Monitor or TV

[DrMoe]

Now i was browsing the net and i saw a recently new type of TV display called LED display which some of you might be familiar with.

Originally i was planning for my setup 3 LCD monitors however considering for the same price i can buy a 40 inch Samsung one so here i am posting this question to you and asking for your opinion.

Bare in mind i will watch a lot of movies on my setup use it also for gaming and a lot of ms office excel and access stuff so with that in mind Post away.....

 

[D D Danneh]

Only difference between a TV and a monitor is that a TV has image processing and a tuner. Also, when you increase in size, with TV's, the resolution usually stays the same, so a 40" TV will have the same resolution as a 24" monitor, and a 30" monitor will have a much larger res than a 30" TV.

Of course, this is only useful if you use it for actual PC work or close up. Considering you want to do spreadsheets and databases on it, I can say now that a TV is not what you want. Go for monitors.

As for LED backlighting, nice, but a better panel is much more useful. For example, the G2410 is a 24" LED backlit monitor, but the NEC 24WMGX3 is a much better monitor even though it's CCFL lit.

Basically LED backlighting is much more efficient than CCFL backlighting, and can enhance or reduce the lighting in different places, rather than having to dim the entire screen like CCFL, which means you can get brighter whites and darker blacks on the screen at the same time, which, to be honest, won't happen a lot. You'll almost never have pure bright white and very dark black on the screen at the same time.

If you still want that LED backlighting, you can get triple G2410's and still be in budget.

I'm assuming you have about £1000-£1200 if you were looking at the Samsung 40" LED TV's, you could buy:

Three 24WMGX3's. Fantastic monitors, 24", PVA panel, brilliant for gaming and movies, but you don't get a TH2GO, so you can't play many games in triple screen.

OR

Three other 24" monitors and a TH2GO. You could get 3 G2410's, meaning you get the LED backlighting, AND you will be able to play ANY game (that is compatible) in triple screen.

The only advantage I can see to getting the TV, is the larger physical size, which would be nice for sitting back and watching a movie.

Bear in mind that this LED technology you see about the Samsung TV, is not a new display type. It's still LCD, don't get it confused with OLED screens. OLED screens use tiny organic LED's as each pixel, which need no backlighting, produce incredible colour and can be made very thin. They are expensive, and can currently only be found in some phone screens and a £1500 11" screen, or £500-600 7" photo frames. LED backlighting is different. It's simply a new way of lighting it up, like energy saving bulbs.

 

[DrMoe]

The only advantage I can see to getting the TV, is the larger physical size, which would be nice for sitting back and watching a movie.

LOL, you had to say that right at the end I was sold on Monitors but then you said that dude! it's basically because I will be sitting back and watching a lot of movies I mean i've been sooo busy I haven't had time to see Wolverine yet!! and got a list of movies as long as my arm, also on my monitor now what really annoys me now is that the scope of the spreadsheet that i use sometimes goes from like 40 cells wide and 100 cells down so Would it change if i got a tv would i see more, im sure i would i like having a larger scope to deal with....

 

[D D Danneh]

LOL, you had to say that right at the end I was sold on Monitors but then you said that dude! it's basically because I will be sitting back and watching a lot of movies I mean i've been sooo busy I haven't had time to see Wolverine yet!! and got a list of movies as long as my arm, also on my monitor now what really annoys me now is that the scope of the spreadsheet that i use sometimes goes from like 40 cells wide and 100 cells down so Would it change if i got a tv would i see more, im sure i would i like having a larger scope to deal with....

Yeah I know what you mean, it's nice sitting back and watching a movie on a large screen. Depends how far you sit back though, 24" is fine for me, but if you sit on the opposite side of a large room, that may not be enough.

As for the spreadsheets: What size monitor/TV are you using now? I can tell you now, that a 40" TV would give you LESS cells than a SINGLE 24" 1920*1200 monitor. With three screens, you'll get triple the horizontal cells.

A 40" TV will have the same resolution (1920*1080) as a 37", 50", 60", whatever size you want (although many 32" are lower res - 1366*768), so the physical size won't matter. Sure, you'll be able to sit further back, but you won't get more cells than a 24" monitor. You'll probably get more than a 22" or smaller monitor though.

Also, I forgot to mention, you COULD get a 30" monitor. That'll get you more vertical and horizontal spreadsheet cells (2560*1600 resolution), AND a larger screen size for movies and games. A nice compromise. Unless you need super wide spreadsheets, I'd choose this over triple screens. You'll also save £300 by not having to buy a TH2GO, and any games that don't support it, you will get a larger screen for.

 

[DrMoe]

Right now i am using a 24 inch imac. Now i have more option to pick from, which (dont get me wrong here, thanks for the advice) is pain in the ass, but hey why not buy 3 TV'S??????(<<<was a joke) I think because of certain features the TV provides is i can connect it to my PS3 and knock some of my mates out in Street Fighter a long with the fact I would imagine it would be less clutter on the desk with the TV than the Monitors, plus the TV's almost all are HD whats the deal with the Monitors they HD too, cus none of them say they are that leads me to bielve they aren't, and come on HD movies *** also HD football ***!

 

[D D Danneh]

Right now i am using a 24 inch imac. Now i have more option to pick from, which (dont get me wrong here, thanks for the advice) is pain in the ass, but hey why not buy 3 TV'S??????(<<<was a joke) I think because of certain features the TV provides is i can connect it to my PS3 and knock some of my mates out in Street Fighter a long with the fact I would imagine it would be less clutter on the desk with the TV than the Monitors, plus the TV's almost all are HD whats the deal with the Monitors they HD too, cus none of them say they are that leads me to bielve they aren't, and come on HD movies *** also HD football ***!

Monitors don't say HD because the resolution is dependant on the size of a screen. With PC usage, if you increase the resolution, you get smaller text and icons on screen, so you can't really get a 24" monitor that ISN'T "HD". 22" and below are usually less full HD, and 30" and larger are more than full HD.

You can still hook your PS3 up to a monitor. Like I said, the only difference between a monitor and TV is that the TV has a tuner, which allows you to plug an aerial in. The PS3 will display just fine.

Although, since you want to watch football, it sounds like you'll be wanting to hook a TV box up to it. This means you'll want either a 16:9 monitor, or a monitor with aspect scaling or 1:1 pixel mapping, both of which the NEC 24WMGX3, and, I'm fairly sure, the Dell 3008WFP has. Both are 16:10 aspect monitors, which means you get little black bars at the top and bottom, but it won't distort the picture.

Since you don't want the clutter of triple monitors, and want a larger screen, yet still want the high resolution for PC usage, it sounds like the 30" monitor is the best option. The only problem is can see with that is, because it has a higher than HD resolution, the picture will have to be upscaled from movies and games. That shouldn't be much of a problem though, because most games from the PS3 are 720p (below HD), and are scaled up to 1080p (full HD), so it'll be no different to that. As long as you sit a reasonable distance away when watching TV and films, and playing games, it'll be absolutely fine.