Windows - Retina display equivalent?

[BevS97]

I’m after a new pc, probably a desktop and I keep looking at the Mac with Retina display. But it’s way out of my price range.

Are there any windows machines with similar gorgeous screens. Photos on the Retina display are just stunning.

[SMAX]

You need a 5K display. That is what the 27" iMacs have.

5120 x 2880 pixels.

So something like this for a screen would be similar...

amazon/Iiyama-ProL...rds=5k+display

But obviously you still need the PC box to go with it.

[BevS97]

thats going to be nearly the price of a Mac by the time I add on a pc

If only I didn’t have a Disney addiction I might be able to afford the Mac I really want.

[SMAX]

If you spec a PC to be similar to the iMac it isnt much more expensive. The screen is a fair wack of the price. If you went for the better known brands of 5K screens it would work out dearer than an iMac.

[KeithOP]

Originally Posted by BevS97

I’m after a new pc, probably a desktop and I keep looking at the Mac with Retina display. But it’s way out of my price range.

Are there any windows machines with similar gorgeous screens. Photos on the Retina display are just stunning.

See more...

My advice would be, don't even go there yet. Tons of reasons but briefly...

The imacs with 5k do a bunch of internal magic to present you with a lovely working system. A pc either needs tb3 or 2x DisplayPort to drive a 5k monitor and even then it's hit or miss

Once you DO get it working you'll be in windows DPI hell. Now, it's a lot better in the latest windows 10 builds but it's still not there. So you'll see some apps looking wonderful then you'll call up another app and it'll be so tiny you cant read anything. You'll mess with DPI settings endlessly but no matter what you do, some apps will just stay looking wrong.

Perhaps you'll even want two monitors... good luck moving windows between different resolutions!

We have all this setup at work and every few days we try the latest drivers and the latest firmware/hardware. It's still just icky.

Microsoft have written a lot of really interesting articles on why it's so hard for them to make this work but I won't bore you. Suffice to say that they're pinning their hopes on the new format UWP apps which were designed for high dpi from day one (but there aren't many of them around!)

I can argue for days on mac v pc and I could take either side of the conversation BUT one thing that I really can't argue about is how much better Mac is with high dpi. It just works and works brilliantly. They can even do brilliant things like if you're video editing, the video can be 1:1 to show you the most possible where the controls are 2:1 so they're the right size on screen, lovely and smooth.

Dont forget, apple do 0% interest free credit ;-)

Failing that, my favourite windows monitor is a 4K 34" widescreen. 1:1 looks great on there, no scaling issues, bags of room and windows loves the resolution.

[BevS97]

Originally Posted by KeithOP

My advice would be, don't even go there yet. Tons of reasons but briefly...

The imacs with 5k do a bunch of internal magic to present you with a lovely working system. A pc either needs tb3 or 2x DisplayPort to drive a 5k monitor and even then it's hit or miss

Once you DO get it working you'll be in windows DPI hell. Now, it's a lot better in the latest windows 10 builds but it's still not there. So you'll see some apps looking wonderful then you'll call up another app and it'll be so tiny you cant read anything. You'll mess with DPI settings endlessly but no matter what you do, some apps will just stay looking wrong.

Perhaps you'll even want two monitors... good luck moving windows between different resolutions!

We have all this setup at work and every few days we try the latest drivers and the latest firmware/hardware. It's still just icky.

Microsoft have written a lot of really interesting articles on why it's so hard for them to make this work but I won't bore you. Suffice to say that they're pinning their hopes on the new format UWP apps which were designed for high dpi from day one (but there aren't many of them around!)

I can argue for days on mac v pc and I could take either side of the conversation BUT one thing that I really can't argue about is how much better Mac is with high dpi. It just works and works brilliantly. They can even do brilliant things like if you're video editing, the video can be 1:1 to show you the most possible where the controls are 2:1 so they're the right size on screen, lovely and smooth.

Dont forget, apple do 0% interest free credit ;-)

Failing that, my favourite windows monitor is a 4K 34" widescreen. 1:1 looks great on there, no scaling issues, bags of room and windows loves the resolution.

See more...

Actually that is totally believable as I’m currently using my daughters surface with a larger monitor and that setup has loads of resolution issues. Things appearing huge when you move them from one screen to another.