Monday 03 Mar 2008
Every creative wants a 30-inch monitor – and with prices currently little more than £1,000, this is the ideal time to pick one up. Owning one isn’t just about showing off to your colleagues how important you are (though it’s an added bonus) but a larger monitor will help you be more productive.
It’s not really about size: resolution is what matters here. A larger size allows more pixels without making the user’s eyes hurt by forcing them to squint.
The majority of 30-inch displays, including all the models we’ve looked at here, have a native resolution of 2,560-x-1,600 for a total of 4.1 million pixels. By contrast, most 23- to 26-inch monitors offer 2.3 million pixels (1,920-x-1,200), and most widescreen 20- and 21-inch displays have 1.8 million pixels (1,680-x-1,050).
The extra resolution means you can see your work in more detail. A 300dpi A3 landscape image (or spread of A4 portrait pages) can be viewed at 25 per cent on a 23-26-inch monitor. On a 30-inch display, you can see it at 50 per cent – and the ability to see a more accurate representation of how your work will look helps you to design more efficiently and spot problems quicker. Editors and artists working with HD video can see video within their applications at 100 per cent, and see more of their timeline.
Creatives working in 3D will see one downside to a 30-inch display: the extra resolution puts more strain on your graphics card, reducing the frame rate. However, such artists can designate a portion of their display for their core 3D application, using the full resolution when working on detailed textures in Photoshop, for example.
Colour clarity
The best 30-inch monitors offer 10-bit or higher colour processing (see Tech Notes, right), but there isn’t the big divide between pro-level and gamer-focused displays as with smaller monitors – almost all 30-inch models for desktop use are aimed at creative professionals. There are 30-inch displays available for medical imaging and presentation, but these are sold through different channels and creative pros are unlikely to encounter them.
All 30-inch displays require a graphics card that supports Dual Link, as this technology is necessary for resolutions larger than 1,920-x-1,200. However, most recent graphics cards support Dual Link, and the only models available today that don’t support it are the true entry-level cards.
Alongside DVI connectors, many displays include a USB 2.0 hub for easy attachment of peripherals and drives. Apple’s 30-inch Cinema HD Display also offers a FireWire hub, while Dell’s UltraSharp 3007WFP-HC offers a selection of media card slots for quickly taking images off digital cameras.
Design is an important part of choosing a monitor, but this doesn’t just mean aesthetics. It should be possible to position the monitor so that its screen is directly facing you – and a good monitor should feature adjustable height and tilt so that can sit without putting strain on your back.
Reviews
Apple 30-inch Cinema HD Display
Neil Bennett
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