I have the Apple 6K 32” Pro Display XDR and a Kuycon 5K 27”. Both are great. Apple was $6,500 and the Chinese version was $400 on EBay plus the $100 stand. Kuycon has more types of input, and a remote. Frame and display quality are on par for a dev.
Sometimes this is refreshing. (display joke there, heh) Many UIs don't scale particularly well with very high resolution. So you get UI elements with super-fine text or icons.
Some linux console fonts are almost unreadable with just 4k, though recent releases seem to be addressing this.
Those look like the monitors used on the F1 movie, which is strange, considering it was an Apple production and they maybe should have used apple monitors for product placement . I guess it is a testimony about Kuycon from Apple.
On the official Kuycon site, it says "Since 2023, Kuycon has partnered exclusively with ClickClack.io to bring its innovative line of monitors to customers outside of China[...]". I'm seriously considering getting one of these.
By having fewer pixels, lower quality screens? Crazy what you can do when you cut corners.
This screen reminds of when I did tech support in high school and I helped a guy who bragged about his computer monitor, it was a TV running at 720p (if not lower) and a massive screen. The windows start bar was hilariously large (as were all UI elements), I had to just smile and nod until I got out of there.
Sure, your screen may be bigger but it's blurry and everything is scaled way too large.
The HiDPI/Retina bullshit is just bullshit. I've been running a 4K 43" 4:3 display at 100% scaling since 2018. It is neither blurry nor scaled too large. It can, however, comfortably fit 10 A4 pages simultaneously. Or 4 terminals + a browser + a PDF reader.
I just setup mine today, and I am not sure I recommend it.
I went from a 40" to a 52", and I'm just moving my head waaay too much and my shoulders hurt. It is curved, but very little imo, it's almost like it's flat. I'm going to try it for a week before making the call on whether to return it.
I feel like this needs a workflow where you do work in the middle and use the fringes for other applications that you rarely look at. Otherwise you're moving your head waaay too much and squinting a bunch.
Based on personal experience, I think the upper bound for comfortably useful size at normal sitting distances is probably about 32", and even then I think there'd be better returns on adding vertical pixels to a ~27" monitor. A modern equivalent to the old 16:10 30" 2560x1600 monitors (ideally 2x scaling 5120x3200) would be great for example, but one could also imagine a 4:3 or 5:4 monitor with the same width (~23.5") as current 16:9 27" monitors.
I'm still rocking a couple of 30 inch dell 2560x1600 monitors. They're about the perfect size and not dealing with scaling in Linux is nice. I'd pay a ton of money for a modern equivalent.
Same! My employer offered a choice of 32-inch and 40-inch monitors. I “upgraded” from 32 to 40 but I regretted it. I just don’t make use of the extra horizontal space effectively.
That was my issue with multiple monitors years ago - I'd be cranking my neck over too often (looking at logs, etc). I vastly prefer an ultrawide where I can put logs / monitors on the side flexibly.
I have a 34 inch now, and feel like I could use more space - but it's nice to know there's an upper bound. Do you feel like there's still room to go beyond 40, or is that the sweet spot?
When I owned a 40" monitor, I had to get a deeper desk and sit pretty far from it. Even then, I couldn't game on it, because games shove the HUD and minimal into the corners, and they were too far to the side to keep an eye on.
Can't picture a 52" being usable as a PC monitor, really.
Seconding this. I have one for my work desk, where (surprisingly enough) it made a lot of sense. The DPI isn't as big of an issue as people make it out to be if your workflow doesn't depend on high density, but the curvature definitely could benefit from being a bit tighter. You need a fairly deep desk or a keyboard tray if you don't want to be turning your head a bunch.
That being said, having this in combination with PowerToys FancyZones has been fantastic. At any given time, I'm usually running 1-4 main working windows plus Signal, Outlook, and an RSS reader. This gives me more than enough real estate to keep them all available at a moment's notice. I have roughly 40% of the screen real estate dedicated to Signal, Outlook, and my RSS client, with the interior 60% being hotkey-mapped to divide in different proportions. Compared to my old setup (one ultrawide plus two verticals) it's been awesome.
