Part 2 of this, our Eizo CS2740 Evaluation, is all about 4K.

4K (AKA High DPI displays) is a significant shift in monitor technology, and definitely worth talking about and understanding properly.

We'll start with some definitions, and then move through the benefits of 4K, and potential issues you might want to consider.

Feel free to skip over these if you're comfortable with the jargon/terminology!

4K Terminology

High DPI AKA 'Retina'

4K/UHD are just specific types of High DPI displays.  (Apple calls these displays 'Retina' displays, for some nonsensical reason).

High DPI (dots per inch) displays are those with a high pixel density.  Long ago, screen pixel densities use to be around the 70 to 110 DPI mark.  Modern High DPI displays have variable densities, but are usually over 150 DPI, and sometimes even far over - the more dots per inch you have, the sharper you can resolve detail.

It's important to note - the closer you view your screen, the higher the DPI you need to perceive the same sharpness.  Thus phones etc. may need 200+ DPI to appear as sharp as, say, a 150DPI desktop display, simply because your eye can resolve more detail when you're viewing something that closely.

This monitor, the CS2740, has a density of 164 DPI.  For desktop use, it is very sharp indeed.

Why the time is right for 4K

For years now, we've been asked about 4K and how necessary it is. 

4K / High DPI has been an 'on the horizon' technology for a long time now.  And, full credit to Apple, they have probably done more than anyone else to push forward with high resolution displays, with 'Retina' phones and 5K iMacs being the norm for years now.

Our answer is, and remains, that 4K (or higher DPI in general) - is, in almost all cases, not nearly as significant as colour accuracy.  The place to put your dollars, when it comes to imaging, is _always_ colour accuracy.  That remains just as true now, in these times of higher resolution screens, as before.  That is - if your funds only stretch to an HD/2.5K screen (like the excellent Eizo CS2731, which we'll actually be evaluating properly later this  year) - then it is no great compromise (at all) - when it comes to achieving quality, accurate results with images.  You can easily live, and produce fabulous images, with the lower resolution - but can you afford to make significant, ongoing mistakes with colour because you bought a tool that isn't designed for colour accurate use, like your typical desktop monitor?  That is a MUCH bigger problem.

The reality is any modern digital camera - even most phones at this point! - shoots an image well in excess of 4K resolution.  So, unless you've cropped your original heavily, you're almost always looking at a scaled version of your image anyway and have to zoom in to 100% to see 1:1 and check focus.  On a 2.5K monitor you just zoom a bit more - which is really no big deal at all.

Another common comment is that 'I don't do video, so I don't need 4K' - and honestly, I am not sure I really follow the thinking here.  Still images are generally far HIGHER resolution than 4k these days, so not sure why it some folks conclude 4K is all about video.  It's definitely not.  Indeed - barely any video is viewed or worked on at 1:1 in 4K, in practise - 99 times out of 100 people are doing their editing/cutting work on a small proxy stream using only a quarter or so of the panel!  Sure, the mastering is in 4K in the background, but you're rarely, if ever, actually working at 1:1. 

Sure, you can preview the final 4K video output (if that is what you're producing) at 1:1, and that can certainly be useful.  But plenty of professional video editors use higher quality, but lower resolution, screens to do their daily work.  Again, because getting colour and contrast right is so much more important than seeing your pixels at 1:1.  For example, if grading professionally, you'd probably be better off choosing the Eizo CG279X, with its extended blacks (and calibration thereof), for that sort of work, over something like the Eizo CS2740.  This is because the extended contrast of Eizo's CGX range means those machines are better simulators of the final output (i.e. things like OLED televisions in lounge rooms, or cinemas - both of which display images with massive contrast ranges, far higher than desktop monitors.  

So Is 4K Useless?

What we're saying above is that colour accuracy trumps 4K, every single time, when it comes to producing high quality imaging work.  Having lots of pixels, that are fundamentally the wrong colours, won't help you achieve superb results with your images.  Solve your biggest problem first, is what we're really saying - by making sure you buy a monitor, first and foremost, with colour accuracy as your criteria.

