DELL S2722DC QHD monitor for iMac M1 2021 - best setting for Text clarity?

Hi,


I recently had horizontal lines issue in my iMac M1 2021 ... covering half the screen with horizontal black lines, making it difficult to work on it.


Changing the display of iMac was an expensive affair, so the way forward was to get an external monitor for iMac. Since I wanted to keep it within budget, I bought DELL S2722DC QHD monitor (109ppi) - 27 inches.


Monitor is fine for regular use for watching Video and pics etc... but when it comes to working on TEXT the clarity of TEXT is really really bad and am struggling to get the best setting suited to match my iMac setting to DELL S2722DC QHD.


Is there anyone who has been successful to make it work for better text clarity output, pls help.

iMac 24″, macOS 14.4

Posted on Apr 21, 2024 2:51 AM

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4 replies

Apr 21, 2024 10:16 AM in response to spacevinod

The Dell S2722DC is a 27", 2560x1440 pixel monitor.


Once upon a time, Mac OS X / macOS did something called "sub-pixel anti-aliasing" to improve the appearance of text on monitors with regular PPIs (like 24" 1920x1080 and 27" 2560x1440 ones). My understanding is that Apple removed support for that feature several versions of macOS ago. As a result, text on a 27" 2560x1440 monitor like that one might not look as good as it would have looked under, say, High Sierra.


27" Retina 5K iMacs did not need to use sub-pixel anti-aliasing on their built-in displays, because their pixels were small enough to draw letter shapes (more) accurately without that trick. Alas, Apple has discontinued those iMacs, and the 27" Apple 5K Studio Display + an Apple keyboard and mouse might set you back as much as an entire 27" 5K Retina iMac (that included the computer) used to cost.


These days, if you don't have the budget for a 27" 5K monitor, it's probably better to get a 27" UHD 4K monitor and run it in Retina "UI looks like 2560x1440" mode than to get an actual 27" 2560x1440 monitor.


There are a few photographers who may insist that they cannot do their pixel peeping at anything other than some exact setting - e.g. 5120x1440 or "like 2560x1440" for a 5K monitor; 3840x2160 or "like 1920x1080" for a 4K one. But at a "like 2560x1440" setting, a 27" 4K monitor would give you better text than an actual 2560x1440 monitor – the Mac would use the extra pixels to draw letter shapes in more detail. And you would have the option of making the text larger ("like 1920x1080" – but with Retina detail) if you needed oversized text.

Apr 21, 2024 10:20 AM in response to Servant of Cats

Servant of Cats wrote:

The Dell S2722DC is a 27", 2560x1440 pixel monitor.


To get back to the original question, the best resolution setting for that monitor is 2560x1440. It does not have enough resolution to look good at other settings where the text would be close to a "comfortable" reading size.


There are controls in System Settings > Accessibility > Display that you could play around with. They're meant mostly for people who have vision trouble, rather than for increasing the accuracy/clarity of text displayed in a normal way.

Apr 21, 2024 5:48 AM in response to spacevinod

Text clarity has been something that has been very noticeable on the Mac for people with color blindness. Some fonts actually use green and blue dots next to each other for smoothing, which yields poorer text clarity for those with color blindness.


http://www.bresink.com/osx/0TinkerTool/screenshots.html


has font smoothing settings that should help with font clarify for those who can't handle Apple's font smoothing.

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DELL S2722DC QHD monitor for iMac M1 2021 - best setting for Text clarity?

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