Maybe it's a head turner vs eye mover thing. It's a lot less fatiguing moving eyes, which might not be option for glass wearers. I sit 2 feet away from my 50 inch OLED and moving eyes is much less work than windows management. Otherwise it is very workflow dependant, i.e. working on visuals or schematic diagrams.
I sometimes think that my 40" is too much because the extra space just ends up hosting distracting junk like Slack.
I also have a mild take that large screens make screen real estate cheap so less thought goes into user interface design. There's plenty of room just stick the widget anywhere!
It'd be pretty interesting to compare how much the amount of information one can cram onto their ~27" screen has changed between 2005 and 2025, with the comparison points between between a Mac running OS X 10.6 and a Mac running macOS 26, which I think is a particularly salient and apples-to-apples comparison since Apple was selling 30" 2560x1600 displays back then, which are close cousins to modern 27" 2560x1440 displays.
My gut feeling is that the difference would be around 30-40%. Information density of the UI of OS X 10.6 and contemporary software was much higher than today's tabletized "bouncy castle" style UI.
It would be interesting but I don't think that information density necessarily makes a good interface.
As a personal pet peeve example, developers love to cram a search bar (or browser tabs) into the top of the window. It's more dense but it's also harder to use and drag the window.
True. More accurately, it's a combination of high density, judicial allocation of whitespace, and layouts that have been thought through. The 2000s versions of OS X were better in those regards too, though.
I've found ideal monitor size and resolution depends greatly on viewing distance and relative position. I use a 38" ultra-wide and it's almost too wide - but I have it 'floating' on an adjustable monitor arm so it's only about 24" from my eyes and a bit higher than most monitor stands would allow. The monitor arm is key because once I put a full ergo split keyboard at a comfortable arm-rest distance, a normal monitor stand sitting on the desk would force the monitor to be too far back.
For the full breadth of a 52" monitor to be comfortably viewable for detail work, I'd have to be farther back enough that the difference between 4K and 6K wouldn't be meaningful. It's kind of like how 8k resolution can provide meaningful value in a head-mounted display two inches from your eyeballs, but 8k on a 65" living room TV seven feet away from your couch viewing position is pointless because even those with 20/10 vision can't resolve the additional detail at that distance.
For detail work I find my best ergo seating position is up close with my legs tucked well-under the desk and my stomach almost touching the edge of the curved desk inset. This allows my forearms to be supported comfortably on the desk. I also have my desk surface a little lower than most and my Aeron chair a little higher, putting the top of my legs almost touching the underside of the desktop.
I've got big monitors, that I hook up to my work laptop and my own laptop. I make it work with a kvm hub. It's really sweet, for my use.
I keep a browser, an IDE, and a terminal pretty much side by side on the bottom one. I keep slack, email, and a clock on the top monitor. I also place pullout tabs from my IDEs on the top one.
Thing is, no matter the cost range, I generally have to replace the KVM hub about once a year. I've just come to accept that as a part replacement cost. <shrug> This thing has its own KVM hub internally. Maybe I'm just rough on my KVM, but if someone puts significant wear and tear on this monitor, I'd imagine that part would wear out, which seems like a potential money sink if you have to keep calling the warranty folks.
If it’s at all representative, I had to replace 2 of the dell ultra sharp super ultra wides due to failing USB C hub / PD parts. I gave up at that point.
To whoever needs to hear it, I will never buy another 16:9 monitor. Vastly prefer the 3:2 on my Framework and also liked an old 4:3 I had. Also great in portrait.
$2900 seems pretty reasonable to me considering the size. Works out to $416/sqft, which is much cheaper than Bay Area real estate.
