[HN Gopher] Ask HN: Why aren't there more third party retina scr...
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Ask HN: Why aren't there more third party retina screens?
Retina screens have been around for something like 8 years, but
there's seemingly only one non-Apple retina screen that exists. Is
there a technical reason for this? Or is it logistical? Surely
there's demand for it, not everyone is buying screens for gaming.
Author : fideloper
Score : 24 points
Date : 2022-03-10 19:26 UTC (3 hours ago)
| bartvk wrote:
| Apple their 24" screens have a 4K resolution, their 27" screens
| have a 5K resolution and their 32" screens have a 6K resolution.
| That's really quite ideal, it's about 215-220 PPI.
|
| Outside of those, I found the same as OP -- really no good retina
| screens, and I just don't know the reason. I've been trying some
| 4K screens at 32" which size-wise is perfect to me, but
| resolution-wise actually bad. You either set it to native 4K and
| everything is too small, you set it to "retina @2x" and it's too
| large, and anything in-between is blurry.
|
| In the end, I gave up and found a 43" screen which I run at a
| native 4K, which means a PPI of about 102. It's better to get a
| 40" screen but these screens are old stock.
|
| Here in The Netherlands, there's a great site to compare
| hardware. When selecting monitors, and filtering for PPI higher
| than 170, you get basically only Apple, or else the Dell
| UltraSharp UP3218K that has a ridiculous 280 PPI.
| runjake wrote:
| Retina is an Apple trademark for a Hi-DPI screen that supports a
| certain pixel density (PPI) that they dictate.
|
| There are several third-party Hi-DPI displays that meet or exceed
| the lowest pixel density that Apple calls "Retina".
|
| As another commenter mentioned, use https://www.sven.de/dpi/ and
| go find a monitor with that resolution and screen size. If you
| figure around 215 ppi or so, you should be golden.
|
| Be aware that there's more difference than you'd think between
| relative minor pixel density differences, eg 180 PPI and 218 PPI.
| layer8 wrote:
| > There are several third-party Hi-DPI displays
|
| I believe there are only very few above ~185 PPI (24" 4K) like
| Apple's 27" 5K, except for the LG one and Dell's 32" 8K. (Oh,
| and there's Microsoft's Surface Studio with 28" 4500 x 3000 at
| 192 PPI.) So for PPI > 200 the question is justified.
| giuliomagnifico wrote:
| I wonder the same, I can only speculate that Apple has bought all
| the LG 27 5K panels, or it has signed a contract to prevent LG
| from selling these panels to other brands.
| reacharavindh wrote:
| Yeah. It's been a long wait with no end in sight. It seems like
| all monitor manufacturers care about are gamers or media
| consumers with their high refresh rate low res displays :-(
|
| I wish for an iMac display without the Mac... to be used as a
| dumb monitor. I'm going to pull the trigger on the studio display
| Apple released yesterday after reading initial reviews.
| matthijs wrote:
| I was hoping for a more affordable 6K 32 (or 30) inch monitor
| but I'm afraid that won't happen anytime soon.
| layer8 wrote:
| My guess is that high-PPI monitor panels have lower yield (more
| pixels per panel that can be damaged) and need dedicated
| production lines, so it requires some economics of scale to be
| viable, and it's just not quite there for desktop monitors.
| Limitations on the bandwidth of integrated CPU graphics and
| connection standards may also play a role, although those are
| improving.
|
| I'd love to have (say) a 30" 6480 x 4320 (~260 PPI), but that
| would be almost twice the pixels of 5K and over three times the
| pixels of 4K.
| arunnanda wrote:
| There are. It is a branding and trademark issue.
|
| The point of a retina display is to have a higher pixel density
| than the human eye can distinguish (at a certain distance).
|
| There are many displays that have far higher pixel density than
| the iPhone.
|
| According to the list here https://pixensity.com/list/phone/
| there are/were at least 40+ non-Apple phones with higher ppi than
| the iPhone X
| heyhemp wrote:
| I think OP was talking about desktop displays. AFAIK, there is
| currently only 1 non-Apple branded "Retina" (~218 PPI) desktop
| display on the market.
| arunnanda wrote:
| Check https://www.sven.de/dpi/
|
| All of the 8K displays have a higher ppi than the Apple 5K
| display (215 ppi).
| finiteseries wrote:
| I only see 1x 8k display listed there, and it's also the
| sole 8k monitor commercially available right now AFAICT?
| tragictrash wrote:
| But it's not a retina display until apple signs off on it.
| I don't think most manufacturers are going to think the ROI
| on the time/effort/money is worth it.
|
| Fun fact, apple gets a cut when you buy any MFI certified
| chargers or cables.
| [deleted]
| endisneigh wrote:
| LG makes 24" 4K monitors and 27" 5K. What are you looking for?
| codedokode wrote:
| Yes, I also noticed that while modern monitors tend to become
| larger, they still have the same 0.3 or 0.2 mm pitch (80-120 dpi)
| as many years ago. Even on cheap smartphones the text looks
| better than on monitors.
| csdvrx wrote:
| There are quite a few if you know what to look for.
|
| Ex: a 4k in 15 inch format: https://www.amazon.com/15-6-Portable-
| Monitor-External-Consol...
|
| About 300 dpi, so about 33% better than Apple's retina brand.
|
| Plug the numbers in https://www.sven.de/dpi/ and you get:
|
| > Display size: 12.98" x 8.65" = 112.32in2 (32.97cm x 21.98cm =
| 724.64cm2) at 295.84 PPI, 0.0859mm dot pitch, 87521 PPI2
|
| Actually, it's far better than a retina display: OLED is
| something not available on macbooks
|
| I have a few, they're a pleasure to use. And I love the
| integrated battery to travel with a dual screen setup with just a
| USB-C cable and my laptop!
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