HP series 5 527sh monitor resolution is blurry with my macbook

does my Macbook connect to a HP 527sh monitor?


MacBook Pro 16″, macOS 15.1

Posted on Jan 11, 2025 1:18 PM

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Posted on Jan 12, 2025 4:48 AM

Standard ("low") resolutions and PPIs – not Retina ones – would be

  • 24" screen with 1920x1080 pixels – 91.8 PPI
  • 27" screen with 2560x1440 pixels – 108.8 PPI


The HP 527sh is a 27" monitor with a very low (for its size) resolution of 1920x1080 pixels, which works out to about 81.6 PPI.


In all three cases mentioned so far, the resolution and the pixel density of the monitor would be low enough that you would normally run the monitor at full native resolution without Retina scaling. Text would be bigger and coarser on the HP 527sh because of the unusually low PPI.


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Some people actually like the text size that they get out of using a 27" 1920x1080 monitor at full resolution. Mostly people with impaired vision. If you are one of them, I would recommend replacing this HP 527sh monitor with a 27" UHD 4K (3840x2160 pixel) one, and running the new monitor in Retina "like 1920x1080" mode. Text size would be the same, but the Mac would have 4x as many pixels (2x as many in each direction) with which to approximate the true shapes of letters, and with which to fill in detail in photo areas.


If your tastes run towards smaller text and more workspace, a 27" UHD 4K (3840x2160) or 5K (5120x2880 pixel) run in Retina "looks like 2560x1440" mode could be a good choice. Depending on which Mac you have, it might also offer the ability to run in Retina "looks like 3008x1692" mode, which would make text a bit smaller - but give you the same amount of workspace as the default workspace on a 32" Apple 6K Pro Display XDR.

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Jan 12, 2025 4:48 AM in response to dperkins0119

Standard ("low") resolutions and PPIs – not Retina ones – would be

  • 24" screen with 1920x1080 pixels – 91.8 PPI
  • 27" screen with 2560x1440 pixels – 108.8 PPI


The HP 527sh is a 27" monitor with a very low (for its size) resolution of 1920x1080 pixels, which works out to about 81.6 PPI.


In all three cases mentioned so far, the resolution and the pixel density of the monitor would be low enough that you would normally run the monitor at full native resolution without Retina scaling. Text would be bigger and coarser on the HP 527sh because of the unusually low PPI.


----------


Some people actually like the text size that they get out of using a 27" 1920x1080 monitor at full resolution. Mostly people with impaired vision. If you are one of them, I would recommend replacing this HP 527sh monitor with a 27" UHD 4K (3840x2160 pixel) one, and running the new monitor in Retina "like 1920x1080" mode. Text size would be the same, but the Mac would have 4x as many pixels (2x as many in each direction) with which to approximate the true shapes of letters, and with which to fill in detail in photo areas.


If your tastes run towards smaller text and more workspace, a 27" UHD 4K (3840x2160) or 5K (5120x2880 pixel) run in Retina "looks like 2560x1440" mode could be a good choice. Depending on which Mac you have, it might also offer the ability to run in Retina "looks like 3008x1692" mode, which would make text a bit smaller - but give you the same amount of workspace as the default workspace on a 32" Apple 6K Pro Display XDR.

Jan 11, 2025 1:42 PM in response to dperkins0119

I wouldn’t expect much from a 1920 x 1080 (FHD) monitor — that’s very low resolution.


macOS (with the old subpixel anti-aliasing support removed in recent versions) expects to connect with 4K or 5K displays.


1080p FHD is never going to look great.


Some things to try:

Jan 12, 2025 4:57 AM in response to dperkins0119

A 16" Apple Silicon MacBook Pro has a Retina screen with 254 PPI. This is on the high side as far as Retina screens go; for a 27" 5K Retina iMac or a 27" 5K Apple Studio Display, the figure would be 218 PPI.


Either is much higher than 81.6 PPI. If we measure pixels per square inch,

  • A 27" Apple Studio Display has 7.11x as many pixels per square inch as a HP 527sh.
  • A 16" Apple Silicon MacBook Pro's built-in screen has 9.65x as many pixels per square inch as a HP 527sh.


This is why the picture on that HP 527sh looks so blurry compared to the picture on the 16" MacBook Pro, or to the picture on any Apple Retina screen. That monitor just doesn't have the resolution to draw things in anywhere near as much detail.

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HP series 5 527sh monitor resolution is blurry with my macbook

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