[mayukh42]

Originally Posted by SmartCat

PROS:

- Brightness / contrast / sharpness TV settings can be changed. And the TV even has night mode (warm/cool)!
- TV has a built-in speakers, that sound better than laptop speakers

Brightness/ Contrast/ Sharpness can be changed on a monitor too, my 12 year old monitor also had them (though, the panel buttons now no longer work so I use a driver interface called DDCControl for that these days).

Though monitors do not have built in speakers, they do have a AUX out and pairing a decent soundbar with AUX cable will give much better sound than the cheap speakers of a TV.

Originally Posted by SmartCat

CONS:

- Certain text on screen, like bold text (Eg: unread emails in Gmail) don't look 'sharp' enough.
- TV stand is fixed and one cannot tilt the screen. I had to do some jugaad to place the screen at the right angle.
- Probably consumes more power?

Yes, the biggest drawback of TVs to be used as a monitor is font aliasing. Most OS use subpixel anti-aliasing to render text, this almost never works on TVs unless it is a LG C1 or above.

Paired with this, the high brightness means text reading is not going to be great on TVs from the 2 ft. distance we use a PC. It will cause eye strain and therefore is not usually a good idea, irrespective of ambient lighting of the room.

Because of high brightness, TVs consume more than double the power for same sized monitor. E.g. my 32" monitor consumes 50W, and my 32" LED TV consumes about 120W.

Though TV stands are fixed, even for monitors I see many using an external arm setup these days for the extra flexibility.

One major drawback of TVs is response time, which is usually in the range of 20-50 ms compared to 1-5 ms for monitors. This matters for those who play multiplayer games (not me as I am old school single player ).

Originally Posted by SmartCat

If PPI of a TV screen is lower, why doesn't it affect color rendition of images, games and video content?

This is because at the typical viewing distance, the impact is not perceived much. But picture quality and font aliasing will always be inferior in a TV at same distance as a monitor, precisely due to lower PPI.

Originally Posted by SmartCat

On a scale of 0 to 100, reducing sharpness to 60 and contrast to 95 helps

For long term usage with lot of text reading, I suggest to reduce sharpness to absolute minimum that the text is legible. E.g. in my 32" TV, I need to set it to 0. Just increasing to 1 makes text more sharp than I want it to be, similar to aliasing before setting up ClearType Text on Windows.

Originally Posted by bhairavp

I hook up my 3080Ti via a long HDMI2.1 cable to my LG OLED in the bedroom and pair an Xbox controller - great experience with HDR and Ray Tracing.

I too have couch gaming setup, with a 5800x3D, 6800XT on a basic 55". Though I had decided on the GPU for its VRAM, I find almost no difference playing at 1080p from 6 ft away, as compared to setting to native 4k, which unnecessarily consumes more power. [OT] I guess this is how console manufacturers have been fooling their customers, since above 1080p does not always matter at such long distances. Locked FPS matters more in a big screen though, any 2-3 fps drop in framerates and I might as well not play it, so the x3D CPU has been very helpful.

Originally Posted by bhairavp

PPI being lower -> your viewing distance matters-> you're not going to be sitting nose-to-screen on your TV.

Yes, the low PPI is offset by the fact that TVs are viewed from far off. That is why in general TVs have much more peak brightness.

[SmartCat]

Originally Posted by mayukh42

Brightness/ Contrast/ Sharpness can be changed on a monitor too, my 12 year old monitor also had them

Of course. What I was trying to convey was -> just like a computer monitor, TV screen's contrast/brightness/sharpness too can be adjusted.

But a laptop screen's contrast and sharpness cannot be adjusted I think. In display settings, I only see 3 or 4 preset contrast settings (which are useless)

Paired with this, the high brightness means text reading is not going to be great on TVs from the 2 ft. distance we use a PC. It will cause eye strain and therefore is not usually a good idea, irrespective of ambient lighting of the room. Because of high brightness, TVs consume more than double the power for same sized monitor. E

Yes, I have dialed down 'LED backlighting' to 10 (out of max 20) and 'brightness' (50 out of max 100). I've been using this for a couple of days now and it is quite comfortable with these settings.

[bhairavp]

Originally Posted by mayukh42

I too have couch gaming setup, with a 5800x3D, 6800XT on a basic 55". Though I had decided on the GPU for its VRAM, I find almost no difference playing at 1080p from 6 ft away, as compared to setting to native 4k, which unnecessarily consumes more power. [OT] I guess this is how console manufacturers have been fooling their customers, since above 1080p does not always matter at such long distances. Locked FPS matters more in a big screen though, any 2-3 fps drop in framerates and I might as well not play it, so the x3D CPU has been very helpful.

Yes - the x3D CPUs are a great send-off for us plebes still on AM4. Although the 7800X3D and 9800X3D on AM5 look really good, 50k for the 9800X3D alone is quite steep.

I run a 5800X (non 3D), and at 1440p and 2160p, GPU comes into play more than the CPU, at least in the games I play - Forza, FIFA, some flight sims. FPS I prefer using a keyboard and mouse - can't wrap my head around using a controller for FPS games.

[Venkat_Figo]

Originally Posted by mayukh42

I too have couch gaming setup, with a 5800x3D, 6800XT on a basic 55". Though I had decided on the GPU for its VRAM, I find almost no difference playing at 1080p from 6 ft away, as compared to setting to native 4k, which unnecessarily consumes more power.

