Off-topic but I wish 16:10 hadn't died with the move to 4k. I have an old 1200p dell ultrasharp in 16:10 and it's sublime compared to my other 16:9. You'd think it doesn't make much of a difference, but it really does. Especially when you have it vertically oriented, but otherwise too.
I apologize if this is an incredibly stupid question, but why do these monitors cost so much? As I understand it, you can buy a good 4k TV for considerably less, so what features of this monitor make it a better deal?
I've been using a Samsung 40" 4k TV as my main monitor for development work for about 8 months and it's been great for me.
A couple caveats -- Because I don't game or do graphics work, I don't know or care about color reproduction. I made sure to get a TV, graphics card, and cable that supported 4k@60hz with 4:4:4 chroma so the text is perfectly sharp and the refresh is not obtrusive. It's not hard to find a Samsung TV around $350 that supports that, but as far as I could tell, I had to go up to a GTX1050 graphics card to get that. I sit between 24 and 28" away from the monitor so the text is readable to me at full resolution. At that distance, I do have to turn my head to comfortably read text in the corners of the TV, especially the upper corners. In practice, that means I keep monitoring-type applications such as CPU charts, Datadog graphs, etc., in one of those corners for quick reference. While I still have two 1920x1080 monitors on either side of the TV, it's quite nice to be able to open up on my main monitor a huge IDE window and, when necessary, put 3-4 normal-sized windows next to each other for comparison work.
It's designed for graphic design and other display-critical tasks, so it is calibrated to 99% sRGB color space. What it looks like on this monitor will be what it should look like in print and on the best of every other display. Plus, it's the UltraSharp top-end model, so all the mechanical construction will be top notch.
TVs, on the other hand, are designed to show the most oversaturated, "vibrant" colors on the demo loop on the show-room wall. And mechanically, they're designed to hang on the wall and never be touched.
I cannot speak for 4K TVs, but as I was making a research for my own purchase I found the following differences between monitors and TVs.
TVs are said to be configured to display the best-looking colors, monitors try to stay true to the real color.
TVs have an immensely higher refresh rate, 50hz/60hz usually suffice for a TV. But on monitors we speak of milliseconds. The refresh rate makes a lot of difference, if you intend to game on your computer/monitor. An e-sport professional Redittor claims he had improved his playing performance multiple-folds after switching to a monitor instead of TV. (https://www.reddit.com/r/FIFA/comments/5whb9v/did_the_change...)
Other than these differences and the occasional overscan/underscan problems on older televisions, I personally see no reason to prefer a Monitor over a TV, if there is huge price difference. If the price difference is minor, I'd opt for a monitor.
And it double-sucks, because here in Italy we have to pay "TV tax", even if you don't have the TV service hooked up. Modern LCD/OLED TVs are perfectly fine for most tasks, except maybe high-end FPS gaming. The colors are good, the refresh rates are decent.
It's like how megapixels are a bad measure of camera quality. This is a pro monitor with accurate color reproduction, low fading on the edges, minimal dead pixels, etc.
I know someone who uses a 1080p TV as a monitor for his gaming PC. The picture quality is poor; it's too blurry to be tolerable for work. That's okay in this particular case, since he uses a different PC for work, but that one needs a proper monitor.
Granted that's 1080p, but it wouldn't surprise me if the same thing is true of 4k.
Related musing: why is it seemingly easier to make very high resolution small screen (phones) than large screens of the same resolution ? Instinctevly I would think smaller leds are harder to make, but it doesn't seem it's the case ?
Also, incidentally, I'd happily pay a bit of premium for a TV / Monitor that has good image quality but no other features. Perhaps not 2x as much, but 20% might be doable.
High-end monitors are niche products. 40" TVs aren't.
HDMI 2.0 is a pain compared to DP, other than that, there's almost no reason not to buy a TV if you just care about office use. I've been using a Samsung UHD TV for almost two years.
Monitors are designed to be viewed at close range, from multiple near angles. TVs are designed to be viewed several meters away, at roughly the same angle.
TVs play content of the same frame rate, so there's no reason for them to be any more precise. Monitors can go at very high frame rate as the content can be very fast paced, especially gaming monitors.
