1140 is fine for having 2 A4 pages side by side and some menus, 4k isn’t essential for this.

[Phil Lee]

Don’t get a 27 inch iMac now. They have been discontinued and are only available with Intel processors. They have been replaced by two computers, the 24” iMac and the Mac Studio (which requires an external monitor). For your use case, the 24” iMac is perfect.

https://www.apple.com/uk/imac-24/

[Captain Morgan]

this^ i do high end retouch and photography work and use a 27in Eizo graphics monitor but specifically did not want a 4k one as the dot pitch is too small, when looking at images at 100% detail they are too small on a 4k screen if you want to work on some fine detail. if you zoom in then each pixel is interpolated which can mask the true pixel level sharpness. it’s then a compromise working on 4k editing on 2560x1140 but i don’d do that everyday.

27in 2560x1140 is fine for having 2 A4 pages side by side and some menus, 4k isn’t essential for this.

Don’t get a 27 inch iMac now. They have been discontinued and are only available with Intel processors. They have been replaced by two computers, the 24” iMac and the Mac Studio (which requires an external monitor). For your use case, the 24” iMac is perfect.

https://www.apple.com/uk/imac-24/

The current iMac has a 2560-by-1440 27” screen and really looking to increase this size hence discounting the 24” M1 iMac.

Mrs M has a strange creative process where she will regularly have 15-20 documents, presentations &/or webpages open at any one time as references & sources, it’s all word/PowerPoint/excel, no video/photo editing at all & she’s adamant she doesn’t need two screens, because she’s never had two screens…

I suspect the issue is being able to see the various screen options out in the ‘wild’ might be a challenge but I’m leaning towards the LG 4K 32” https://www.lg.com/uk/monitors/lg-32UN880-B or the ultra wide 3440x1440 https://www.lg.com/uk/monitors/lg-34wn780-b or possibly the dell equivalents

[Nogbad The Bad]

I'd be looking at a Mac Mini, maybe leave it a while.

Best check all the software she uses will work on a non Intel Mac.

It has to be said Apple were quite approchable when I purchased a 2013 Mac Pro and had issues with my Del U3415W ( 3440 x 1440 ) ultra wide screen.

https://buyersguide.macrumors.com/#mac