Dual 75“ 4K TV Floor Computing

> Why are monitors so expensive and old tech compared to TVs?

(“Smart”) TVs are subsidized by the push advertising and analytics crammed into their firmware.

One thing I noticed about my 46" LG 4K monitor, which was "cheap" at $600-ish (edit: looked it up: $720) 3-4 years ago, is that it really isn't designed for viewing at desk distances. On my desk, as far back as it'll go, the viewing angle puts the backlight not exactly behind the pixels, so the left/right have 4-6 pixels and the bottom has ~10-15 pixels that are unlit.

I use it for a bunch of terminals, so part of the left column of text and the entire bottom line, or my status bar, were unreadable. Thankfully my window manager had an unsupported feature that let me "pretend" that those areas didn't exist.

So what I learned is that TV-oriented panels aren't just directly usable on the desktop.

However, I was more recently able to pick up a couple 32" Dell 4K displays for $300-ish each, and they are glorious! That was on a big year-end sale.

I think things are changing; at CES this year QD-OLED launched on both TVs and monitors simultaneously with the AW3423DW, and there are some 42 inch OLED monitors derived from TV panels.

> And prices seem artificially high

I switched companies last year and was gonna return the screen they gave me to use for home office, and buy my own. I looked it up, and the screen had cost like 700 USD back in 2016. So I thought I for the same price, 5 years later, I would get a sweet upgrade.

But no, basically same specs. Same panels, perhaps upgraded a bit, but not much had happened. Prices were the same, perhaps because of the pandemic. Luckily my previous company ended up gifting me the screen.

My new company ended up giving me the "newer" version of the monitor at the office. Only difference I can see is that it now charges my laptop via usb-c. Neat, but not much innovation in those 5 years.

Interesting. I find innovation in TV's to be opposite of my desired direction. Smarts that make them slower, wifi, ads, slowness,forced firmware updates, slowness, unfathomable picture controls and auto magic colour correction that's Gawd awful, unresponsiveness and slowness. So I'm more likely to use my monitor as a TV then to want to use tv as monitor. I'm also clinging to my 2008 46" lcd tv that just works, and am stunned by how often my father in law has to call for my help with his shiny 76" tv which is showing blue screen of death or mandatory update or things have moved or icons have changed or their version of Netflix / Disney / whatever app is borked or needs maintenance or no longer supported or just looks different... And slower. Always ever slower.... the slowness of response is astonishing. Reminds me of new cars where if last driver had volume set up max, you can't kill the radio or volume until car is done telling you about its disclaimers and boot up sequence and pretty animation.

If you can't move in menus or mute instantly, than no thank you to innovation.

I'm far from an industry insider, but I think it could be LCD panel factories needing to be set up for specific sizes in conjunction with mainstream TV sizes going up rapidly over the past ~15 years. That is, the most-updated factories are the ones chasing the TV size trend, and monitors tend to get stuck with the output from the stragglers.

This reminds me of my rant about televisions versus monitors on my 2014 blog entry "4K is for Programmers."

https://tiamat.tsotech.com/4k-is-for-programmers

hm I think the industry was stale for quite some time but lately it has picked up a lot. What exactly are you looking for? Today you have high refresh rates,4k or 5k screens, (curved) Ultrawide, Variable Refresh rates, low latencies. Comparing them with TVs is not entirely fair, as those usually are not great for displaying text unless you get a specific panel with good chroma subsampling and in terms of latency TVs are usually also pretty far behind Monitors. The really good TVs are equally as expensive.

I'm am curious about USB-C vs others. My MBP takes 10-20 seconds to wake up on an external USB-C monitor. Is that a MacOS issue or a USB-C issue?

I really enjoy the 49” ultrawide 1000R format Samsung has been pioneering. It’s the size/resolution of two 27” 1440p monitors next to each other, has a buttery smooth refresh rate, and a curve that makes viewing more comfortable and natural.

The new quantum dot displays are also very innovative.

Ever since I got the new MacBook Pro, I've wanted a monitor that would be its screen but 27" of it, in 5K resolution. But apparently I'm asking for something impossible. Or maybe Apple announces a "Studio Display XDR" next year? Who knows.

> affordable large monitor with 120Hz refresh rate

This year, I went through four different monitors to find one that works. Stay away from IPS panels, they all suffer from "IPS glow", which is visible when using high contrast colours (i.e., a bright window on a dark desktop background will blast a translucent white "overlay" above and below the window). "Smart" 4K TVs are untrustworthy, IMO (e.g., Samsung is known for spying/spyware and inopportune ads, making them a hard pass).