But this, of course, does not mean that 4K has no benefit at all.  It does, and if you have the budget, it's absolutely the way to go at this point.

The biggest, most noticeable functional difference with 4K is actually in the far more mundane things we all do with our monitors.  Emails, browsing, spreadsheets and so on.  All of those things, as well as user interface elements, and rendered much more comfortably on 4K monitors.  If, like me, you're hitting that stage of life where your eyes are just beginning to get annoyed by small text, then you'll find a 4K monitor is a fabulous solution to that problem - text, even really small text, such as 6 point fonts, can be read much more easily on 4K screens.  Imaging and video applications are notorious for their non-standard User Interface elements (vs. using the often more carefully designed built in operating system options) - so very small text is actually quite common in these applications.  The same goes for the often tiny icons/controls these applications use - they're much easier to read visually on 4K monitors (when using an appropriate scaling factor - see below!).  Thus, working with these applications on a 4K monitor is just distinctly more comfortable.

Text rendering, across the board, is very significantly improved with 4K over lower resolutions.  This simply makes using these monitors much more comfortable on a day to day basis.  If you suffer from any type of computing related eye-strain, a 4K monitor will likely help greatly.

Images - if they are of sufficient quality, i.e. high resolution and perfectly in focus - are of course rendered more sharply, too.  Side by side, with a high quality image filling the screen, you can of course notice and appreciate the fine details more on a 4K screen, than a typical 2.5K 27" monitor.  But it's a much more marginal difference.  Still, if sharpness is your thing, as it is for many photographers (in truth, probably far too many!) - then you'll definitely appreciate this extra detail being resolved in your images.

Problems with 4K

There are some problems with 4K you might run into.

You Need a Modern, Powerful Machine

It doesn't have to be amazingly modern, or amazingly powerful, but if you're still using hardware from 2015 or earlier, then you will almost certainly notice the extra strain that pushing around all those pixels put on a computer.  Sure, you can often upgrade your video card, but you'll often find that hardware this old will really begin to feel sluggish with a 4K monitor.

The first issue you might hit is that computers from this era may not have, or have only limited 4K support.  It's common that you'll have support for 4K (UHD) - but only at 30Hz, or put another way, the machine will only be able to do half the updates it would normally do to your screen - moving pixels at 30 frames per second instead of 60.  This means any animations - and animations are used ubiquitously in modern operating systems - will be rendered at half speed and be noticeably jerky.  Whilst you can put up with this, it's not ideal, and makes your entire machine feel like it is running slowly.

Even if you do have 4K at 60Hz support, a lot of computers will find this hard work.  It's just a lot of data to be dealing with, and it tends to tie up computer resources.  So we've seen a lot of people with computers of this era buy a 4K monitor, then shortly after feel pretty much compelled to update their computer.

If you PC/Mac dates from 2017+, then you shouldn't have any performance issues with 4K screens - even more than one of them.  Even relatively humble video cards these days, and modern CPUs, can easily drive multiple 4K displays.

Old Software Can Have Scaling Issues

I mention this only because it can still happen, but I have to say personally that it is years since I have run into this as a practical issue.

Very old software, made long before 4K (high DPI) displays were available or even really conceived, may not scale well.  You might see fuzzy fonts, or you might see labels that run over the edges of buttons, for example.  Albeit unattractive, it is typically not a show stopper.  And there's almost always a modern alternative. 

Probably the most common of these are old Windows tools - things like old control panels (now almost all replaced with Windows 10 versions) - and software installation programs.  On the Mac, as they're a bit more aggressive about changes and a bit less inclined to support backwards compatibility, you'll see this less as applications that old tend not to have made the jump to the later OS versions anyway.

Nobody actually uses 4K @ 'native 4K'.

Nobody, in practise, uses a 4K monitor at 'true 4k' - i.e. without scaling.  If you did, everything would be rendered far too small.  Text would be just millimetres in size, icons would be tiny, etc.  Pretty much a guaranteed recipe for eye strain.  So everybody, in practice, uses desktop scaling with their 4K monitor. 

