Comment by ak217 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ak217 | Hacker News Reader

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Pixels are very noticeable at 32" 4K. If you don't notice them, your eyes still do - they try to focus on blurry lines, causing eye strain. You might not notice, but it adds up over the years.

It's simple math. A 32" 4K monitor is about 130 PPI. Retina displays (where you could reasonably say the pixels are not noticeable, and the text is sharp enough to not strain the eyes) start at 210 PPI.

Subjectively, the other problem with 32" 4K (a very popular and affordable size now) is that the optimal scaling is a fractional multiple of the underlying resolution (on MacOS - bizarrely I think Windows and Linux both know how to do this better than MacOS). Which again causes blur and a small performance hit.

I myself still use an old 43" 4K monitor as my main one, but I know it's not great for my eyes and I'd like to upgrade. My ideal would be a 40" or 42" 8K. A 6K at that size would not be enough.

I am very excited about this 32" 6K Asus ProArt that came out earlier this year: https://www.asus.com/displays-desktops/monitors/proart/proar... - it finally gets Retina-grade resolution at a more reasonable price point. I will probably switch to two of these side-by-side once I can get them below $1K.

> It's simple math. A 32" 4K monitor is about 130 PPI. Retina displays (where you could reasonably say the pixels are not noticeable, and the text is sharp enough to not strain the eyes) start at 210 PPI.

It's also incorrectly applied math. You need to take into account the viewing distance - the 210 PPI figure often quoted is for smartphone displays (at the distance one typically holds a smartphone).

For a 32" monitor, if your eyeballs are 36" away from the monitor's surface, you are well beyond the limit of normal visual acuity (and the monitor still fills a massive 42 degrees of your field of view).

Take a look at this article: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-64679-2 - the limits at "normal visual acuity" (18 observers ~25 years old) are far beyond what you imply. You need over 95 ppd to exhaust normal visual acuity.

> For a 32" monitor, if your eyeballs are 36" away from the monitor's surface

Why are you assuming 36"? Nobody I know uses 32" monitors at 36" away. Most people use less than half that distance for their laptops, and just over half for desktops.

> the 210 PPI figure often quoted is for smartphone displays

The 210 PPI figure is a minimum, it was used as marketing when Apple first started offering Retina displays. Apple's modern iPhone displays have far higher PPI. Apple's own marketing was challenged by critics who noted that visual acuity may top out closer to 200 ppd.

Perhaps Retina doesn't matter to you - that's OK. But for most of us, 32" 4K is nowhere near the limit of our vision, and by staring at these monitors all day, we are slowly degrading it.

> Nobody I know uses 32" monitors at 36" away.

I suppose it's still true that nobody you know uses monitors of that size three feet away, but I'm very definitely one of those people.

Why on earth would you put the monitor so close to your face that you have to turn your head to see all of it? That'd be obnoxious as all hell.

> ...by staring at these monitors all day, we are slowly degrading it.

No, that's age. As you age, the tissues that make up your eye and the muscles that control it fail more and more to get rebuilt correctly. I think the colloquial term for this is that they "wear out". It sucks shit, but we're currently too bad at bioengineering to really stop it.

> You need over 95 ppd to exhaust normal visual acuity

32" 4K at 36" is 91 ppd. Which I guess is good enough, seeing as I'm well the far side of 25 year old.

> Why are you assuming 36"? Nobody I know uses 32" monitors at 36" away.

36" is the point where I can see all 4 corners of the monitor at the same time (and significantly too close to focus on one corner and have the other 3 corners in view at the same time).

40 degrees of FoV is massive for a single monitor! I'm sitting here wondering how much you have to turn your head to use this size monitor up close

I actually have two more monitors, one on each side of my main one, in portrait mode :) And yes, I turn my head when I want to see them.

I'm glad the low resolution monitors work for you. I just don't want people to proclaim that everything about displays is solved - it's not. There are meaningful, physiologically relevant improvements to be made. It's been over a decade since 4k60 became the standard. A lot of younger people would really benefit from mass produced 6k120 monitors.

> 40 degrees of FoV is massive for a single monitor! I'm sitting here wondering how much you have to turn your head to use this size monitor up close

You move your eyes, not your head. Plus or minus 20 degrees is a trivial amount of eye movement.

Most people are fine with this. Your requirement to comfortably see everything with minimal eye/head movement is atypical.

Even if you do have to move your head, that’s not a bad thing. A little head movement during long computing sessions is helpful.

> You move your eyes, not your head. Plus or minus 20 degrees is a trivial amount of eye movement.

Maybe this varies a lot between humans, because I'm trying the experiment, and any closer than 24 inches requires physically moving my head to comfortably read text in the corner of the 32" display.

Even at 36" it's fatiguing to focus on a corner of the display solely through eye-movement for more than a few seconds.

> Your requirement to comfortably see everything with minimal eye/head movement is atypical

I don't think it's by any means an uncommon requirement. Movie-watchers want to be able to see the whole screen at once (with the exception of some intentionally-over-the-top IMAX theatres), gamers want to be able to see their radar/heath/ammo/etc in the corners of the screen. I'd like to be able to notice notifications arriving in the corner of the screen.

> and by staring at these monitors all day, we are slowly degrading it

Yes, but that is probably accelerated more by sitting closer to screens than is healthy for too long, than it is by the resolution of the screen. It's anecdata so maybe truly everyone you know does sit 45cm away from a desktop monitor - but I can't say I've ever experienced that.

Of course if you do sit that close then higher resolution is resolvable. Perhaps what your statement actually should be is: "Perhaps Retina doesn't matter if you sit at a (perfectly comfortable and healthy) further distance away from the screen - that's OK", otherwise I can a reader may think you are trying to imply the OP is somehow inferior, but really the only thing that differs is your viewing distance.

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