How to be sure I can use the monitor I'm looking to buy with my Mac mini m2 via usb-c; do they have to be classified as thunderbolt?

douiukotta wrote:

my main goal here is that I can have a monitor connected to the monitor through the Mac mini’s USB-C port … while simultaneously connected to my Cintiq

If your monitor is one that the USB-C / Thunderbolt ports support, and the Cintiq works by itself, things should be OK. The Cintiq will count as one of your Mini's two total displays.

The manual for the Dell monitor says that it has three preset 3440x1440 modes with vertical frequencies of 59.97, 73.68, and 99.98 Hz. Hopefully that means that the monitor and your M2 mini would be willing to settle on a 3440 x 1440 @ 60 Hz setting.

https://dl.dell.com/content/manual75890860-dell-s3423dwc-monitor-user-s-guide.pdf?language=en-us

Simultaneously supports up to two displays:

* One display with up to 6K resolution at 60Hz over Thunderbolt and one display with up to 5K resolution at 60Hz over Thunderbolt or 4K resolution at 60Hz over HDMI

Which in your case would translate to

• One monitor with up to 4K resolution at 60 Hz connected over USB-C (DisplayPort). For the Dell S3423DWC, this would involve a USB-C to USB-C connection, or some sort of USB-C to HDMI adaptation.
• One Wacom/Cintiq tablet connected over HDMI.

You could not connect a second monitor without unplugging the Wacom/Cintiq tablet to free up a display output.

Now, I don’t think I’ll mind it too much if perhaps I have to use this setup only when using the Cintiq, and then connect the Mac mini to the monitor through HDMI when not using the Cintiq, if that helps with the refresh rate for other purposes besides digital art. Though I guess that means I’m stuck with 60Hz either way. But making sure that simultaneous Mac mini to Cintiq through Mac’s HDMI to HDMI + Mac mini to monitor through USB-C to USB-C/HDMI is crucial here.

If your monitor works with one of the Mini's USB-C / Thunderbolt ports, I don't see why you would want to switch the connection back and forth between that port, and the Mini's HDMI port.

One other concern is just finding a way to see how it would look/behave in these circumstances before buying it, been looking specifically for reviews for the Dell monitor from Mac mini M2 users but even those it’s often not clear if they’re using the USB-C or HDMI connection, and no pictures or videos to see how it performs in those specific circumstances or in terms of scaling.

You're not going to be doing scaling with that monitor.

3440 x 1440 pixels with a 34" diagonal works out to about 109.7 pixels per inch. That's just a hair over the 108.8 pixels per inch of a 27" 2560 x 1440 pixel monitor.

Think of this thing as a 27' 2560x1440 monitor to which 17.2% extra space has been tacked on, on each side. You will be getting extra workspace (34.4% more than that on a 27" 2560x1440 display). But not Retina sharpness … that requires having a lot more pixels per inch, to be able to draw letter shapes more precisely, and fill photo areas in finer detail.

Your USB-C / Thunderbolt 4 ports can connect to displays using either USB-C (DisplayPort) or Thunderbolt. Most displays and adapters will want a USB-C (DisplayPort) signal. Only a few monitors (like the Apple 5K and 6K ones) will require (or even understand) Thunderbolt. Think of Thunderbolt as being there if you need it, not a feature you must use just because it is there.

For a USB-C (DisplayPort) monitor, you're looking at a limit of 4K @ 60 Hz for native resolution. That is because a USB-C (DisplayPort) connection doesn't have as much bandwidth as a Thunderbolt one.

The "up to 5K" or "up to 6K" resolution specification might still come into play in determining how wide a selection of Retina scaling modes were available for a 4K monitor. (Retina "UI looks like 2560x1440" mode corresponds to a 5120x2880 (5K) internal drawing canvas.)

douiukotta wrote:

Is the refresh rate issue because it'd be limited to 60Hz because I'd be using the USB-C, i.e. it wouldn't be an issue if I used the HDMI ports?

60 Hz is all that Apple's Technical Specifications mention with regards to the USB-C ports. You might be able to get a higher refresh rate, depending on the resolution of your monitor – but the specifications do not go into that level of detail, or promise that you can.

With regards to HDMI, does your Mac mini have a M2 chip, or a M2 Pro chip? The HDMI port on the M2 Mac mini supports "up to 4K resolution at 60Hz." The M2 Pro Mac mini supports up to three displays total. When you have three displays, you are limited to 60 Hz on the HDMI port. With two displays, that HDMI port can run at 144 Hz. If you limit yourself to a single display, the HDMI port can drive an 8K display at 60 Hz, or a 4K one at 240 Hz.

Mac mini - Technical Specifications - Apple

The LG model provided by my employer is the 29MU59.

LG – Widescreen Monitors – 29UM59A-P

This one has a 29" screen with a resolution of 2560x1080 pixels and a refresh rate of 75 Hz. The panel is an IPS panel with a wide viewing angle, and the monitor has 99% coverage of sRGB – but brightness doesn't seem very high at 250 cd/m^2 (typical). Dell's site says their monitor has a brightness of 300 cd/m^2, which might explain why you think the LG monitor looks "dark" compared to the Dell monitor.

P.S. - While the Dell monitor has a VA panel, Dell says it has 178-degree horizontal and vertical viewing angles – the kind of good viewing angle range that's the reason that you normally look for IPS and avoid TN like the plague. The Dell monitor, like the LG monitor, has 99% coverage of sRGB.

Not sure I follow the last bit you mentioned in your other message about the "up to 5K" or "up to 6K" resolution specification.

Maybe I should have left those details out. You are not going to be running either of these monitors in a Retina scaling mode. Their resolutions – relative to their size - aren't high enough.