I have a 5900x and an RTX 4090 on a 55" LG G3. I too sit at 6ft from the screen, I play on 4k, however, have setup DLDSR at 2.25x & use DLSS on quality. The image is crisp & the FPS high. I guess AMD has VSR & FSR, even though VSR isn't exactly a DLDSR alternative, it will help boost image quality even though you sit at a good distance from your display.

[kadanaJ]

I tried this many years ago on a 32" LG TV. Granted this was a decade ago, and I'm sure technology has changed/improved, but my major issue was input lag.

Mouse movements did not feel smooth, and it just felt a bit frustrating to work with. Was perfectly fine for media consumption, but I did not enjoy using work apps like MS Excel on it.

[Staraptor]

Originally Posted by SmartCat

Another related question -> How different is this LED television screen technology compared to a smartphone OLED screen? As mentioned before, the colors are as vivid as that of a smartphone.
Attachment 2705179

A phone/laptop with an LCD display or a TV with an LED display run the same tech. Of LED backlit LCD screens.

The LCD consists of pixels, which are capable of showing colour, but they have no illumination of their own, which means they need a backlight. The backlight previously used to be CCFL (in old LCD TVs) and is now LED.
In phones/laptops, the same LED backlit LCDs are used, but are marketed as LCD screens (but as LED screens on TVs)

LCD/LED screens display grey instead of pitch black, since the backlight is also running constantly and there is usually a single backlight source behind the LCD layer.

They are very different from an OLED. OLED screens have no backlighting. The display is made up of micro OLEDs which are themselves display of showing colour as well as light. The black in OLEDs is pitch black, because the OLEDs essentially turn off while displaying black.

Generally, OLEDs have a greater contrast (due to true black) and more vibrant colours, but LCDs can be tuned to show vibrant colours too.

[Arvindyoga]

Originally Posted by mayukh42

Paired with this, the high brightness means text reading is not going to be great on TVs from the 2 ft. distance we use a PC. It will cause eye strain and therefore is not usually a good idea, irrespective of ambient lighting of the room.

This is because at the typical viewing distance, the impact is not perceived much. But picture quality and font aliasing will always be inferior in a TV at same distance as a monitor, precisely due to lower PPI.

I believe this is the primary reason we tend to stay away from TVs as monitors. Image resolution / clarity wasn't too much of a concern for me as I was just looking for any random display for my desktop, had an old 32" Sony Bravia TV (15+ years old as of today) lying around and the scrap collection guy said he'll give me just INR 300 for it. I'm quite positive this TV will outlive any monitor if I plan to purchase

With it as my primary monitor, in PC settings connected with VGA cable, display brightness and backlight dialed down to bare minimums, I don't have a problem with eye strain either. I discarded my Dell laptop and use this as my primary home computer now, since I don't travel very often and almost every activity can be managed easily on my smartphone.

Here's a picture of me replying to this thread using this setup . Text clarity is fair, even with an open window behind it.

[rkv_2401]

Originally Posted by SmartCat

But a laptop screen's contrast and sharpness cannot be adjusted I think. In display settings, I only see 3 or 4 preset contrast settings (which are useless)

Contrast can be adjusted depending on the laptop, but yes, generally it's not a meaningful change. I pressed some combination of buttons on my gaming laptop the other day and it snapped into regular contrast mode - the blacks are now black instead of dark gray, and all colors are much deeper. No idea what setting I was using it in for the last 3 years, what buttons made it change, or how that setting persisted for this long despite me reinstalling the OS during that period.

Re: Night mode, check out F.lux for warmer color profiles at night, it reduces eye strain and the blue light effect that makes you not want to sleep even after your regular bed time. Nowadays phones (and even Windows) have it too, but Window's Night mode is lackluster IMO.

I guess the reason it hasn't taken off is that in the 24-32" size range, a decent monitor doesn't cost that much and in any larger size, the eye strain from such a huge display + poor rendering of text makes it an unfeasible option. As someone who has to use my computer 7 days a week for work, I'd rather not take the chances of straining my eyes. Even for gaming or video streaming, I found the 40-something inch TV my ex-flatmates got to be disappointing and preferred playing on my 27" monitor + background lighting instead.

P.S. Once you get a good(ish) quality monitor, it's hard to go back. I miss my 27" 4K Pro-art monitor everyday, despite having another 27" 1080p monitor (which I never felt was bad previously) here.

[SR5471]

There is no issue using an led TV of sufficient resolution as a monitor. Only thing is to adjust the seating position according to the size of the TV. A few of my friends have LG OLED TV of 48" which they use as monitors and they are great for productivity and entertainment.

[Mukunthan91]

I am using almost decade old Sony Bravia 24" tv as a monitor for my laptop occasionally when I work from home. Though the tv screen clarity is not good as a monitor but it serves the purpose.

[wheelspinner]

Not a bad idea if the old TV has at least 60 Hz refresh rate, and good colour range.

[sgmuser]

Very bad idea for eyes. TV screens aren't meant for close range viewing. Monitors are the best for this purpose. Please do a google and read the available information. There are atleast few reasons.

Link https://www.pcworld.com/article/4275...d-to-know.html

The above link atleast talks about few fundamentals like pixel density, frequency and distance etc. To sum it up, it's not recommended for eyes.