Any valid reason why not to use a 40" 4K TV as PC monitor, cheaper than a 1440p 27-30" monitor?

[Deleted member 13524]

Hey,

I've been noticing that we're getting lots of cheap 4K 40" TVs in the market for 400-500€, with IPS panels, 3D glasses support, high refresh rates, good contrast, etc..
These come a lot cheaper than most 27-30" monitors with a 1440/1600p resolution..

So if I have enough space for such a TV in my desk, why not use one instead of a much pricier 30" monitor?

Also food for thought: as soon as we got 32" 4K TVs, aren't these going to eat away at the market for dedicated monitors with large resolutions?

 

[Malo]

Usually because TV panels aren't designed to sit 2 feet away from you and look like ass. That might not be true for a 4k IPS TV but that has historically been the reason why.

 

[Rurouni]

I use a TV (23" 1080p). I don't know which of these points are pros or cons, so I just list it and hopefully you can decide on your own...
-Most (all?) TV don't have display port.
-Most TV come with a fixed stand (as in you can't adjust anything, the stand only allows the TV to stand).
-Most (all?) TV don't sleep when the monitor should be sleeping (if you set in your PC for the monitor to sleep after x minutes, the TV only display black image).
-All TV come with speaker. Not desirable in an office environment.
-Some TV don't have flexible enough setting for color. Make sure you check for this, especially if you need color accuracy.
-Most (all?) TV don't wake up immediately (probably need to initialize all those mini computer on the TV).

Personally, if I need a 4K and don't care about DP (thus potentially freesync), then I would choose 4K TV because it's definitely cheaper vs monitor with the same feature. There are inconvenience like the TV not turning off when it should be sleeping, but the price difference is big enough that I don't really care about it that much.

I think the reasoning for TV being cheaper (especially going bigger and better quality panel) is probably the fact that TVs are being sold more (thus produced more) vs monitors, thus the economic scale is better on TV vs monitor. Most office don't need very big monitor and they are happy with their TN panels vs TV buyers where they care about image quality and need the bigger the better.

Of course like I have touched before, the biggest cons for me is no DP. Not because the DP itself but because the potential for freesync stuff, which is what I care as a gamer. I'm hoping someday HDMI adopted adaptive sync in their spec.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Hey,

I've been noticing that we're getting lots of cheap 4K 40" TVs in the market for 400-500€, with IPS panels, 3D glasses support, high refresh rates, good contrast, etc..
These come a lot cheaper than most 27-30" monitors with a 1440/1600p resolution..

So if I have enough space for such a TV in my desk, why not use one instead of a much pricier 30" monitor?

Also food for thought: as soon as we got 32" 4K TVs, aren't these going to eat away at the market for dedicated monitors with large resolutions?

Have HDMI 2.0 TV's started to come out yet? If not you can't get 4k at 60hz with the full color spectrum. I think they are starting to trickle in, but I'm not positive. And even HDMI 2.0 is limited to 60hz at 4k. It also doesn't officially support input of anything higher than 60hz at any resolution.

Any Hz numbers higher than 60 are purely due to interpolation/smoothing. And then on top of that you'll want to check with reviews to see how much input lag there is. On my LG, even with game/PC mode on, input + display lag is higher than 20 ms compared to my desktop 30" IPS panel that is under 10 ms (it's not a gaming monitor).

There's some benefits to using a TV for a PC display. But for gaming the response will never be as good as a PC gaming monitor or in most cases even a PC business monitor.

Regards,
SB

 

[PixResearch]

Just need to be very wary that the input is actually 60Hz not 30Hz with 4K TVs.
The rate displayed by the panel may be 60/120 but you'll get annoyed with 30Hz input pretty fast.

 

[Blazkowicz]

There is now a 32" monitor size at 1440p. Seems about right if you foremost want a really big monitor and the dot pitch / ppi is just right unless you do need the thinner / more pixels.

An example is BenQ BL3200PT, according to reviews and comments it's a VA panel and not too slow, with deep blacks and no bleeding. That's intriguing to me (I still like the deep black and absence of backlighting you get from a CRT)
You can get a faster LCD, but I'm of the opinion it's not much worth it anyway if the monitor is still stuck in 60Hz. A real gaming monitor is a 120Hz or 144Hz one, at the cost of compromise (high price, 27" 1440p and does what a recent high end TN can do)
/edit : there's a samsung with the same panel

 

[Davros]

Instead of 4k have you considered ultra widescreen QHD (21:9) 3440 x 1440

 

[orangpelupa]

btw if you are gaming, be careful when buying TV.

Compared to my 19" benq,

Samsung 32inch with game mode = laggy (noticable only with mouse, gamepad gameplay not noticable)
Polytron (my country local brand) 24inch dont have game mode = no noticable lag

 

[Blazkowicz]

Instead of 4k have you considered ultra widescreen QHD (21:9) 3440 x 1440

According to the web dpi / ppi calculator (too lazy to do some Pythagorean math) :
the 3440 x 1440 34" is 110 ppi
2560 x 1440 27" is 109 ppi
2560 x 1600 30" is 101 ppi
1920 x 1200 24" is 94 ppi
1920 x 1080 23.5" is 94 ppi
1280 x 1024 17" is 96 ppi
1280 x 1024 19" is 86 ppi
2560 x 1440 32" is 92 ppi
3840 x 2160 40" is 110 ppi
3840 x 2160 32" is 138 ppi
3840 x 2160 28" is 157 ppi

(rounded figures). Windows likes to pretend it's 96 ppi, old Mac (black & white era) was 72.
1024x768 on CRT 17" (16" visible) is only 80 ppi, wow. So is 1152x864 on 18" visible and 1280x960 20" visible.