Freesync/gsync also integrates with the graphics card to reduce lag. This is the most expensive part of these monitors.
- TV's are generally low framerate, as much as they'd like to claim 240FPS, it's mostly all 30FPS, with software interpolation to increase the frames.
- Bulk. TV's are solid in higher numbers, justifying the lower price
- Distance from face. Your 60" TV can be two smaller panels "glued" together. Not noticeable from watching distance, but having a monitor so close to your face, you're more likely to notice the millisecond tearing.
"Dell has managed to increase maximum brightness of its U3818DW to 350 nits (from 300 nits on competing monitors)"
Bah, why does everyone seem to love blinding themselves? Am I the only one who doesn't like a bright screen? (Ergonomically, we're supposed to have the monitor's backlight match the brightness of a white sheet of paper in the same lighting conditions.)
I imagine it's easier for you to dim the brightness to your preference than for others to somehow manage to tweak every bit of brightness out of their graphics card settings after the monitor's settings tap out
Use case: I'm in front of a window, if the sun's out and I've got the curtains open I might as well just turn the screen off
I'd rather stick with 2x 25" Dell UltraSharp U2515H 2560x1440 monitors[0].
2 of those are nearly 3x cheaper than the 1x 38" curved display and for tasks that require a lot of horizontal space (video editing, etc.) 5120 is WAY wider than 3840. Also a curved display is pretty questionable for professional image editing (it distorts pixels).
I run the 25" here for development and video editing. Probably the best development environment upgrade I've made in 5 years.
If anyone wants to read a deep dive on how to pick a solid monitor for development, I put together a detailed blog post[1] that covers why I picked that 25" Dell specifically.
And here I am with a Vizio 40" 4k[1] that I got for less than $500. It's not perfect, and the refresh rate is only 60Hz for 4k (which is the same as this Dell offering), but it's served me well for the last six months at a fraction of the cost and with more pixels.
Only 60 hz. Sigh - I hope mainstream moves to 100+Hz monitors soon. I love the fluency of my far-too-expensive 'gaming' IPS 144hz monitor despite I don't play that much. Just the fact that web pages and mouse pointers don't lag is a noticeable improvement.
I rather we invest in PPI rather than refresh rate. Not that the two are mutually exclusive, but as I look at my use cases, most of the time the screen is static, so a higher refresh rate would be wasted, whereas higher PPI screens improve readability and legibility (when they work on Windows).
I agree. 60hz is fine but having tried +100hz CRT monitors back in 199X I am still waiting for them to be mainstream. Perhaps Apple will take the iPad's "ProMotion" 120hz to the mainstream crowd in a not-too-expensive display package.
I bought the U3415W when it first came out. At first it was for games (coming from 3x U2412Ms) however I quickly realised how incredibly good the 21:9 3440x1440 resolution is for programming. No DPI scaling needs be involved, so I'm looking at Visual Studio experience where even with NCrunch unit test runners and the Solution overview, I have plenty of room for two main code editing windows. Brilliant.
I ended up buying an extra Acer X34 for home (surrounded by 2x U2412Ms on an Ergotech stand) and brought the U3415W to work as a personal device.
The 38" could potentially be even better, however I'm rather happy with the 34" as is. It's a bit of a shame they didn't add Freesync to it.
I suspect that in a few years a hololens / google glass style device will become cheaper and work as well as a big bank of monitors, and at that point it is going to rapidly replace physical monitors - and then economy of scale and iteration of the product will do the usual to the price/performance ratio of head-mounted devices, then screens go the way of CRT monitors when flat screens came along.
I'm not saying that a head-mounted device and virtual screens will necessarily be better than a bank of monitors - in fact it's time to asses drawbacks - but once it's cheaper and seems "just as good" then business will want to switch over, for better or worse.
PSA - don't get tempted by UltraSharp reviews and recommendations, like I did. Just pick an Eizo instead.
