Thursday, January 02

Geek

New Year's Resolution

3840x2160

Dell's 24" ultra-HD monitor has arrived in Australia, and the price is about $200 lower than I was expecting.  I was planning to wait for the consumer-grade 28" model, but the price is low enough* that I think I'll go for the pro version.  I currently have a Dell 27" 2560x1440 display, so this one will be a little smaller but a lot higher resolution.

Then I'll see how Windows 8.1 handles scaling....

Update: A shortcoming: This monitor apparently has no scaler; it only handles its native resolution.  So if your graphics card isn't fast enough to drive a 4K screen in your favourite game, you can't shift down; you're simply out of luck.

Which isn't unreasonable for a professional monitor, but is potentially a problem for me.  I may pair it with a matching Dell 24" 1080p screen - use the main monitor for work, and the low-res screen for extra real-estate and gaming.

In fact, that's a great idea.  I need a retina screen for doing high-resolution site and application design, and I need multiple screens, but I don't need multiple retina screens.  Want, yes.  Need, no.

* At $1559 it's hardly cheap, but I'll spend about 10,000 hours looking at it, so I'm willing to spend a few extra bucks.  The 32" model at $4199 was a few extra bucks too many.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 06:15 PM | Comments (10) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
Post contains 229 words, total size 2 kb.

1 Sorry to threadjack, but I'm getting reports from readers that their comments over at The Pond are being "held for moderation".  Halp?

Posted by: Wonderduck at Thursday, January 02 2014 11:09 PM (Izt1u)

2 Hmm...way beyond my budget ATM but cheaper than I'd've thought.
Wait...
Aussie dollars...
WAY cheaper than I'd've thought!

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at Friday, January 03 2014 05:09 AM (DnAJl)

3 It's not that much difference now. 1 US$ == 1.12 AUD

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at Friday, January 03 2014 10:24 AM (+rSRq)

4 The Aussie dollar was actually above parity with the US dollar for a while.  It's trickled back down over recent months.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Friday, January 03 2014 10:44 AM (PiXy!)

5

When I clicked the link, it was AUD 1699.  I searched for the same monitor on www.dell.com in a new tab, and the USD price was 1299.  (bing's converter, operating at 1.12 ratio, says the equivalent amount in USD would be 1520.)

My understanding is that's not just due to the conversion ratio, but that electronics just cost more in Australia.  (I remember hearing in years past that stuff there cost twice as much, after price conversion, as the same thing would cost in the US.)

Posted by: RickC at Saturday, January 04 2014 10:29 AM (swpgw)

6 Interesting.  I see $1559 for the Australian price.  As you say, it's now showing for $1299 on the US site, after being launched at $1399.
The Australian price includes 10% sales tax, which is a national tax here.  Typically Australian prices for anything other than commodity computer items also include a 20%-100% "because screw you, that's why" markup; fortunately, Dell haven't done that.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Saturday, January 04 2014 11:48 AM (PiXy!)

7 It's a sign!  If I buy a UP2414Q with 5-year extended warranty, and a U2414H, the total cost is...  $2014.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Saturday, January 04 2014 11:57 AM (PiXy!)

8

I now see the $1559 and $1299 prices, aus and us respectively.

The places I'd particularly heard of the massive Austrailian "screw you" markup was on computer games.

Posted by: RickC at Sunday, January 05 2014 03:32 AM (swpgw)

9 Yes.  It's so nice to see a new game on steam, selling for US$50, unless you live in Australia, in which case it's US$90 because screw you.  There's no distributor involved, no foreign exchange uncertainty (the price is still in US dollars), no sales tax.  It's just major game publishers being major dicks.

Book publishing is even worse, because of the way the English language market was divided up between US and UK publishers back in the 19th century.  It's not that unusual to simply be unable to purchase an ebook from Australia, because, again, screw you.  Never mind Amazon constantly teasing me with $0.99 ebooks and $1.99 audio books, except that Australians can't have them, because screw you.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Sunday, January 05 2014 07:16 PM (PiXy!)

10 My resolutions are 1920x1080 on 27", 1440x900 on 19", and worst of all 1024x768 on 15.5".  Planning on getting a 27" 4k monitor whenever I can afford it.  Oh yeah, almost forgot, I'm currently running twin 1gb Sapphire AMD Radeon HD5450 cards.  Not the best, but it works and that's what I get for building a system on a budget.

Posted by: Max at Saturday, January 11 2014 03:43 PM (9p6/L)

Hide Comments | Add Comment

Comments are disabled. Post is locked.
51kb generated in CPU 0.0247, elapsed 0.1159 seconds.
56 queries taking 0.108 seconds, 354 records returned.
Powered by Minx 1.1.6c-pink.