Buying a monitor? Please refer to this post before purchasing.
New user? Register here.
- Posts
workfromhomeHi All,
I was given a macbook for my new job and I’m looking for a monitor under 300 euro. I’ve never had a macbook before, its the m3 model and after doing a lot of research a lot of people recommend a DELL Ultrasharp 4k monitor or the Studio which are way out of my budget. I had a look on the website here but I got overwhelmed from the recommendations. Can someone please help direct me in the right direction? Thank you and have a good day.
PCM2Hi workfromhome,
Perhaps you haven’t seen this particular page, but we have very specific productivity recommendations which shortlist exactly what you’re looking for. There are two options there with slightly different feature sets and pricing can vary quite a bit depending on sales and region; the MSI PRO MP273QP and BenQ PD2705Q. The BenQ is the more solidly built and generally better calibrated model which includes USB-C – this will be useful for your MacBook. You can still connect your Macbook up to the MSI and it should work fine – it can also support up to 75Hz rather than 60Hz – but you won’t have the ‘USB Hub’ style capability and 65W charging.
P.S. Nothing personal but please try to avoid using the term ‘2K’ to describe the 1440p or (W)QHD resolution as it’s inaccurate and undersells the resolution. 🙂
workfromhomeHi PCM2,
Thank you for the very quick message, I opened that site and was going through the monitors one by one to see whether they’re compatible with a mac or not. The issue is I had no idea what goes well with the mac. One example is Dell S2722QC has no Apple support and hence why I made this post! I don’t know what exactly to look for as i’ve never owned a mac up until this point. Only thing i’m aware is that the USB-C connection is useful. Based on more research, I’ve seen a lot of users on reddit complaining about a 4k 27 inch monitor looking small connected to a macbook. I know my budget is low (300 euro) but would you be able to tell me what key aspects I should be looking for? Thanks again
PCM2It’s not correct that the S2722QC has “no Apple support”. It works fine on Apple computers, it’s just that Dell Display Manager isn’t supported – which is just software used to control monitor settings. You can just use the OSD (On Screen Display) of the screen as normal to control those instead. It doesn’t mean the screen doesn’t work.
I don’t use Apple systems myself, but as I understand it the scaling applies in a similar way to under Windows. Though you have less flexibility. So if you find things too small with the ‘4K’ UHD resolution natively you can make them larger. You still benefit from the tighter pixel density – this is explored using Windows as an example in our article on the topic. The “key aspects” you should be looking for are the same as you’d be looking for as a PC (or notebook) user. So a lot of it comes down to personal preferences – and that includes with the screen resolution you’d want to go for. 🙂
workfromhomeAh thank you for clearing that up, makes a lot more sense. Makes my decision making a lot easier, either the BenQ or the Dell as mentioned now! If you were to buy one of those two monitors what would you buy for coding purposes only? Gonna research for the rest of the day and then pull the trigger on one! I appreciate your help 🙂
PCM2The resolution is going to be the most noticeable difference there. Which as I said comes down to personal preference. Mine would be to go for the extra resolution of the Dell, though I think either model will provide a nice coding experience.
workfromhomeYup its the one im leaning to more at the moment, you’ve been extremely helpful! Thank you for the help and best of luck 🙂
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.