UltraSharps are widely recommended for coding with glorious reviews and endorsements. Got one and no matter how I adjusted it, it was still too... eye-piercing, if you will, for longer coding sessions. Got mild headaches, tired eyes and general feeling of discomfort when working on hem even for shorter periods. Then switched to FlexScan and it's a completely different ballgame - softer, more gentle feel, incomparably more comfortable. The best monitor I've had a pleasure of staring at in my 20 years of programming.
However the interesting part here is that both monitors use the same panel (!), so the panel itself is only part of the recipe, which is something that many reciews tend to either downplay or not mention at all.
It's interesting to see the variety of monitors people are using - and especially the variety of pixel densities, all the way down to 69 pixels per inch on a 32" 1080p panel.
For anyone who is curious to compare the pixel density of a variety of monitors and televisions, I have a spreadsheet with about 120 different display sizes and resolutions and their pixel densities:
Email me at the address in my profile or use the chat box in the spreadsheet (to avoid cluttering this thread) if you have any other displays you'd like to add.
Ugh, I bought the 34" a few months ago and replaced it with a 42" 16:9 yesterday. The ultra wide format is really awkward for everything except gaming and media, and those have tons of software issues with the aspect ratio.
Low DPI, certainly Dell's traditional low quality anti-glare filter (3h). When will they wake up and build monitors for people who work with letters and numbers (vs video or image) and favor quality over price? For a few years I think I will still have to switch every programms to dark theme as a work around to hide the poor quality and defaults of the monitors... sad. :(
Beware if you're somewhat of a messy, like me, you're going to have hundreds of (terminal) windows and another hundreds of browser tabs open simultaneously on these, until you can't find your current stuff on your desktop anymore at which point you have to spend half an hour to sort out what you want to close. I actually sold my fat 27" and went back to 24" (and to 13" notebooks).
A special window manager is a requisite on the big screen, but which one? I like the original Expose feature on Mac OS <= 10.6 while the remade 10.7 version just doesn't blend from/into full desktop view as spatially recognizable as the original for me. Ubuntu's Unity does an ok job, too, but it's going away ([1]).
>> Beware if you're somewhat of a messy, like me, you're going to have hundreds of (terminal) windows and another hundreds of browser tabs open simultaneously on these, until you can't find your current stuff on your desktop anymore at which point you have to spend half an hour to sort out what you want to close.
I have this problem, sort of. I have a dual 27" 4K running at 1:1, and it's gotten to the point where I want two more monitors for more real estate for my mess of windows. Given the added weight and stability issues (I have a standing desk), I think I'm going to wait until ~50" 8K curved monitors are available and affordable.
For macOS window control via keyboard I recommend Spectacle (https://github.com/eczarny/spectacle). Among other options, the app can position windows by thirds which really shines for this class of screen - think three windows side-by-side each using 1280px.
The built in Win+Tab command works well for the closing windows problem on Windows 10 on a 34" screen. I'm using a combination of built in commands and WindowSpace commands I learned with two monitors. Keyboard shortcuts to throw a window to the left or right half of the screen go a long way, but I could use a small step up in tiling features.
I wish it were available in HiDPI version, i.e. twice the resolution - it would make it way better to look at, as seeing pixels while editing video or producing audio in Live is no longer acceptable.
This is based off a monitor from LG that is over a year old and is not 4K.
I have a 34 inch flat LG thunderbolt screen right now on my 3 year old MacBook Pro. Great screen
I plan to swap the computer to the MacBook and get a LG 32ud99-w when they finally ship (4K, USB-C from MacBook). I fly 100K a year so I want the smaller laptop. I hate giving up on the thunderbolt. I have been waiting for a decent USB-C monitor.
This is a difficult time to commit $1500 to a monitor. For that kind of money I would really want better support for new color standards.
But the standards are still settling, and you can actually end up worse off with better color if the stars are not aligned with your operating system and applications.
