from Hacker News

Where are all the high-resolution desktop displays?

by yarianluis on 12/8/12, 6:20 AM with 52 comments

• by yantis on 12/8/12, 8:56 AM

  I current use three 3840x2160 monitors (4K displays) (55" each) which in my opinion is a huge upgrade to my previous six 30" Apple cinema display configuration.

  I got mine from IDT (http://toshibadisplays.com) for around 30k USD each a couple years ago. I think they might be considerably less now especially with the new 32" 4K displays coming out in 2013.

  The resolution is split so every display is basically 1920x2160 x2. The hard part is driving these since each one is considered two monitors by the host OS. I use a Quadro Plex 7000 to power two of them and just use my third one with Synergy on a second machine.

  Nvidia has a tool called Mosiac which allows you to turn the screens into one big screen. I also think the ATI Eyeinfinity cards are an option but I personally never tried those.

• by zyb09 on 12/8/12, 12:11 PM

  Because the demand for HiDPI desktop displays isn't there yet. You would buy one, and so would I, but overall they wouldn't sell much, compared to the standard 1080p panels. We have to wait another year until Apple introduces Retina iMacs, tells everybody how awesome they are and why people absolutely need Retina displays. Then suddenly there will be steep increase in the demand of HiDPI panels, and a few month later every manufaturer starts offering them. If I learned anything the last few years, it's that's how it works.

• by munger on 12/8/12, 7:41 AM

  Also, bring back 16:10! Stop putting 1366x768 screens on laptops that are 14, 15 and even 17 inches and saying it's HD! Get off my lawn!

• by Too on 12/8/12, 9:13 AM

  Where are all the high resolution desktop displays? They are stuck in the 90s. Back then I had a 21" CRT that could run at something like 2400x1800. Not all the way to retina but still in a different league than todays screens. It could also run at something like 120Hz refresh rate, but then you had to turn down the resolution to more like 1280x1024.

• by TheHeasman on 12/8/12, 10:45 AM

  Also; there's been an international LCD price fixing conspiracy,

  That... makes the most sense compared to the other arguments http://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2012/november/lcd-price-fixi...

• by Zak on 12/8/12, 7:45 AM

  This is old, and includes an update mentioning Apple's Retina Macbook Pro, introduced after the article was published.

  I think a better question is why nobody else is offering high-res panels on laptops. The Nexus 10 tablet has more pixels than any non-Apple laptop ever produced.

• by blaabjerg on 12/8/12, 9:24 AM

  I'm quite pleased with the el cheapo 2560x1440 Korean 27" IPS panel I bought on eBay a few months back. Set me back less than $300 including shipping to Europe.

  It's nowhere near the pixel density of the small devices of course, but it's quite adequate for my use.

• by Xcelerate on 12/8/12, 8:00 AM

  If monitors are stuck at 2560x1600 forever because it's "good enough", I'm going to be very disappointed. I'm sure I'm not the only one who sits 10 inches away from his screen.

• by moe on 12/8/12, 5:19 PM

  Typing this on a 27" 2560×1440 I don't see myself needing much more.

  Text remains crisp down to sizes much smaller than what I can comfortably read at a normal viewing distance, so there's little I could do with even more pixel estate.

  That is not to say that I wouldn't like a display with even higher resolution, but the returns diminish really rapidly from here.

  I'm definitely looking forward more to panels improving on other metrics such as contrast, color reproduction and viewing angles (IPS glow).

• by rartichoke on 12/9/12, 4:20 AM

  Prices are insane because monitor manufacturers are the scum of the earth. They are constantly getting in trouble for price fixing.

  It's ridiculous that in today's day and age we still have inferior monitors compared to the mid/late 90s. The korean 27" S-IPS 1440 monitors are $275-300ish US.