I never understood the draw of these huge monitors until I had to do CAD for work and now I understand. Giant monitor + SpaceMouse is a gamechanger. My current monitor is 36” and I could easily use more width.
I have a 40in 5k (32in 4k, but wider). IMHO, 138ppi is the bare minimum, but it really depends on a person's eyesight and preferences.
I would love a large-ish ultra-wide with > 160ppi. One day, maybe, that being said, by that time those things will exist and be reasonably priced, my eyes might not be able to appreciate the difference.
I'm using three 4k 32" screens arranged vertically, for 6480 x 3840 desktop size.
The only real monitor upgrade I'm willing to entertain is a ~50" 8k curved screen (basically a curved TV-sized screen), which has not been made yet AFAIK. I'm not into "ultrawide", for me it has to be "ultrawide" and "ultratall". I want all that screen real estate in high PPI.
I tried test-driving a 50" 4k TV for a week and the flatness of it was not what I wanted, it has to be a curved screen for workstation use.
100% I used to have a 43-inch 4K "monitor" (16:9). The lack of curvature meant that at the sides of the screen, there was noticeable color shifting due to variations in viewing angle. That's with an IPS panel.
Your dream is probably a ~50in 8K TV (with RGB pattern if you are on macOS), but curved. I don't know if that will ever exist.
Personally, I found that with a bigger 16:9, I would not use the top and bottom of the screen. When I "downgraded" to a 40in ultra-wide, there was not much difference in the space I was using.
What planet are those people on? That's Gucci bag territory. They can take their res and shove it, that's almost NINE GRAND (granted, Canadian pesos) for a freakin display! Who is this for, just Pixar employees?
In terms of pixel count it's between Apple's 5k and 6k monitors, and its pricing is between the two. It's also far lower pixel density. So, not really.
I use 2 32" 4K which cost about $800 for both monitors. The small gap between the monitors is annoying but I can't really justify paying $2k more. Also there is a samsung dual 4k that is about the same price as the dell.
Moving my head to see everything doesn't bother me. I also have a setup with 3 32" 4k which I find a little too wide but in that setup 1 monitor connects to different computer.
Very large monitors are amazing. I’ve been rocking a single OLED 48” monitor for my MacBook Air M3. It is killer and I can not go back to smaller screen sizes. I just wish it was 6K or 8K instead of my current 4K. And if I do upgrade it will be to a 52/55”.
I wonder if this would work for me. I sit 36" from 43" 4K TV, I run it scaled at 125%
I think I'm already at the edge of how big of a monitor I could use without spinning my head all around. But the curvedness of it might make up for it.
I have a 34" ultrawide and it is huge. I can't imagine a 52" - the edges would be so far away that it must be hard to read text without physically moving left/right
Do you... usually read content in a full-screen window on that thing?
I only have a 27" monitor and sit about 2.5 feet away from it and I move my head _slightly_ to focus on different windows. But that's the reason I have a larger monitor, so I can have a bunch of normal-sized windows open at once.
I like having three columns of code open in my editor, but the left edge of the leftmost column (since code is left-justified) gets pretty far away from my face. Or I need stronger glasses, one of the two.
If the edges of the screen are further from your eyes than the center, the content and text doesn't appear at the same size. If you wear glasses, the edges might even fall out of focus unless you physically move closer.
Now I use a 38" ultrawide, which is roughly the same width (in pixels and in inches) but doesn't require my head to move up/down as much.
I could imagine using a 52" ultrawide if it were placed further away from me (i.e. deeper desk). The extra pixels would make it effectively a retina display.
I have a 42" 4k TV that I use as a monitor (in gaming mode). Not sure I would want anything shorter than that. (Of course, I have an eye issue, so the side-to-side is even more pronounced for me.
And that would strain your eyes or force a bigger font. At that point, you'd be wondering, like me, on why I spent $$ to buy a bigger screen in the first place.
I got an open box lenovo 24 inch QHD monitor for years and it just works solid across windows, mac and various docking stations. I could imagine upgrading to a 27 or 30 inch but beyond that is just too much IMO.