The ROG STRIX XG43UQ was the only display I could find that runs at 120 Hz, works with a KVM switch (IOGEAR 2-Port 4K DP), has a 16:9 aspect ratio, offers 4K resolution, uses a VESA 100 adapter, and is suitable for programming. The OS must be instructed to render using BGR instead of RGB, which Linux supports. The panel has some subtle horizontal glow in rare high-contrast situations, but it's nowhere as noticeable as IPS panels.

Depending on your definition of affordable, it runs for about $1,300.

https://rog.asus.com/ca-en/monitors/above-34-inches/rog-stri...

My main monitor is Dell u3014, 60Hz. I had a Dell 3008 at work and replaced it with 3017 when it died, so I had this tech for over 10 years both at home and at work.

What am I missing with 60Hz compared to 120Hz? Honest question. When I look at friends' office setups with latest curved 4k (or now 8k) monitors I do not see anything that I like more than my current monitor, so while we are generally not limited in workstation or monitor options at work I see no reason to upgrade.

I assume you're looking for an LCD monitor... not OLED or something novel. I'm not sure why you would want 120Hz, that seems like the only challenge to a competative price. Most LCD materials have long response times (>5ms) so they tend to blur at high refresh rates. High refresh rates at high resolution are also a challenge and thus higher cost. If you're looking for 4k, it's also worth noting that most non-premium TVs will use 2subpixel (RGBG rather than RGBRGB) rendering for higher brightness ans lower cost whereas most monitors will use 3. There are also economies of scale to much larger glass >40" which aren't usually seen in monitors. I am surprised how relatively poor the color matching on many monitors is, however.

I've seen trading firms do this. Why have 8 monitors when you can just have one giant screen? All you do with it is show some app, doesn't need to be special.

The problem is that the monitors are only about gaming. In particular, I find the "1440" Y dimension resolution particularly infuriating.

Yeah, I know the reason is that modern games make all the graphic cards left over that aren't being used for crypto die in horrible flaming balls of heat when you actually ask them to ... you know ... actually use the pixels on your monitor. GASP! The Horror!

So, how can we fix this? I know! Let's make sure the monitors don't have enough pixels to cause the graphics cards grief. Brilliant!

The thing that really bothers me are all these "AI" technologies in my new LG oled tv that don't actually get used. All of them to reduce "crushed" images, correct color, improve blurriness in motion scenes, etc are only used when not using HDMI/PC hookup. My feeling is they're used when viewing things streamed on Netflix/Hulu/HBOMax/etc. But I spend most of my time using the TV as a computer monitor. I'm in a niche group, but this was my only option for large-format oled.

I wish they did more with HDMI, even though HDMI is being phased out. I want to hook up my computer and have the computer gain an ethernet link from the TV, even though the TV is wirelessly connected to my router. The TV should be a "dock" that includes a 2nd monitor. I have a wireless controller reciever plugged into the USB port on the TV. I want that to give input to my computer from it. I also want my computer to charge while being hooked up to my TV. I think the only answer is this TV should have type-c and do all those things as a dock, but it's frustrating that we're 1 step behind.

I wish I could watch a program, while showing my computer hdmi input picture-in-picture. Hell this thing has 4 HDMI inputs on the back, let me do each input to a quarter of the screen. Another niche use..

Don't even get me started on the ads. Doesn't make sense to keep the TV on when my computer is locked for long periods of time, so I generally come back, turn on the TV, and unlock the computer. First thing I see is fucking ads. Takes 2 clicks on the remote to dismiss but it colors my experience that they're always pushing another $30 or $40/month service when I first see things onscreen. They know you can't get this quality elsewhere so they're happy to push you ads. And the telemetry, my god. It's my $3k TV!

Most TVs are still waiting to support the next hdmi standard so you can do 120fps & hdr simultaneously.

The 2 things that did impress me were this LG tv supporting both Miracast and Airplay with /no/ hoops to jump through. It just worked. I do wish I could "cast" things to the TV, and that's like pushing a link to it where the TV navigates to that stream and plays. No other device has to stream or push the video to the TV, it does it itself in the Chomecast paradigm. That would be nice.

</rambling>

Wow. I am blown away by the photos in that FPB link. I'm not a boat person but it's unlike any boat pilot house I have seen before. A great room indeed.