Now that I typed all that I can come back to find it here lol.
Not sure if that was even wanted in the discussion but I have a slant towards low dpi though e.g. a 32" 5K with 200% scaling out to be very nice.
If you want pixel amount more than a big ass screen, a pair of good 1920x1200 monitors is in the lower end of your price range.

 

[swaaye]

I went from a 32" 1080p Samsung LED LCD TV (PVA of some sort I suppose, ~$650 new) to the BenQ BL3200PT 32" 1440p screen. Nice improvement. I think the resolution is perfect to be honest. No OS scaling issues and it's slightly more dense than my 24" 1920x1200 screen. I also dig the "low blue light" display mode for most usage.

TVs have quirks like power management not necessarily working with some inputs, post processing that might be problematic. My Samsung TV only had DPMS Standby on VGA input and so I had to turn it off manually on HDMI. It also had a faint, high-pitched squeal in standby anyway. You can't count on them having a good monitor feature set.

 

[Davros]

I'm not sure why ppi matters as both qhd and 4k are far removed from 96ppi (there are also 2560 x 1080 21:9 monitors)
I just think qhd aspect ratio is great for games plus it requires less gpu horsepower than 4k
Watch this video see if it changes your mind

 

[Malo]

lol that video pretty much sold me on my 34UM65 (the 2560x1080 version of the above). I love running DSR modes on it and the aspect ratio is just awesome for most games. There are also the newer curved versions.

 

[Davros]

lol that video pretty much sold me

Me too (except I dont have any money) That video made me think its probably a more sensible option than 4k, I also think the aspect ratio is much better for games, I think about 32-26:9 or 10 would be ideal though
I run 48:10 and to be honest I think its a bit too wide aspect wise (because the fov is so large) and also physically. I sit about 24" away from a monitor that is effectively 66" wide,
I recon I'm not really registering whats happening at the edges of the screen.

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

btw if you are gaming, be careful when buying TV.

Compared to my 19" benq,

Samsung 32inch with game mode = laggy (noticable only with mouse, gamepad gameplay not noticable)
Polytron (my country local brand) 24inch dont have game mode = no noticable lag

Try setting the HDMI port to pc instead of gaming. I had the same issue with my LG. Very noticable lagg on the gaming setting but 0 lagg after setting it to pc.

Those gaming modes probably don't turn off all post processing.

 

[swaaye]

Interesting wide aspect ratio stuff!

Oh also the other quirk with TVs is sometimes the color gamut and/or gamma don't align well with PC so you need to do extra tweaking. Though wide gamut can be quite nice with games.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

How timely. Anandtech has a little blurb on the state of HDMI TVs with regards to 4k/60hz.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/9152/futureproofing-htpcs-for-the-4k-era-hdmi-hdcp-and-hevc

Basically be careful. Many TVs that offer HDMI 2.0 ports don't offer all features of HDMI 2.0. Usually the only way to get all HDMI 2.0 features in an HDMI 2.0 port is getting a TV with only 1 HDMI 2.0 input...and even that isn't guaranteed.

Basically what it comes down to. Either wait 1-2 years before trying to get a good 4k/60hz TV. Or make sure you do a LOT of research ahead of time to be sure it actually does what you need it to do. And if you plan to watch protected 4K content. Wait. You'll need HDCP 2.2 but HDMI 2.0 doesn't require its support. Which means you'll have to likely replace the TV within a year or two in order to watch 4K content (HDCP 2.2 can't be enabled via firmware, it's a hardware feature).

Regards,
SB

 

[RedVi]

btw if you are gaming, be careful when buying TV.

Compared to my 19" benq,

Samsung 32inch with game mode = laggy (noticable only with mouse, gamepad gameplay not noticable)
Polytron (my country local brand) 24inch dont have game mode = no noticable lag

That would most likely be down the the lack of a scaler in your cheap 24".

But you are right, many TV's are terrible when it comes to lag and the game modes don't always work as advertised. Many PC monitors are the same.

Generally Sony TV's "game mode" is considered the best available for TV's and most reviews suggest using the mode for everything, unless you are particularly fond of 'motionflow' frame interpolation.

 

[Babel-17]

I've got a Sony 32" XBR6 that I enjoy using for gaming. I use game mode, and there's another setting under "Picture" that allows the choice between optimizing for either video or photos. I suppose that choosing "Photo" is also a way to disable some processing.
I have to wonder, if 4K Blu ray is coming, won't TV's want to be able to say that they support it, in full? Seeing that feature advertised/not advertised might help in the selection process. Though there might be a lot of confusion, with some sets just being compatible, or only supporting some features. Netflix will be recommending 4K sets as well. Hopefully the transition to HDTV's we went through has provided the tools, including journalists with experience, to help us quickly comprehend what each new wave of sets has, and lacks.

 

[orangpelupa]

my tv dont have PC mode. The fastest is game mode and unfortunately its still laggy.

@RedVi
what do you mean by scaler? is it the aspect ratio modes? it do have them (4:3 mode and full mode)

 

[Davros]

You need to be aware of the tcon issue when buying a 4k set.

"Currently there are no timing controllers that support 4K@60p. In order to drive the asus/sharp at 4K@60p, two separate TCONs are used. This is why this monitor has the unique capability of supporting dual HDMI. Each HDMI port feeds into its own TCON.

There is no 4K display that can do 60Hz without tiling. 4K@60p TCONs are supposed to start shipping in small amounts this year and in mass quantities in 2014."

The above may be out of date now, not sure ?