If you are out in the market looking for a 4K monitor, I think this article will help you make your buying decision easy.
I am using a 4K external display with my MacBook Pro. I used 4K resolution on different screen sizes, on a 24-inch, 32-inch, and a 43-inch.
So, the question,
Can you utilize 4K on a 24-inch screen?
The short answer is, No. The longer answer is mentioned below.
When I was looking for a 4K monitor with a 24-inch size, one monitor is available on Amazon India, and two monitors were available on Amazon.com.
The 24-inch 4K monitor is from LG, costs less than $800 and has got nice ratings by the buyers. But I was surprised to read the reviews that none of the reviews mentioned the text size when using 4K resolution on the 24-inch monitor.
But mostly all the people who have bought the 24-inch 4K monitor are happy with its problem. They use scaled resolution on the monitor, as they are using it as a secondary monitor to their laptops (mostly MacBooks). It probably gives them a feel of the retina display.
4K (3840×2160) on a 24-inch screen is too small. 4K gives 4x the screen real-estate of Full HD, which means 4K on a 24-inch screen would be like Full HD on a 6-inch screen.
If you want to feel how UHD 4K would look like on a 24-inch monitor, and you have a regular or non 4K 24-inch monitor and a MacBook, you can use this utility for Mac OS called SwitchResX, it will unlock many different resolutions for any monitor.
I have a non 4K 24-inch monitor, and I tried 4K resolution on it, the text was unreadable. Currently, I am using 2560×1440, which is qHD or 2K. The text at this resolution is a little brother but is still readable, and I only use it when I am working with multiple Windows in I want more screen real state, and there is not much to do with the reading of the text.
So my recommendation would be to keep the 24-inch 4K monitor if you are looking for a monitor to look at the text for a long time. My recommendation would be to get at least a 27-inch monitor with UHD resolution since the text on it will be equivalent to a 13-14-inch monitor with full HD resolution.
For example, Acer has an affordable Acer KG281K in Amazon.in and The 24-inch 4K monitor is from LG. Muslim monitors are quite affordable with decent ratings on the website.
Using 4K on Laptop Screen? What is the Comfortable Screen Size for 4K Resolution?
