Greetings Posted September 19, 2015 Report Share Posted September 19, 2015 I was set on a LG 34" ultrawide but a few days ago I visited a friend who uses a HDTV as a monitor and I was impressed. It was a very relaxing thing to use as I could lean back and rather than have to lean in to see the details on the display. With 4K resolution I can imagine it would be pretty epic. My budget is around 700 pounds and 40" seems like plenty especially as I'd be sitting 3ft from it. Intended use is mostly office work, photo and video editing plus a tiny bit of gaming. Photo and video work is not professional so I'm not sure if 10bit colour is important at this stage. Having spent a few hours in stores I'm now completely lost. Firstly, why do these massive 4K TV's cost a lot less than the equivalent 4K monitor? Secondly, what's the difference between a 4K TV and a 4K monitor? Does anyone use a 4K TV as a monitor and could recommend something? So far I've only managed to establish that I need an IPS screen and that 50" is way too much Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Haz Posted September 19, 2015 Report Share Posted September 19, 2015 Main difference between a monitor and a TV will be the pixel pitch (the distance between the center of two pixels), it's going to be much larger on the TV, which makes the cost of the TV panel cheaper to produce. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greetings Posted September 19, 2015 Author Report Share Posted September 19, 2015 Haz, does that parameter define sharpness? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HippY Posted September 19, 2015 Report Share Posted September 19, 2015 I would advise you against 40" inch. You will get tired of it for normal usage Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Haz Posted September 19, 2015 Report Share Posted September 19, 2015 Haz, does that parameter define sharpness? Pretty much. There are a few other things to take into consideration, like the panel technology (IPS, etc). Smaller pitch is preferable the closer you are too it. A standard 24" 1920*1080 monitor will have a pitch of less than 0.3mm and looks good up close, a 40" 1920*1080 TV however would have a dot pitch would be about 0.5mm. If you're going to be close to the monitor, say 2 foot, the 24" is going to be sharper. That's why and old school stadium jumbo-tron can just use LEDs for it's image, because you can't see from 100ft that each pixel is 6mm away from the next! I'm not going to tell you to go one way of the other. But, I will say unless you want to step back from it and watch films like you would a normal TV once in a while, I would stick with the LG 34" Ultrawide. It's a lovely monitor, I use one at work. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JT! Posted September 20, 2015 Report Share Posted September 20, 2015 You get 110 ppi on a 40" 4k TV. That's the same ppi as a 21" monitor at 1080p. So even though it is massive, it should still look good close up, but nothing amazing. You can also run into a few issues by using a TV... although a lot of these issues have been resolved in newer TVs, you can have overscan issues. Last time I used a TV as a monitor I had to choose between VGA, or HDMI that looked like shit. Other issues with using a TV is that TV's aren't really designed for use as a monitor so they tend to not worry about input lag as much, although, again most newer tvs have either gaming modes, or monitor modes to cut all that processing out. If you're just sitting back and watching stuff or gaming it'll be great. But for use as an actual monitor which is what you seem to intend to do with it, might not be a good idea. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greetings Posted September 20, 2015 Author Report Share Posted September 20, 2015 Cheers guys. My card appears to be 4K capable but my mind is almost set on the 34" LG monitor. However, since I'm not going to be able to get my hands on one before buying, I'm worried that it won't be big enough. The setup I've been using for years is a 1200p 24" and a 1050p 22". If my calculations are correct, the screen size of the LG is around 31.3" x 13.4". This would result in 420 square inches, whereas the current setup is almost 480. That's a 12.5% decrease. Can a dual monitor setup even be compared to this 21:9? I've never worked on anything larger than the 24" I'm using. Could always use the LG and the 24" but that could be unergonomic. Finally, is the curved screen worth the extra money? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JT! Posted September 21, 2015 Report Share Posted September 21, 2015 I was recently talking to a friend who was looking at getting the very same monitor, 34" LG ultra wide. I would personalty never go for it because all 16:9 stuff is gonna look like shit on it. So pretty much all media is going to have black bars at the side of it and I'd just be spending extra money for black pixels. I would also miss duel monitors. Like right now for example I was watching a YouTube video and flicking though TF on my secondary monitor, and when I saw this post I dragged and maximized the TF window over the video. I feel doing this kind of stuff on one monitor wouldn't work as seamlessly and you'd have to rely on your OS's features to split the screen rather than the monitors acting as the boundary. As for the size of the monitor, I have a 27" 9:16 and by your numbers the 34" ultrawide is going to be the same height as mine so that should be big enough by a long way. The only one thing I can think curved would be awesome for is to reduce viewing distance. With such a big monitor close up, the center of the screen is going to be closer to your eyes than the edges, and you actually end up looking at parts of the monitor at an angle possibly distorting colors like what happens on a cheat TN panel. However with ISP panels these days that might not be an issue. My friend ended up buying a 29" UW monitor and hated it because it was a VA panel and ghosted like crazy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greetings Posted September 21, 2015 Author Report Share Posted September 21, 2015 I would also miss duel monitors. Like right now for example I was watching a YouTube video and flicking though TF on my secondary monitor, and when I saw this post I dragged and maximized the TF window over the video. I feel doing this kind of stuff on one monitor wouldn't work as seamlessly and you'd have to rely on your OS's features to split the screen rather than the monitors acting as the boundary. Yep, that's the brilliant thing about dual monitors. Multitasking is as easy as grabbing a window and dragging it onto the other monitor. I can only imagine that moving around windows on a single monitor would be extremely fiddly. Although LG seems to have an app which resolves that issue. Somehow I doubt it'll work like having two separate workspaces but perhaps they've nailed it. 16:9 is not a problem, I don't watch films on my PC anyway. What looks amazing is stuff like this: Going to give it a lot more thought. It's not that urgent and quite a difficult choice as it turns out. Thinking that two 27" monitors with a small bezel could be pretty neat too and would cost roughly the same. The only nuisance iis that with such a setup, the bezel is right in the middle. Would need an odd number of monitors to counter that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
weirdoku Posted September 21, 2015 Report Share Posted September 21, 2015 Just cos the card says it's 4K compatible doesn't mean it'll run everything fine in 4K. What card is it? Google monitor viewing distance, there's an optimal viewing distance for different size monitors and different resolutions. 4K on a 40" sitting 3 feet away is overkill and you'll be burning your eyes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greetings Posted September 21, 2015 Author Report Share Posted September 21, 2015 It's a GTX 660. Going to have to upgrade anyway, need more cuda performance.Accoding to google, optimal viewing distance for a 1440p 34" is around 3ft.I've been experimenting all evening with viewing distances and trying to simulate the 34" LG experience. It seems to be bang on. Perfect height and width. And it needs to be curved. Will wait a week or two before making the purchase. Perhaps there's something else out there I haven't discovered yet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JT! Posted September 22, 2015 Report Share Posted September 22, 2015 That image won't help you out too much because it considers the screen to be 9:16. IIRC the 34" LG is going to be the same as a 27-28" 1080 regular monitor. If it was truly a 1440p monitor you would be able to notice the difference between 1080 and 1440 sat up close.Oh wait I might actually be wrong, what's the actual model number of the monitor you're looking at? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greetings Posted September 22, 2015 Author Report Share Posted September 22, 2015 Oh wait I might actually be wrong, what's the actual model number of the monitor you're looking at?Either 34UC97 or 34UC95, probably the former. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JT! Posted September 23, 2015 Report Share Posted September 23, 2015 Oh they are both truly 1440. They're both going to look amazing. The 97 looks so much better. The 95 reminds me of flat screen TVs pre-HD when grey was in thing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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