I'm skeptical how well that display on the left side of the nav-2-2 URL holds up for visibility under direct powerful sunlight. Even if it's a very expensive model.

Looks great until the first big wave weather where you lose ground and lean on/kick the big shiny TV losing all the telemetry.

I definitely agree with that take when talking about running two 4k monitors at full resolution, but it doesn’t address the size at all. The more reasonable approach would be to use two ~38-42” monitors.

Alternate take: I achieve constant-time access (mod key + digit) to all those things with 10 workspaces in i3.

I can't imagine having to see them all at once. Realistically, I'm only actually thinking about 1 or 2 of them at a time. If I need to check documentation, I'm no longer thinking about my build output. Slack, email, and calendar are disconnected from development tools. And if I need to do a quick context shift, I can switch over instantly.

Don't see how it increases productivity compared to normally sized 4k screens? Can fit just as much into them?

Edit: Or might be able to not scale text as much. But that is the screen being too close I feel.

Slight skepticism should be applied to any productivity claim. There was research to determine if changing X in the office boosted productivity. But in the end it was found that X didn't matter, within reason. Changing any X boosted productivity and the benefits often diminished with time. I thought this was called the Hawthorne Effect but I am no longer sure.

Kind of funny that the idea of constantly flipping between a bunch of things increases productivity. I’d imagine if this person had instead limited themselves to a single 15” laptop screen their productivity would’ve increased over their baseline because they’d be focused on one thing at a time.

I am not sure if I understand this claim. It looks like this setup has the same density of information as a typical 27in 4k monitor.

It does make a difference on eye strain, since they need to focus to a point much closer.

Aside from the eye issues, with a phone size screen mounted externally, moving your head 2 in would be like moving your head 2ft, so you couldn't have any variation in your posture without the screen being uncomfortably off-centered. Think of a movie theater where you can move several seats or even rows from the center sweetspot seat and still have roughly the same view.

Windows supports fractional display scaling with perfect crisp text and graphics. MacOS doesn’t, but it can do integer scaling at least. (Edit: I’ve been corrected. Apparently macOS does do fractional scaling, but in a way that causes blur). Text size and resolution don’t need to be bound.

right around QHD is the sweet spot imo. I use 3 30" Apple Cinema HD Displays @ 2560x1600 (my school was throwing them out), and theyre perfect for everything. games, code, movies, whatever. Needs dual link dvi though, so old gpus only.

My screen on my main PC is a 32" BenQ QHD display. I run it at 100% scaling. I don't like the idea of 4K displays at >100% scaling, as I'm just wasting money on pixels I don't actually use directly.

To be honest, the DPI on this monitor is a little too low... I have a QHD 27" on another machine, and that seems 'just right' (for my eyes).

If 4K monitors were the same price as QHD ones for the same screen size, then maybe I'd re-consider, but whilst they are sold at a premium, I'm not interested.

So use scaling?

I find this a strange complaint, (not saying you’re wrong!) as to me more pixels should mean better rendering of elements, not dictate their size.

I have the same, from cca 2 feet I really don't need more for anything, including occasional gaming (where performance difference vs 4k is huge, visible benefit for me is 0). If I am running out of space that just means I am messy and doing too much in parallel which is never a good idea. Something similar to coding principle of having method/function no longer than 1 screen.

32" QHD is ~ 92ppi. Are you saying that you can't differentiate any greater than that, or you get actual physical discomfort above that? If you are talking about UI size - that can be adjusted.

If you aren't gaming then latency concerns are really overblown.

How big is your desk?

As a fellow multi-monitor geek, I’d love to see a photo of this setup!

It can help for sure. The longer focal length itself is a huge difference but I'd test it out somehow (renting, borrowing etc.) before investing into something like this

>I was thinking of using an Ultra High Definition TV (49-inch with 3840 x 2160 pixels) but setting the resolution at 2560 x 1440. So it would be the same resolution but everything would be bigger.

I'd rather use OS level UI scaling you will have sharper and better picture

No. If their eyes are unable to resolve the smaller pixels it will offer no benefit. Would be better to get a large standard resolution screen. However, i would avoid smart TVs as they are extremely consumer hostile and may blare ads over your relative's attempts to use the computer. A 27"+ monitor made ~10 years ago would be ideal.

My grandmother used to have difficulty reading her email, even with double font size, low res, etc. Over the summer, I replaced her monitor with a 32-inch 1080p TV that I had lying around, and it makes a big difference.

I think your idea would definitely help.