• The LG monitor has 2560x1080 pixels and a 29" diagonal – roughly 95.8 PPI (like a 24" 1080p monitor).
• The Dell monitor has 3440x1440 pixels and a 34" diagonal – roughly 109.7 PPI (like a 27" 2.5K monitor).

A 27" Apple 5K Studio Display or a normal (not ultra-wide-screen) 27" 4K monitor would have high enough pixel density that it would not make sense to use all of the pixels to cram more and more stuff onto the screen. Your eyes are sensitive to physical size, which is why book publishers don't print books in all-3-point text even though they can.

P.S.: Great username. As a cat owner, I felt that.

douiukotta wrote:

I was looking at Dell models and was considering the S3423DWC but does the monitor's usb-c port have to be specifically the Thunderbolt type? This model's seems to also be classified as a Display port, though I don't know if that means it'd work for PC but not for the Mac mini?

A USB-C (DisplayPort) connection, in and of itself, is not an issue. Your Mac mini can generate that type of output. This monitor has a resolution of 3440 x 1440 pixels and a refresh rate of 100 Hz. I do not know whether either the ultra-wide aspect ratio or the 100 Hz refresh rate might cause problems.

https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/dell-34-curved-usb-c-monitor-s3423dwc/apd/210-bejc/monitors-monitor-accessories

I have the LG S3423DWC provided by my employer to work from home

Are you sure that's the right model number? It's the same model number you gave for the Dell.

douiukotta wrote:

You're not going to be doing scaling with that monitor.

3440 x 1440 pixels with a 34" diagonal works out to about 109.7 pixels per inch. That's just a hair over the 108.8 pixels per inch of a 27" 2560 x 1440 pixel monitor.

Maybe I didn’t use the right wording— I was referring to the fact I’ve seen a lot of people saying that Macs don’t adjust well to widescreen resolutions in the case of third party displays, something like the UI being either too small in the native resolution, then too big in closest alternative, or something along those lines. This is also something I noticed when I had the Mac Mini connected to my TV screen, but I could make it work to an extent by fiddling with some in-software viewing settings like manually increasing text size for Safari, Mail, etc.. Not ideal, though, so I was wondering if that would happen with this kind of monitor as well, and it seems to be a possibility from what I’ve heard.

A 27" Apple 5K Studio Display has 5120 x 2880 pixels. If a monitor vendor wanted to sell a 34" ultra-widescreen monitor that had a similar pixel density to the Apple monitor, it would have 6880 x 2880 pixels - almost 3% more pixels than are on a 32" Apple Pro Display XDR.

You could run that 6880 x 2880 monitor in Retina "UI looks like 3440 x 1440" mode and you would get all of the "workspace" you get on that 34" Dell 3440 x 1440 monitor, but with crisp, sharp, Retina text – and fine detail in photo areas.

Dell didn't go that route. A 34" 3440 x 1440 pixel monitor has about the same pixel density as a 27" 2560 x 1440 pixel one. So in non-Retina 3440 x 1440 mode, text is already at "normal" size, and there are no extra pixels that can be used to draw letter shapes more accurately and to fill in photo areas in finer detail.

I looked at the Amazon - Wacom Cintiq 13HD Interactive Pen Display, DTK1300 (Old Version) description. That tablet has a 1920x1080 display, and "Simple set up to PC or Mac with 3 in 1 cable.

The user manual shows a 3-in-1 "hydra" cable whose "hydra" end has

• A HDMI connector, for plugging into a video port on your computer
• A USB connector (presumably USB-A), for plugging into a USB port on your computer
• A power connector that is meant only for use with the supplied Cintiq power adapter, or an identical one.

There are several ways you could connect that HDMI cable to your M2 Mac mini:

• You could plug it into the Mini's HDMI port
• You could plug it into one of the Mini's USB-C ports, using a USB-C (DisplayPort) to HDMI adapter
• If you had a hub or dock connected one of the Mini's USB-C / Thunderbolt ports, you could connect the tablet to that hub or dock, possibly directly, possibly using an adapter

Since your Mac mini has a base M2 chip, I don't think your HDMI port has any "maximum refresh rate" advantage over your USB-C / Thunderbolt ports as far as another monitor goes. So let's assume (for now) that you will plug the Cintiq into your Mini's HDMI port.

There are multiple ways of attaching USB-A devices to USB-C ports, but your Mini does have two USB-A ports … so unless you have a hub or dock, I'm assuming that's where you will be plugging in the Cintiq's USB-A cable.

I do not know if the Cintiq hydra cable will "stretch" all of the way from the Mini's USB-A port to the MIni's HDMI port. If it doesn't, you may need to get an extension cable. I would suggest a short USB-A 3.0 extension cable – there are a number of 3-foot ones on Amazon. You could get a HDMI extension cable, but modern Macs can be picky about video transmission errors, so extending the USB cable seems like a safer bet.

That probably gets us over the hardware hurtles. Now for the possible show-stopper. Page 9 of the User Manual says "Mac. OS X, v10.6 or later. Intel-based platforms only are supported." The original drivers for the tablet are probably incompatible with the M2 Mac mini and Sonoma in multiple ways.

I believe that if you go to the Wacom site, you can get drivers for recent versions of macOS. Go to

https://www.wacom.com/en-cn/support/product-support/drivers

and enter DTK-3000 into the search field. After downloading and installing the drivers, you might need to change some of your Privacy & Security Settings "so that the Wacom driver works properly." See Wacom's Release Notes for details.

(Note I got this thing around 10 years ago and I recently dug it up. Honestly surprised it still works.)