[+] [-] RX14|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TheAceOfHearts|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dhd415|8 years ago|reply
A couple caveats -- Because I don't game or do graphics work, I don't know or care about color reproduction. I made sure to get a TV, graphics card, and cable that supported 4k@60hz with 4:4:4 chroma so the text is perfectly sharp and the refresh is not obtrusive. It's not hard to find a Samsung TV around $350 that supports that, but as far as I could tell, I had to go up to a GTX1050 graphics card to get that. I sit between 24 and 28" away from the monitor so the text is readable to me at full resolution. At that distance, I do have to turn my head to comfortably read text in the corners of the TV, especially the upper corners. In practice, that means I keep monitoring-type applications such as CPU charts, Datadog graphs, etc., in one of those corners for quick reference. While I still have two 1920x1080 monitors on either side of the TV, it's quite nice to be able to open up on my main monitor a huge IDE window and, when necessary, put 3-4 normal-sized windows next to each other for comparison work.
[+] [-] LeifCarrotson|8 years ago|reply
TVs, on the other hand, are designed to show the most oversaturated, "vibrant" colors on the demo loop on the show-room wall. And mechanically, they're designed to hang on the wall and never be touched.
Plus it's curved.
[+] [-] sampl|8 years ago|reply
It's called an iMac.
https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-mac/imac/27-inch
[+] [-] fsloth|8 years ago|reply
A recent positive: https://www.techspot.com/article/1439-using-4k-tv-as-desktop...
A negative from 2014:
http://www.itworld.com/article/2832687/consumerization/don-t...
and some discussion:
http://www.avsforum.com/forum/166-lcd-flat-panel-displays/28...
The main headache seems to be blurry fonts which probably mean a lack of 4:4:4 chroma support or the inability to enable it.
[+] [-] terminalcommand|8 years ago|reply
TVs are said to be configured to display the best-looking colors, monitors try to stay true to the real color.
TVs have an immensely higher refresh rate, 50hz/60hz usually suffice for a TV. But on monitors we speak of milliseconds. The refresh rate makes a lot of difference, if you intend to game on your computer/monitor. An e-sport professional Redittor claims he had improved his playing performance multiple-folds after switching to a monitor instead of TV. (https://www.reddit.com/r/FIFA/comments/5whb9v/did_the_change...)
Other than these differences and the occasional overscan/underscan problems on older televisions, I personally see no reason to prefer a Monitor over a TV, if there is huge price difference. If the price difference is minor, I'd opt for a monitor.
[+] [-] olegkikin|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thinkloop|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rwallace|8 years ago|reply
Granted that's 1080p, but it wouldn't surprise me if the same thing is true of 4k.
[+] [-] danmaz74|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] melling|8 years ago|reply
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1xsaaw/e...
[+] [-] jrimbault|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vesak|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zyb09|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hocuspocus|8 years ago|reply
HDMI 2.0 is a pain compared to DP, other than that, there's almost no reason not to buy a TV if you just care about office use. I've been using a Samsung UHD TV for almost two years.
[+] [-] muzani|8 years ago|reply
TVs play content of the same frame rate, so there's no reason for them to be any more precise. Monitors can go at very high frame rate as the content can be very fast paced, especially gaming monitors.
Freesync/gsync also integrates with the graphics card to reduce lag. This is the most expensive part of these monitors.
[+] [-] prodmerc|8 years ago|reply
And this Dell isn't even 10 bit IPS, which is what monitors for professional graphics use, it's the standard 8bit IPS, very likely made by LG.
It's curved though.
[+] [-] sudosushi|8 years ago|reply
- TV's are generally low framerate, as much as they'd like to claim 240FPS, it's mostly all 30FPS, with software interpolation to increase the frames.
- Bulk. TV's are solid in higher numbers, justifying the lower price
- Distance from face. Your 60" TV can be two smaller panels "glued" together. Not noticeable from watching distance, but having a monitor so close to your face, you're more likely to notice the millisecond tearing.
[+] [-] ianai|8 years ago|reply
Bah, why does everyone seem to love blinding themselves? Am I the only one who doesn't like a bright screen? (Ergonomically, we're supposed to have the monitor's backlight match the brightness of a white sheet of paper in the same lighting conditions.)
[+] [-] corobo|8 years ago|reply
Use case: I'm in front of a window, if the sun's out and I've got the curtains open I might as well just turn the screen off
[+] [-] MR4D|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DamnInteresting|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] driverdan|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] xur17|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nickjj|8 years ago|reply
2 of those are nearly 3x cheaper than the 1x 38" curved display and for tasks that require a lot of horizontal space (video editing, etc.) 5120 is WAY wider than 3840. Also a curved display is pretty questionable for professional image editing (it distorts pixels).