Maybe taller, more square could be of more use than wider.
Interestingly it has Thunderbolt 4 (40Gb), 6K typically saturates 30-31Gb, which leaves less 10Gb/s which isn't a lot especially assuming 2.5Gb network. Looks like a perfect case for TB5 and given its price.
I have a Samsung neo g9 57" which is like 1/2 an 8k monitor (or 2 4k monitors side-by-side) which is sweet since I use picture-by-picture mode to have my work computer on one side and my personal computer on the other side.
Sadly they're not super common which makes them expensive, and I don't think I've seen any that wasn't 16:9. The world has decided to go with refresh rates rather than resolution.
Which is the right choice because our eyes cannot resolve that kind of DPI at that distance.
Past 2880p on most desk monitor viewing distances or past 1080p on most TV viewing distances, you hit steeply diminishing returns. Please, please let's use our processing power and signal bandwidth for color and refresh rate, not resolution.
This is also why I think every console game should have a 720p handheld 'performance' and 1080p living room 'performance' mode. We don't need 1080p on handhelds or 2160p in the living room. Unless you're using relatively enormous screens for either purpose.
I have a smaller version of this and it's pretty good as a display.
I'm somewhat disappointed with it as a hub/KVM. It's better than having to swap cables, but just barely. It can't handle any high bandwidth USB devices I've tried (Focusrite Scarlett 2i2, a DSLR via capture card DSLR and a Logitech webcam). The downstream USB strangely isn't even sending down a keyboard and mouse to a PC, I ended up having to get separate dedicated KVM for those. It worked fine with a Thunderbolt to my Macs, but that's not surprising. I'm not sure how it would work with two Macs (one would have to be HDMI or DisplayPort and use that downstream USB port). I could try that but it's not my use case.
I have the 40" (5K) and it's perfect. Replaced a 27-32-27 setup (the 27"s being portraits, the 32" landscape). For my coding and office work, absolutely no reason to go wider. Highly recommended.
Note the 40", and probably this one too. support MST which makes the display appear as two monitors to the OS and is great in terms of window management without going too fancy with custom software.
Interesting, I'm on 3x27" 2K monitor (same setup as you, portrait, landscape, portrait) and while it works very well for me, I'd like to replace it with just 1 screen (or 3x 4-5K monitors but that is less interesting to me). I already have custom window management software that I use so it wouldn't be hard to switch to sub-dividing 1 monitor to get a similar experience (I think).
Maybe I should look into the 40" 5K monitors, thanks!
Losing the bezel is great, and the Dell 4025qw that I have has also an IPS Black panel which is a vast improvement over what I had before - Dell U27-something (4K IPS), 3219Q (4K IPS). And it's 120hz. I really enjoy it.
So I use a 49" Dell U4919DW (5120 x 1440 @ 60Hz) with an Anker 777 powered Thunderbolt hub to support a MBP, but also use it directly with a lab Windows box. I can't see spending $3k on a monitor because this one was $1100 + $157.29 tax and shipping in 2022. I threw on a 4 port USB-C hub that clamps on the front bezel, so it has reachable ports.
I guess this almost replaces the Anker, but lacks Ethernet.
Looks nice enough. But seems pretty steep. The 42" TV I bought five years ago for $260 does basically the same thing. Slightly more vertical space (albeit at a lower DPI) and somewhat less horizontal. But it still supports four 80-column text windows without a sweat.
Late stage FAANGery is watching 20-somethings try to find ridiculous junk to spend money on.
More accurately, you have spotted not a Linux user in general, but a user of certain Linux distributions, which in my opinion have inadequate display configuration settings.
I am also using only Linux on all my desktops and laptops, and I have never used any display with a resolution less than 4k, for at least the last 12 or 13 years.
Despite of that, I have never encountered any problems with "scaling", because in Linux I have never used any kind of "scaling" (unlike in Windows, which has a font "scaling").
