Is 27" 4K monitor text too small to read>

[DazeMae]

I've seen several photo retouching recommendations for the Dell S2722QC monitor. However, a few say that the text on a 27" 4K monitor is too small when using other applications (Word, Excel, browsing). Does anyone have any thoughts on whether this is a significant limitation?

 

[DrLex]

It depends. Ideally every modern computer operating system should have long abandoned the idea that UI elements and text in applications must be exactly N pixels tall on the monitor. Instead, it should be aware of the physical size and resolution of the monitor, and smoothly scale the whole UI and its text such that the letters will appear M millimeters tall on the actual monitor, regardless of its resolution, and the user should also be able to choose that number M according to their own needs. Most smartphones do this well, Apple has implemented this pretty decently with the fully scaleable interface in Mac OS, Microsoft has made a bit of a mess of it in Windows and you may need to manually tweak it but it is feasible, and in Linux it's a hodgepodge as usual that might be OK depending on the distribution and how much time is spent on tweaking it.

 

[DazeMae]

It depends. Ideally every modern computer operating system should have long abandoned the idea that UI elements and text in applications must be exactly N pixels tall on the monitor. Instead, it should be aware of the physical size and resolution of the monitor, and smoothly scale the whole UI and its text such that the letters will appear M millimeters tall on the actual monitor, regardless of its resolution, and the user should also be able to choose that number M according to their own needs. Most smartphones do this well, Apple has implemented this pretty decently with the fully scaleable interface in Mac OS, Microsoft has made a bit of a mess of it in Windows and you may need to manually tweak it but it is feasible, and in Linux it's a hodgepodge as usual that might be OK depending on the distribution and how much time is spent on tweaking it.

Perhaps I should have clarified that I'm using a 6 month old HP desktop with Windows 11.

 

[DrLex]

I'm not familiar with Windows 11, but according to this article (warning: slightly annoying website with the usual nag screens and pop-overs), it is possible to set the UI scaling per monitor even when you have multiple monitors of different sizes and resolutions. It may be a bit of a hassle, but this should be a one-time thing and not require any intervention anymore once it is set up to your likings.

 

[Cariboou]

Here is how setup the monitor HP in Windows 10, then you can enlarge the fonts also in Firefox

 

[PeterD]

I've got a 4k 32" monitor 8 years ago, never regretted it, even though it seemed large initially (coming from a 21" monitor) . I didn't go for 27" as I considered the 4k pixel density @ 27" a bit too high (i.e. somewhat waisted). 32" with 4k seems just right. Windows provides scaling for text and apps which is set to 150% (as recommended) and which works fine with me. I wanted the better resolution for image processing, but it is also great for working as two pages fit side by side with some space to spare.
YMMV .

Peter

 

[StillStihl]

In my experience, yes. I stick to 27" QHD for that reason. Windows scales things much better than it used to, but you can still run into trouble with various applications, CorelDraw to name but one.