After much deliberation, research and bean counting to see if I can afford such a monitor. Now my Hackintosh system looks complete. (that cricket chirping noise coming off my CPU liquid cooling fans also mysteriously gone)
Let me walk you through the journey I took to get to the final decision. First thing first, what are the multitude of factors that played into my final decision. Resolution, refresh rate, Brand, looks, price, performance, compromises. All these factors played significant roles in determining the final selection, which is the Asus PB287Q, an UHD/4K monitor. Here's my short journey.
When I started building my Hackintosh PC, my original design was to go with a 27" Full HD or 1080pmonitor. I was considering several models from AOC, Samsung, BenQ, etc. Then my research got expanded to include some other criteria, e.g. curve screens, QHD, refresh rate and4K. That's a real headache. Then I went to the shops and take a look at a few Full HD models. It turns out that at supposed viewing distance, I found that I can see individual pixels. Not so much on the 24" but the 27" and above , the pixels are fairly obvious. This gave me pause on the Full HD resolutions. I later realized that the reason that I was so bugged by seeing the pixel is the fact that I was so used to Retina screens that I am using on my 13" MacBook pro and several models of iPhone I've used in the past. Consequently, my specification changed from Full HD to 4K or WQHD monitors
Now, real research time. I checked out reviews of 4K and WQHD monitors on several websites and Youtube channels. What an ordeal!!! Sure, there aren't many 4K and WQHD monitors out there, but going higher rez bring me a whole set of concerns, can my GTX 960 handle it? Price? Size vs. performance, brand. Then there are those new models being shown at Computex Taipei 2015 in June, which I later found out that it wont be available in the coming months. Hence, my sight was readjusted to what's available out there in the local market. It then boiled down to Asus and Samsung.
Making the final choice, well… not so fast. There's still the matter of 4K vs. WQHD. But as it turns out, those WQHD monitors are mostly 144 Hz which makes it 30% more expensive than the 4K model. I don’t need that feature now, so 4K it is. Now between Asus and Samsung both has their pluses and minuses. The Samsung one look better but not height adjustable, while the Asus model looks like a real performer and it doesn’t look that bad, just utilitarian. At the end AsusPB287Q became the choice of the day.
Setting it up physically is very simple:
- 1. Remove from box
- Attach the monitor base using the twisting screw
- Plug in the power cord and the Display Port
That's it
The challenge however came from the software side, although not too much. Once powered up, the OS you are using (either Widows or OS X) will detect the new resolution and switched to the new resolution accordingly. Here is where the small challenge was. The icons on the screen now is so small, the mouse pointer even smaller, it gave me a case squint eyes before I finally found it and later change the font to look bigger or make mouse cursor bigger and useable.
I'm not going to go in depth into the review of the monitor. There's enough Youtube video out there.
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