In the kind of Linux that I have been using, I only set an appropriate dots-per-inch value for the monitor, which means that there is no "scaling", which would reduce graphic quality, but all programs render the fonts and other graphic elements at an appropriate size and using in the right way the display resolution.
I configure dots-per-inch values that do not match the actual dpi values of the monitors, but values that ensure that the on-screen size is slightly larger than the on-paper size, because I stay at a greater distance from the monitor than I would keep a paper or a book in my hand (i.e. I set higher dpi values than the real ones, so that any rendering program will believe that the screen is smaller than in reality, so it will render e.g. a 12 point font at a slightly bigger size than 12 points and e.g. an A4 page will be bigger on screen than an A4 sheet of paper; for instance I use 216 dpi for a 27 inch 4k Dell UltraSharp monitor).
plasma 6 for example has really good fractional scaling, i'd argue it works nicer than windows, where some old apps do not get rendered in higher resolution, some apps do not properly take advantage of it.
No, it is a poor pixel density when compared with a printed book, which should be the standard for judging any kind of display used for text.
At the sizes of 27" or 32", which are comfortable for working with a computer, 5k is the minimum resolution that is not too bad when compared with a book or with the acuity of typical human vision.
For a bigger monitor, a 4k resolution is perfectly fine for watching movies or for playing games, but it is not acceptable for working with text.
What I do recommend (having bought one) is the Kuycon G32p, 32 inches @ 6K. Incredible quality and unbelievable value for money (https://clickclack.io/products/in-stock-kuycon-g32p-6k-32-in...).
This is 128 ppi, which would be considered "retina" at a viewing distance of 70cm (27in).
Are you really sitting 2 feet from a 52" monitor? I'd have to cutout a curve in the front of my desk to sit that close
Sometimes this is refreshing. (display joke there, heh) Many UIs don't scale particularly well with very high resolution. So you get UI elements with super-fine text or icons.
Some linux console fonts are almost unreadable with just 4k, though recent releases seem to be addressing this.
also old games.
Dell monitor is twice the surface area with 3/4 the pixels … or in reverse: Apple display is half the size with 30% more pixels.
(edit: corrected dell pixel %)
(It does seem like the resolution differs: 6016×3384 vs 6144×3456.)
Yes I realize the Pro Display XDR has those same specs. 16:10 or 3:2 120Hz or 144Hz would be ideal to me.
This screen reminds of when I did tech support in high school and I helped a guy who bragged about his computer monitor, it was a TV running at 720p (if not lower) and a massive screen. The windows start bar was hilariously large (as were all UI elements), I had to just smile and nod until I got out of there.
Sure, your screen may be bigger but it's blurry and everything is scaled way too large.
The HiDPI/Retina bullshit is just bullshit. I've been running a 4K 43" 4:3 display at 100% scaling since 2018. It is neither blurry nor scaled too large. It can, however, comfortably fit 10 A4 pages simultaneously. Or 4 terminals + a browser + a PDF reader.
I went from a 40" to a 52", and I'm just moving my head waaay too much and my shoulders hurt. It is curved, but very little imo, it's almost like it's flat. I'm going to try it for a week before making the call on whether to return it.
I feel like this needs a workflow where you do work in the middle and use the fringes for other applications that you rarely look at. Otherwise you're moving your head waaay too much and squinting a bunch.
I have a 34 inch now, and feel like I could use more space - but it's nice to know there's an upper bound. Do you feel like there's still room to go beyond 40, or is that the sweet spot?
Can't picture a 52" being usable as a PC monitor, really.
That being said, having this in combination with PowerToys FancyZones has been fantastic. At any given time, I'm usually running 1-4 main working windows plus Signal, Outlook, and an RSS reader. This gives me more than enough real estate to keep them all available at a moment's notice. I have roughly 40% of the screen real estate dedicated to Signal, Outlook, and my RSS client, with the interior 60% being hotkey-mapped to divide in different proportions. Compared to my old setup (one ultrawide plus two verticals) it's been awesome.