I run the 25" here for development and video editing. Probably the best development environment upgrade I've made in 5 years.
If anyone wants to read a deep dive on how to pick a solid monitor for development, I put together a detailed blog post[1] that covers why I picked that 25" Dell specifically.
[0]: http://amzn.to/2jF3WHp
[1]: https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/how-to-pick-a-good-monitor-fo...
[+] [-] kbenson|8 years ago|reply
1: http://www.rtings.com/tv/reviews/vizio/d-series-4k-2016
[+] [-] fsloth|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] LeoNatan25|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] scarlac|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sundvor|8 years ago|reply
I ended up buying an extra Acer X34 for home (surrounded by 2x U2412Ms on an Ergotech stand) and brought the U3415W to work as a personal device.
The 38" could potentially be even better, however I'm rather happy with the 34" as is. It's a bit of a shame they didn't add Freesync to it.
[+] [-] SideburnsOfDoom|8 years ago|reply
I'm not saying that a head-mounted device and virtual screens will necessarily be better than a bank of monitors - in fact it's time to asses drawbacks - but once it's cheaper and seems "just as good" then business will want to switch over, for better or worse.
[+] [-] eps|8 years ago|reply
UltraSharps are widely recommended for coding with glorious reviews and endorsements. Got one and no matter how I adjusted it, it was still too... eye-piercing, if you will, for longer coding sessions. Got mild headaches, tired eyes and general feeling of discomfort when working on hem even for shorter periods. Then switched to FlexScan and it's a completely different ballgame - softer, more gentle feel, incomparably more comfortable. The best monitor I've had a pleasure of staring at in my 20 years of programming.
However the interesting part here is that both monitors use the same panel (!), so the panel itself is only part of the recipe, which is something that many reciews tend to either downplay or not mention at all.
[+] [-] hultner|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Stratoscope|8 years ago|reply
For anyone who is curious to compare the pixel density of a variety of monitors and televisions, I have a spreadsheet with about 120 different display sizes and resolutions and their pixel densities:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1K4bCgr-VjMmeCjHf6Udy...
Email me at the address in my profile or use the chat box in the spreadsheet (to avoid cluttering this thread) if you have any other displays you'd like to add.
[+] [-] pault|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] roselan|8 years ago|reply
Had there been significant progress in this field the last few years?
[+] [-] IdontRememberIt|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tannhaeuser|8 years ago|reply
A special window manager is a requisite on the big screen, but which one? I like the original Expose feature on Mac OS <= 10.6 while the remade 10.7 version just doesn't blend from/into full desktop view as spatially recognizable as the original for me. Ubuntu's Unity does an ok job, too, but it's going away ([1]).
[1]: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14043631>
[+] [-] Eridrus|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] flurdy|8 years ago|reply
Macos: https://ianyh.com/amethyst/
Linux: http://xmonad.org or https://i3wm.org
[+] [-] slantyyz|8 years ago|reply
I have this problem, sort of. I have a dual 27" 4K running at 1:1, and it's gotten to the point where I want two more monitors for more real estate for my mess of windows. Given the added weight and stability issues (I have a standing desk), I think I'm going to wait until ~50" 8K curved monitors are available and affordable.
[+] [-] edcoffin|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] shoover|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bitL|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] myrandomcomment|8 years ago|reply
I have a 34 inch flat LG thunderbolt screen right now on my 3 year old MacBook Pro. Great screen
I plan to swap the computer to the MacBook and get a LG 32ud99-w when they finally ship (4K, USB-C from MacBook). I fly 100K a year so I want the smaller laptop. I hate giving up on the thunderbolt. I have been waiting for a decent USB-C monitor.
[+] [-] WhitneyLand|8 years ago|reply
But the standards are still settling, and you can actually end up worse off with better color if the stars are not aligned with your operating system and applications.
[+] [-] PhrosTT|8 years ago|reply
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01N6S1P2D
[+] [-] 80211|8 years ago|reply