Apple released "retina" scaling in 2012. It's been more than 10 years.
Linux (and all the Unix’s) had a huge advantage back then because of X11’s superior high dpi support.
I still don’t understand why they have spent the last ten years trying to switch from pixel perfect rendering with variable dpi to fractional scaling.
Is there even a difference, except for the calling it dp instead of virtual pixel? Fractional scaling should be able to render just as pixel perfect if you're not using legacy applications
Then someone in Linux land decided that stuff should be blurry by default because that was the stop gap MacOS chose when they backported a DPI setting to MacOS X.
Apple Notebooks have 224-254ppi, the external displays 218ppi. The only higher ppi displays from Apple are on the iphone, and they are not special, most decent (android) phones from 5 years ago have 400ppi+. Funnily Apple was dragging their feet in this space back then.
Apple is more consistent, but it really isn't hard to get 4k laptop displays now.
Isn’t that in part due to Apple being slow to adopt OLED along with its unusual subpixel arrangement which requires higher ppi to look good.
For example, by the time of the iPhone 8's 326 PPI, LG had the G6 with a 564 PPI LCD.
Now that I think about it, smartphones have stagnated a lot.
I also get a lot better frame rates than pushing 5 4k or 8k screens.
I tried out apples absurd 8k display and it's just so small I'm getting half the text on the screen which is basically throwing money at Apple for no reason.
The 4k43 is glorious for games and for fusion360. Also as a grow light :)
It's game changing, and the OLED shines when I do color sensitive work. It feels like having a huge canvas in front of me. Initially I tried doing fancy window locking arrangements and I still do that occasionally. But over time I moved towards treating it like a big desk that I can resize all my windows on as needed.
However, I would probably move down in size a little next time given the choice. 43" sounds sweet. The issue, at least two years ago, was that these smart TVs are massively subsidized. Mine cost about $1000 I think, probably cheaper now. While similar specs on slightly smaller monitor would be considerably more expensive.
EDIT: I just checked and the 43" 144hz OLED monitors I can quickly find are $1500+, while the updated version of my screen, the LG C2 48", is on sale in a local shop for $600.
This screen is a TV but it's still by far the best monitor I've ever had. The only minor problem is that low brightness and reflectivity of the screen means I had to reposition my desk, and it still becomes an issue for about 30 minutes every day when the sun moves to just the right position to bounce and reflect off the wall behind me on to the screen.
5:4 1280x1024 19" ( 37.68cm × 30.15cm ) 86.27 PPI
16:9 1920x1080 25" ( 55.35cm × 31.13cm ) 88.12 PPI
16:10 1920x1200 24" ( 51.69cm × 32.31cm ) 94.34 PPI
16:9 2560x1440 30" ( 66.41cm × 37.36cm ) 97.91 PPI
16:9 2560x1440 32" ( 70.84cm × 39.85cm ) 91.79 PPI
16:10 2560x1600 30" ( 64.62cm × 40.39cm ) 100.63 PPI
16:9 3840x2160 46" (101.83cm × 57.28cm ) 95.78 PPI
My ideal may be a 16:10, and better a 5:4, with 40cm of height and around 87-89 PPI, nevertheless the monitors with 16:10 aspect ratio use old generations panels what make me to discard them, IPS and VA ghosting. And TN doesn't exist there (at that size the angles limitation of TN would be an issue anyway, nevertheless for 1280x1024 19" is perfect). The modern panels are only under 16:9 aspect ratio.
Unfortunately for me I do not like the 16:9 aspect ratio for monitors due if it is small I'm losing visual space top and down like if it were a letter box, and if the monitor is big it forces to move the head much.
The matter is, I think the marketing of 2K, 4K, 8K is secondary, without knowing the panel size and the distance from what will be viewed firstly. So I usually recommend to do a table with the PPI predilection and width-height preferences. The one I use for to search monitors have the lines of text that gives the panel height with the font size I use more.
> The 4k43 is glorious for games and for fusion360
That gives a reference, 16:9 3840x2160 43" ( 95.19cm × 53.55cm ) 102.46 PPI
Maybe you see this from 65-90cm of distance, at least, due the width, case contrary you would have to move the head and even the body, what makes the fonts look tinny.
I guess the panel manufacturers introduced 16:9 as monitors -stopped developing panels with aspect ratios for computer monitors better said- for to avoid to have two lines of panels, computer monitors and TVs. Mere guessing.
display overclocking has been a thing for the longest time, which also implied that getting more refreshes is often a product of display controller and how reliably your display can work in higher voltage.
getting high yield on larger displays with high ppi is still tricky iirc, especially when some 1080p displays can still come with dead pixels.
i am sure companies would push for higher pixel count displays if economics were rightly aligned.