I also have a mild take that large screens make screen real estate cheap so less thought goes into user interface design. There's plenty of room just stick the widget anywhere!
My gut feeling is that the difference would be around 30-40%. Information density of the UI of OS X 10.6 and contemporary software was much higher than today's tabletized "bouncy castle" style UI.
As a personal pet peeve example, developers love to cram a search bar (or browser tabs) into the top of the window. It's more dense but it's also harder to use and drag the window.
For the full breadth of a 52" monitor to be comfortably viewable for detail work, I'd have to be farther back enough that the difference between 4K and 6K wouldn't be meaningful. It's kind of like how 8k resolution can provide meaningful value in a head-mounted display two inches from your eyeballs, but 8k on a 65" living room TV seven feet away from your couch viewing position is pointless because even those with 20/10 vision can't resolve the additional detail at that distance.
For detail work I find my best ergo seating position is up close with my legs tucked well-under the desk and my stomach almost touching the edge of the curved desk inset. This allows my forearms to be supported comfortably on the desk. I also have my desk surface a little lower than most and my Aeron chair a little higher, putting the top of my legs almost touching the underside of the desktop.
I keep a browser, an IDE, and a terminal pretty much side by side on the bottom one. I keep slack, email, and a clock on the top monitor. I also place pullout tabs from my IDEs on the top one.
Thing is, no matter the cost range, I generally have to replace the KVM hub about once a year. I've just come to accept that as a part replacement cost. <shrug> This thing has its own KVM hub internally. Maybe I'm just rough on my KVM, but if someone puts significant wear and tear on this monitor, I'd imagine that part would wear out, which seems like a potential money sink if you have to keep calling the warranty folks.
For me, it's too much of a risk, but YMMV.
For my desktop I am looking forward to getting a 3:2 monitor like the Benq RD280U
https://www.benq.com/en-us/monitor/programming/rd280u.html
I never understood the draw of these huge monitors until I had to do CAD for work and now I understand. Giant monitor + SpaceMouse is a gamechanger. My current monitor is 36” and I could easily use more width.
Some other specs: refresh rate, 120Hz; brightness, 400 cd/m².
I would love a large-ish ultra-wide with > 160ppi. One day, maybe, that being said, by that time those things will exist and be reasonably priced, my eyes might not be able to appreciate the difference.
The only real monitor upgrade I'm willing to entertain is a ~50" 8k curved screen (basically a curved TV-sized screen), which has not been made yet AFAIK. I'm not into "ultrawide", for me it has to be "ultrawide" and "ultratall". I want all that screen real estate in high PPI.
I tried test-driving a 50" 4k TV for a week and the flatness of it was not what I wanted, it has to be a curved screen for workstation use.
Your dream is probably a ~50in 8K TV (with RGB pattern if you are on macOS), but curved. I don't know if that will ever exist.
Personally, I found that with a bigger 16:9, I would not use the top and bottom of the screen. When I "downgraded" to a 40in ultra-wide, there was not much difference in the space I was using.
What planet are those people on? That's Gucci bag territory. They can take their res and shove it, that's almost NINE GRAND (granted, Canadian pesos) for a freakin display! Who is this for, just Pixar employees?
0: https://www.rtings.com/monitor/reviews/dell/u3225qe
https://www.rtings.com/monitor/reviews/dell/u3225qe
Moving my head to see everything doesn't bother me. I also have a setup with 3 32" 4k which I find a little too wide but in that setup 1 monitor connects to different computer.
I'm only like 2 feet from my monitor so it doesn't make sense to go any bigger than 30"
It seemed too big, at first, and I split it, but got used to it at full width.
I don't really care that much about pixel density or super-high framerate. I'm old, and don't really game. For software development, it's great.
I think I'm already at the edge of how big of a monitor I could use without spinning my head all around. But the curvedness of it might make up for it.