How big is the monitor? A 27" 1440p monitor is about 130ppi, a 32" is about 90.

I used to work with a guy that was very visually impaired and he used a 40" monitor set to VGA resolution. He would still have to crane his head to the left & right sometimes to follow the mouse on screen.

Going to something like a 49 or 55" television could work but you need to check the field of view at the distance they'll have it set up. Get a piece of cardboard at your largest anticipated screen dimensions, prop it up at their normal viewing distance, then put some high contrast marks on the edges & in the corners and see if they can make them out without too much head rotation. If they can't then cut the cardboard down to the next smaller TV size and try again.

Once you have bought the right sized TV, then adjust the resolution so they can make out screen elements (the window close button is a good one to test against). Then adjust the mouse size, browser zoom, etc.

Why not just set the desktop resolution to 1280x720?, as it's exactly 1/2 that of QHD, so everything will be twice as large, at perfect 2x pixel scaling.

For the 4K screen, 1920x1080 is 1/2 4K so same point applies.

It depends on the distance they can best focus on. Then choose the display size accordingly. I.e. a huge display won’t work if they are near-sighted.

I don’t know if we’re talking about the same problem, but I previously solved something similar by binding a key that modified mouse speed. So if I need to go large distances with the mouse I hit the modifier and it zipped over super fast, let go of the key, and was back to normal speed.

I replaced my desktop/keyboard/mouse with an Xbox controller/rpi for a while in college just for kicks. Worked great.

Higher PPI makes things clearer and easier to read for me.

Hi-DPI panels gives you more choice for UI density.

Biggest gripe for me with the curved displays is that 1440px in height is not really that much. Kinda blurry when one's used to a 4k display with 2160px over the same vertical distance.

I would be less scared of one of those monitors, if I could use them as two virtual monitors - that is, the OS would split it down the middle and treat them with separate wallpapers (if desired), along with the keypresses and mouse shortcuts associated with tiling/managing dual monitors.

My thoughts as well. This looks like an ergonomic nightmare.

Attaching split keyboard on the armrest with a trackball or trackpoint would be a sweet spot.

There's no way anyone is doing any serious typing with such setup. I can imagine it if keyboard use is minimal. Not sure what job that would be but I'm sure there are some.

This is only an issue if the pixel density of the screens is small (forcing you to blow windows up larger, which forces you to crank your neck around more to see an entire screen).

If the pixel density is high enough, you can compress tons of genuine screens together within your eye-gazing FOV, and even sit close to the screens.

I'll present a different data point. I also used to like multiple monitor setups, using up to three monitors. And then I realized that I'd much rather have a single good quality screen, because there is less fussing around with things. A 27" iMac 5k screen got me enough screen real estate to be happy.

These days I am looking for single-monitor solutions, at 27" — anything larger and you need to turn your head.

(incidentally, 5K vs 4K makes a huge practical difference for me: in my full-screen Emacs I can comfortably fit three columns of code on a 5K screen, but on 4K this is problematic)

Nice! what scaling do you run them at? I like avoiding fractional scaling, I have two 24" and run them at 2x.

The next step would be 27" 5K for a similar DPI, someday : )

Try using a tablet or any display laid on desktop, it's terrible posture and very painful after a while.

I use a 65" monitor at about 12 feet away for comms, and a 27" monitor close up for code. I'm looking forward to football stadium sized monitors in VR.

for many people (esp as you get older) the longer focal distance will be easier on the eyes.

I have a 4k 28" monitor which I can't use at its highest resolution with 100% scaling and a 4k 40" TV that is a few inches further away which I can comfortably use at its highest resolution with 100% scaling. I'm a big fan of the setup I have and suspect I would be equally happy with a slightly larger display (maybe up to 55") a bit further away. Maybe the 28" screen would be more usable with computer glasses. With the 40" screen, I can see fine with my regular glasses.

75" seems a bit extreme, as it would require a few more feet of distance between me and the screen to make the screen fit into my field of view. I could see it as beneficial and quite usable in a situation where you need high resolution with many people viewing it.

Pretty much. That and how much your view changes when you move your head.

I’ve played with virtual monitors in VR. Everyone loves the idea of having 80 foot virtual monitors. But, all that really does is make it so you can’t move your head in close to examine the low-rez text like you can with smaller virtual monitors up close.

I use a 40” screen about 80 cm away, and it’s almost the perfect size. I think it would be even better with a curve, because text right on a corner (like a terminal prompt) is a bit of a stretch.