This is scaling of text and user interface elements, specifically - of course image elements are still displayed at true 4K.  

PCs offer basically infinite scaling opportunities - you can set exactly the scale factor you like.  There are no performance penalties for this, and its generally very effective - but you do run into issues with older software, as mentioned.  Whilst PCs (and software that runs on them) were initially slow to support 4K, I think ultimately the final implementation is better and more flexible.  (Of course, you do need to be running up to date software for this to be true - if you're still using things like pre-cloud Adobe apps (so from the ~2015 era), you're definitely going to run in to some issues.  Time to upgrade!).

Macs are a bit more limited in their available scaling options, but the options available do generally allow you to find just the right point of comfort for your eyes.  However, at non-standard (non 2:1) scaling points, you will see some slight reduction in font sharpness.  Most folks find it acceptable, but some definitely don't and are thus limited in their scaling options.

I've also had occasional reports - specifically and only from video editors - that Macs suffer from fairly significant performance penalties with some of the in-between scaling factors (e.g. 2:1 is fine, but 1.5:1 might not be, for certain specific uses.  This is all because the Mac use a fairly naive 'exact pixel doubling and scale down' approach.  This works quite well if e.g. you effectively treat a 27 inch monitor as a 1920 * 1080 display and 'pixel double' this to 3840 * 2160, say.  But in doing this (the Mac default in this scenario), you will find that (oddly!) - user interface elements and fonts will render too large in that mode.  So you'll perhaps want to use a lower scaling factor, and then you might run in to those performance issues - most notably if you're using a somewhat older machine.  That being said, with the M1, Macs are so performant that this is probably a moot issue in practise, going forward.  We'll see.

Accurate Is Not Necessarily Pleasing

PART 2 IS NOW AVAILABLE ON TAB 2

No machine is perfect, but I have to say this machine is about as close as you can get, so there's not really a lot to talk about under the banner of 'what we don't like'.

I genuinely think Eizo have truly nailed things with the Eizo CS2740.  The reality is very few image makers really need an accuracy level even higher than the CS2740 offers.  If you're a real specialist (e.g. you run a fine art print bureau!) - then of course you should probably look the the CG range (...and this is precisely what we did here - we pride ourselves on offering art reproduction services that are simply stunningly accurate (check out our Instagram for many examples) - and at the core of those services is an Eizo CG2730, currently).  To get to that level of precision, both equipment and technique have to be just completely on point, of course.  Other domains might be things like very high end fashion & product photography where colour just has to be perfect. 

However, for the vast bulk of working image makers, the CS2740 will, in practise, easily meet their needs for colour accuracy.

But of course, still room for improvement.  Here's a few things that could still definitely be worked on.

In short, as should be clear from this extended evaluation and discussion, we think this is without question the best option in monitors for just about everyone serious about their digital imaging work.  We've sold a bunch of these and the feedback is - universally - that they are wonderful.

Going to something cheaper is generally a false economy.  For professional quality work, you need professional tools.  'Just an amateur?' - then you're doing this for love, and high quality tools will only increase your pleasure in your hobby. 

Most folks realistically don't need to go up a level, either - unless of course you really want a massive 32" monster on your desk.  Going up to a CG series is certainly worthwhile if you truly need the most perfect devices for colour currently available - but then you'd be a specialist, so doubtless you already know this!  Or if you're doing professional video grading work, then sure, an Eizo CG-X is a better fit.  But if you're a typical working photographer, or illustrator, designer, graphic artist etc - then this monitor truly is a nearly perfect tool for your work.   Add one of these to a Mac Mini (or Macbook, or any PC) and you have a simple, elegant, and wonderfully accurate set up just like that.

For the cost of one good camera lens, with the Eizo CS2740 you get a machine you'll use for 100% of your imaging work, and it will - without doubt - be reliable, accurate and a pleasure to use at all times, for years on end.  With a 5 year warranty (and we find most people use their Eizo monitors 7 to 10 years as their primary screen, on average) - it won't let you down.

This monitor is superb, it really is that simple.