I only have a 27" monitor and sit about 2.5 feet away from it and I move my head _slightly_ to focus on different windows. But that's the reason I have a larger monitor, so I can have a bunch of normal-sized windows open at once.
If the edges of the screen are further from your eyes than the center, the content and text doesn't appear at the same size. If you wear glasses, the edges might even fall out of focus unless you physically move closer.
Now I use a 38" ultrawide, which is roughly the same width (in pixels and in inches) but doesn't require my head to move up/down as much.
I could imagine using a 52" ultrawide if it were placed further away from me (i.e. deeper desk). The extra pixels would make it effectively a retina display.
It's akin to a 55" TV - basically the same width, but only 70% of the height.
I got an open box lenovo 24 inch QHD monitor for years and it just works solid across windows, mac and various docking stations. I could imagine upgrading to a 27 or 30 inch but beyond that is just too much IMO.
Maybe taller, more square could be of more use than wider.
Past 2880p on most desk monitor viewing distances or past 1080p on most TV viewing distances, you hit steeply diminishing returns. Please, please let's use our processing power and signal bandwidth for color and refresh rate, not resolution.
This is also why I think every console game should have a 720p handheld 'performance' and 1080p living room 'performance' mode. We don't need 1080p on handhelds or 2160p in the living room. Unless you're using relatively enormous screens for either purpose.
I'm somewhat disappointed with it as a hub/KVM. It's better than having to swap cables, but just barely. It can't handle any high bandwidth USB devices I've tried (Focusrite Scarlett 2i2, a DSLR via capture card DSLR and a Logitech webcam). The downstream USB strangely isn't even sending down a keyboard and mouse to a PC, I ended up having to get separate dedicated KVM for those. It worked fine with a Thunderbolt to my Macs, but that's not surprising. I'm not sure how it would work with two Macs (one would have to be HDMI or DisplayPort and use that downstream USB port). I could try that but it's not my use case.
Note the 40", and probably this one too. support MST which makes the display appear as two monitors to the OS and is great in terms of window management without going too fancy with custom software.
Maybe I should look into the 40" 5K monitors, thanks!
I guess this almost replaces the Anker, but lacks Ethernet.
Late stage FAANGery is watching 20-somethings try to find ridiculous junk to spend money on.
LOL
I am also using only Linux on all my desktops and laptops, and I have never used any display with a resolution less than 4k, for at least the last 12 or 13 years.
Despite of that, I have never encountered any problems with "scaling", because in Linux I have never used any kind of "scaling" (unlike in Windows, which has a font "scaling").
In the kind of Linux that I have been using, I only set an appropriate dots-per-inch value for the monitor, which means that there is no "scaling", which would reduce graphic quality, but all programs render the fonts and other graphic elements at an appropriate size and using in the right way the display resolution.
I configure dots-per-inch values that do not match the actual dpi values of the monitors, but values that ensure that the on-screen size is slightly larger than the on-paper size, because I stay at a greater distance from the monitor than I would keep a paper or a book in my hand (i.e. I set higher dpi values than the real ones, so that any rendering program will believe that the screen is smaller than in reality, so it will render e.g. a 12 point font at a slightly bigger size than 12 points and e.g. an A4 page will be bigger on screen than an A4 sheet of paper; for instance I use 216 dpi for a 27 inch 4k Dell UltraSharp monitor).
At the sizes of 27" or 32", which are comfortable for working with a computer, 5k is the minimum resolution that is not too bad when compared with a book or with the acuity of typical human vision.
For a bigger monitor, a 4k resolution is perfectly fine for watching movies or for playing games, but it is not acceptable for working with text.
if you truly want a great display for productivity, I can't recommend the Samsung 57 enough. 240hz, 2x4k in one panel. it's great.
BUT.... this is perfect for folks that want to use one monitor for both work, and as/for entertainment /just normal tv watching in a living room.