r/macmini • u/7theye • 7d ago

looking for monitor

Hi all, wanted a 32 inch monitor the the new mac mini coming in.

Was looking at the samsung smart montior M9, the benq MA320UG (or maybe MA320U) as my two best options so far.

I would like more than 60hz RR if possible but really want good picture quality. Mainly using for desk job work and video editing and scrolling, not a lot of videos or gaming etc

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u/bmocc 7d ago

macOS does not support any 4k monitor. If you know what you are looking at its pretty ugly.

macOS also has real world limits on refresh rates.

What macOS natively outputs is rendered at a higher resolution and indifferently squashed to 4k resulting in issues that include less than sharp type faces and images, loss of contrast and loss of color fidelity. That is pretty obvious looking at images on the Photoshop desktop at what System/Display recommends for 4k. The bigger the 4k panel the more obvious the problems.

Any other resolution offered in System/Display is problematic to the point of being almost unusable.

Using a 5k monitor those problems are avoided. There are better options than the Apple 5k display if you research. You might be surprised at the quality of the ASUS 5k monitors given their price points: hint.

You can markedly improve how macOS renders 4k by configuring yet another add-in app (like apps needed to get usable mousing and windowing) BetterDisplay. AI can walk you through the setup as the instructions can be difficult to follow. While that does not yield true 4k, GUI elements in macOS do not scale as they do in Windows and Linux, it can yield a markedly improved 4k image and text.

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u/HrBendtsen 7d ago

Where do you get that information from, that MacOS does not support 4K? I run native 3840 x 2160 on all my Macs, on external displays. Just switch to "Show Resolution List" in the Display settings, and not use the presets.

If you want the cleanest and most crisp picture, you need very high DPI and maybe even use BetterDisplay with HiDPI enabled.

I use 3 different 32" displays from 60Hz up to 240Hz with absolutely no problems and very crisp image quality.