Finding the perfect 4K display for a MacBook Pro

Finding the perfect 4K display for a MacBook Pro
Photo by Daniel Korpai / Unsplash

I've written how I work from home 100% of the time. The setup is still the same - three displays and a custom-built high-performance PC- and it's perfect.

Due to a new project, I'm now dividing my time between working from home and a real office. The office is in the heart of the city (Helsinki), but basically, it's an empty room. I needed to get the essential gear there.

Device setup

At home, the setup is fixed. When on the move, and when going to the office, I'm carrying a few laptops: The MacBook Pro 16" (M3), and 1-2 customer laptops - typically Windows laptops. The main workhorse is the MacBook Pro, but I don't want to stare at a laptop display for a solid 8 hours, five days in a given week.

I wanted to get a setup, where it would be enough to plug in a single USB-C cable to my laptop, and just.. start working.

The devices I need to use are:

  • External keyboard: Logi MX Keys Mini for Mac
  • External mouse: Logi MX Master 3S
  • External webcam: Logi Brio Ultra 4K
  • Headset: Poly Voyager 2

That's it - a few dongles for these, and I'm good to go.

Finding the perfect display

I cannot consider a display that isn't at least 4K (3840 * 2160 @ 60 Hz or more). Over the years the sweet spot for me has been a 32" 4K display, with the IPS panel. It's gentle on the eyes, doesn't flicker, no burn-in, and it's super nice to work with. No curves, no widescreen, nothing fancy - just one or more proper displays.

I narrowed down my search for the perfect 4K display to just a few brands: LG, Dell, Benq, Samsung, and Apple. Pretty quickly I had to scope out the Apple display - they are just too expensive, and I was afraid they wouldn't work that great with the Windows laptops (that I have very little control of, beyond logging in as a user).

LG, Dell, and Benq are all brands that I frequently use. Initially, I was leaning on the Dell UltraSharp U3223QE, a 32" 4K display. It's about 880 € before taxes. Reddit has a lot of threads on the issues with this one, so I started checking for Benq options.

At home, I've had the 32" Benq 4K displays for almost a decade now. Nothing to complain about, perhaps a bit boring, but they just work as expected. The newer model, Benq PD3205U looks great. 32", 4K, IPS, PowerDelivery for 90 W - ticks all the boxes. It's 725 € before taxes.

I didn't find anyone truly complaining about it, so that's what I went for.

Benq PD3205U

Image by Benq

It's a sturdy and very robust display. Upon getting it, I connected power and added everything I needed around it: the dongle for Logi devices, the USB-C cable to the webcam, and the dongle for the Poly headset.

Then I connected the included USB-C cable from the display to my MacBook Pro. And that's it. It just works.

I can now keep the lid closed on the laptop and use a single display. In theory, I could prop up the laptop on the side but it doesn't seem to be needed. Most of the work I do at the office is single-task focus work - not like I need to deliver a webinar with a gazillion notes, slides, presenter views, and whatnot. For that, I have the home office.

This is how it looks. I have two keyboards for alternating between my main Apple device, and the Windows devices. The mouse remains the same for all devices.

The Benq display seems to have just enough ports for everything - 2-3 USB-C slots, and 3 USB-A slots, and I don't need the HDMI or DisplayPort at all.

I cranked up the resolution to 4K native and set the font size to 12 on MacOS and it's pretty sweet. I cannot get 120 Hz out, but 60 Hz is enough for typical office work - PowerPoint, Word, Teams, browser stuff.

Ergonomically the display works great - moving it up or down is smooth, as well as setting the angle toward me.

When you first connect the USB-C cable to your laptop it seems to take forever to detect all devices. Within the Benq system menu, I needed to set USB to USB 3.2 Gen 1, as by default it's set to USB 2. Also, there's a setting for auto-awaking the display once you connect a device. Otherwise, you have to manually turn the display on each time.

In closing

Is this the perfect display? Well, perhaps the Apple Studio display would be fancier - but it's just 27" and the list price is 2050 € before taxes. I could comfortably get another Benq 32", and still have money for a new phone.