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Comment by schmookeeg | Hacker News Reader

I code on a pair of Samsung 4K 55" Curved TVs, and enjoy them immensely. What am I missing out on with your IPS advice? I don't do graphical/visual work, and you didn't mention anything specific about why a high-end monitor is better. I am also not sure what use case you're championing, nor what your employees use their expensive monitors for.

Would be curious what your use cases are, and what the differences are that you've experienced vs 4K TVs as monitors. I moved up from 6 x 27" 1080P monitors and like this arrangement far better. No fussing with multiple video cards, fewer bezels, and gained the equivelant of 2 1080P screens into the bargain. All for $1300, 1/4 of the prior setup cost.

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>I code on a pair of Samsung 4K 55" Curved TVs

I would love to see a photo of this setup. It sounds simultaneously awesome and ridicules!

Seconded, all I can imagine is that he's sitting like 6 feet away from 2 TVs next to each other in a setup that would be great for racing games.

I'd also like to see a photo of this setup, and I'd like to understand how you work on this.

I have a 27" 4K monitor at 150% scaling and it feels 'big enough', I was considering getting a second but then I'd have the bezel in the middle, so three would probably be better, but then I'd have to turn my head a lot to see the outer screens, so it seemed a bit pointless.

Maybe I'm an outlier, but I prefer to have applications full screen and just focus on that one thing. I also don't work with videos playing in the background as I find that very distracting, music is ok as I can zone out (and then realise for the last hour I've had headphones on with nothing playing), so I don't need to see a whole Spotify playlist, artwork and recommendations when I'm writing code.

If I'm doing web development, I'll have Vim in a terminal full screen, and when I need to test something live I'll switch to Chrome - my screen is big enough that I can have the page and debugger open side by side without it feeling squashed. I have tests and the compiler running in another tmux tab, so the terminal bell will alert me if something needs my attention there.

http://i.picresize.com/images/2017/11/09/A7KWg.jpg

:) I basically divide the screens into 8 1080P windows. A "basic workday" for me is usually:

1. Chrome with Email, hangouts, and other administrata 2. A second Chrome with web dev. 3. A third 1080P with the web inspector for above. 4. An SSH window to the nodejs server 5. pgAdmin to postgres 6. VSCode 7. Xencenter if I'm juggling VMs around 8. Choice of: another chrome for goofing off, or a bunch of smaller windows with git bash, filesystem windows, or other little distractions like spotify.

It's hard to tell from this photo (lol messy desk) but I sit about 80cm from the screens. There are some downsides:

I'm too close to the TVs for gaming -- they're too bright even at minimum brightness setting. One "all white" explosion cutscene and my eyes will hurt. I'm in the habit of closing my eyes when I sense impending white-out.

The "curved" monitors are only subtly curved, and I still fly them in a "Vee" configuration. I could've saved $200 by just going with 2 flat monitors. It seemed cooler at the time than it is.

I see others talking about fighting firmware and whatnot, but these MU650Ds from Costco (which I'm told are identical to MU6500s, but re-numbered to avoid price-matching...shrug?) just worked out of the box. Setting the "device" to PC HDMI and the TV took it from there. I dinked with the color settings to taste.

It's weird, my laptop is an XPS13 with the 3200x1800 screen, and when I try to do ANY splitscreen work, I find myself edging closer or squinting. I don't wear glasses, but I think I must just be a "not a HiDPI" guy. square inches on screens are cheap and cheerful.

I haven't found it hard to focus on a "tile" to work.

It's nice to step through the node debugger by flicking VSCode fullscreen, hunting and pecking through the 100-line-high code, all on the right side while the SSH/Chrome/Chrome debugger/pgsql windows sit on the left and I can watch them whirr with each step. Works for me anyway.

$0.02 :)

Nice setup. I personally like to have three monitors, so the center one is in the middle and I don't have to turn my head.

ATM I have a fairly old 32" 1080p TV as my middle screen.

It becomes hard to find the desk space for three monitors when you get to a 40" middle screen though. I prefer having multiple monitors than a single larger monitor. I haven't decided how I'm going to upgrade yet.

Our employees are sat 50cm from their 27" 1440p monitors, they sit at 1.2M/4ft desks and look at text for 5-6 hours a day. So in this context TVs are not suitable, and would be never considered for our office environment. Some are free to choose what they want and have 4K monitors, everything is Dell Ultrasharp for simplicity. There is a mix of portrait and landscape used. I'd suggest quality 4K over cheap 4K, but we don't provide that for all our employees as it is unnecessary, but I do deal with a lot of other businesses and it has been very uncommon for me to see 4K TVs in the workplace here in the UK.

I've had IPS monitors for 15 years and maybe it's in my head at this point compared to high end TVs and TN panels, but I wouldn't use anything else nor would I subject those I expect to drive revenue for me to do so. It's a key tool that is often an afterthought.

End of the day whatever works for you, but I have seen first hand people have huge TVs on a desk thinking they are getting some kind of gain and then they look up and down all day long or squint to see whats on it. A lot of people have to be forced to adhere to good ergonomics and healthy use of computers.

Hardware is cheap compared to what we pay for software, SaaS, pension and perks for our staff so it's something we are good on.

/ramble over

A 4K 40” screen has similar dot pitch and is smaller than a pair of 27” 1440p screens. The main advantage is it has no bezels so it’s more flexible.

Also, many TVs are 60Hz IPS displays, but you have to do some research to find ones that display in 4:4:4 color. After that the main difference between the two is the firmware on the device, some things like VESA power saving work differently.

TVs can be cheaper because they have larger economies of scale than monitors. It doesn’t have much to do with the underlying technology.

It seems like you don’t know as much as you think you do about display technology.

I tried the Samsung 40" 4K monitor route and the worst part about it (other than being a tad too large) is dealing with the "smart tv" software. Immensely annoying.

What was annoying about it?

Cool, I'll continue to see us purchase quality, proven, monitors as we expand and require more hardware rather than start dropping large consumer TVs on peoples desks.

27" @ 1080p? 55" @ 4K ?

These all sound ridiculously low dpi - mid 80s.

My 17" pre-retina MBP does 1920x1200 - 130-something dpi and that's so old Apple don't sell parts for it any more.

How on earth are you using these or the previous ones, that everything, and particularly text, isn't just atrocious to look at?

Oh how I wish the 16:10 aspect ratio hadn't been abandoned. Every time I get an urge to upgrade my home monitor, I remember it's 1920x1200 and I'll never find another like it.

Last time I bought a laptop, all the reasonably priced ones had 1366x768 displays. I hate it! The pixels are very visible. Finally picked up a 14" 1920x1080 Chromebook for web use and I couldn't be happier, it's so much nicer looking.

> Oh how I wish the 16:10 aspect ratio hadn't been abandoned. Every time I get an urge to upgrade my home monitor, I remember it's 1920x1200 and I'll never find another like it.

A kilobuck will get you a 30" 2560x1600 Dell UP3017.

Oh I know they're still out there. But as you've noticed, the price makes them totally impractical. The lack of selection also means you're less likely to find the exact monitor to make you happy.

16:10 is the best aspect ratio still to me as well. I have a hard time upgrading my 24" Dell 1920x1200 Monitor. I refuse to have the limited vertical space of a 16:9. Sure it's just 1 aspect ratio off, but to me it makes a huge difference.

I'd guess from the fact that he's using two 55" displays he's sitting a good distance away from them.

Distance from the display is as important as DPI when discussing pixel clarity.

It does say "I code".. how far away do you have to be for text to appear crisp at 80dpi? And how big do you need the font size to make it readable?

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