[mnkmnk]

I am tempted to do this, at least as a FU to the monitor industry. There is so little innovation in monitor tech! Why are monitors so expensive and old tech compared to TVs? I just want an affordable large monitor with 120Hz refresh rate and USB-C for coding, but options are quite limited. All monitor innovation is into HDR and super high refresh rate which I don’t care about. And prices seem artificially high.

[NikolaNovak]

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.

[metadat]

Never attach a "Smart TV" to WiFi. As a rule of thumb, they'll only get worse.

Once the manufacturer sells the TV, they don't give a fuck about you anymore, they're already paid! Though they would like to push updates to send you more ads and track you.

I've never attached my 2020 LG 4k 65" to any network and it works great. I did pay $50 to add a GoggleTV CrapCast thing, it works fine for watching movies.

[daredoes]

I was doing something similar, except I went for an LG tv for Web OS in the hopes something good would come out of it being open source.

As luck would have it, https://rootmy.tv came out for Web OS. It's still in a very basic stage, but it's better than nothing!

I'm a HomeAssistant user, so I do want my TV connected to my network.

[bradknowles]

I don't want the TV itself to be connected to the network. It should be a dumb display device. The less brains it is supposed to have, the better. I've got an old Samsung 1080p HDTV that still hasn't needed upgrading all these years, and the more shit I hear about what is going on with 4k TVs, the less I want anything to do with them.

Now, the equipment that takes that display device and actually connects it to things like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, etc.... that IS a device that I want connected to my network. It's called an Apple TV, and definitely is connected to my network. And it connects to the Samsung TV over HDMI.

[pbronez]

Awesome! I had no idea this existed. Look forward to giving it a try.

[rychco]

Does anybody know if there are any resources for tampering with the hardware itself to remove networking capabilities from a smart TV? I'd like to just use it as a big monitor, but if there's still a possibility of automatic network activity without my consent then I'd rather just rip out that functionality entirely

[lstamour]

Well, you could always investigate how to detach the wifi antennas, though it’s possible your Bluetooth will also stop working, and most TV remotes are Bluetooth these days.

[lelandfe]

Maybe broadcast a WiFi SSID that blackholes everything?

[shannongreen]

I don't understand... why don't you just not connect it to your network?

[unicornporn]

> I've never attached my 2020 LG 4k 65" to any network and it works great.

I guess that would work as long as you move to a place far away from humanity. It definitely won't work if a neighbour runs a WiFi hotspot without password protection.

[Art9681]

What would happen if you configured manual network and gave it a fake DNS or sent it over to PiHole for example? Wouldnt there be plenty of ways to capture the traffic and stop it from going where it wants to go? I would think the tech savvy folks on this site would be able to figure something out if it is a big enough concern of theirs.

[hawk_]

I have not come across a working password free residential wifi hotspot in almost a decade - because routers have had passwords by default.

[mcculley]

I live in an apartment building downtown adjacent to other buildings. They are all around me.

[metadat]

My observation is the open wifi's are much more prevalent in dense living situations like apartments, condos, townhomes, and shared work spaces.

[eckmLJE]

Aren't the newer smart TVs equipped with a cell modem so they can phone home without wifi, or they stop working after not being updated for x days?

[stragies]

Can you name some models? Between that, and user-space wireguard, I think, there might be a bleak future ahead for ad-blocking.

[Art9681]

There is no evidence of this and we would know. Its not easy to hide wireless signals.

[crooked-v]

No, but there are definitely ones that will try to randomly connect to any open wifi networks if left unattended.

[LeoPanthera]

Since you claim "definitely" can you point to one?

I hear this claim a lot but have never actually found even a single one that does.

[Larrikin]

I don't think there are any? This is always a wild speculation about the hellscape to come in the future in these threads, but as far as I know nothing like this actually exist. My TV I bought last year has never been connected to WiFi and never will be.

[saiya-jin]

At least in Europe having a cell modem would ruin the company, who would pay phone bills? Sure as hell not me.

[kube-system]

> who would pay phone bills

Advertisers or data brokers? They’re already subsidizing the purchase price of TVs.

[LeoPanthera]

Neither of these things are true.

[Art9681]

Disconnect the TV from wifi and enable GameMode to bypass most of the post processing. Disable HDR on the OS. On some TV models, there is an additional trick to rename the input port to "PC" and it reduces input lag even more. Use a good web app that guides you to some basic calibration, especially brightness/contrast/gamma. Those 3 things can be changed in your display driver's control panel and TV. So fiddling with both to get a "perfect" image goes a long way. Once you have the configs you like, take some pics or save them in a note somewhere in case you need to restore.

I play Steam Games on a 77" OLED like this and the only reason I dont use it for normal day to day development is I dont have a suitable recliner keyboard/mouse setup. Got the TV for $2,000 from Woot a year ago and it is the VRR model.

Why are monitors with similar capabilities at a third of the size so expensive?

[zamadatix]

Disabling HDR is akin to buying a sports car and throwing your hands in the air when you can't figure out how to start it outside of eco mode. The same for any tweaking on the driver's control panel instead of on the display. Ultimately though the truth is when you go through all of that hassle (special input ports, special input names, advanced/hidden input settings, image adjustments) it still somehow comes out worse than it should be in terms of input latency and image accuracy.

I always have 2 wishes:

- For TVs to have a mode that just displays the signal according the reference mode of that signal (particularly for HDR) and not fuck with it to make it "better".

- For a decent selection of monitors that come with larger panels.

[Kiro]

I can't relate to any of this at all. My Smart TV (LG) is not slow or unresponsive. It doesn't show any ads and the picture control is easy to understand.

[lelandfe]

Well done picking a good TV. Unfortunately even other LG TVs are doing this: https://twitter.com/chriswelch/status/1369733357756686349

Many, many smart TVs send analytic data to marketing companies. Some even send full snapshots of the screen. https://archive.ph/DWTGC

> When tracking is active, some TVs record and send out everything that crosses the pixels on your screen. It doesn’t matter whether the source is cable, an app, your DVD player or streaming box.

> Many of the TV companies say they aren’t violating our privacy, because ACR data technically isn’t “personally identifiable information.” TVs, they say, are shared by an entire household.

[Retric]

Don’t connect it to WiFi and update. 2020 LG CX OLED TV randomly started to play ads after update:

https://www.theverge.com/tldr/2021/3/10/22323790/lg-oled-tv-...

[FpUser]

>"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."

Maybe just do not connect it to a network ever. At least I don't. I've used TV as a monitor for a while but after some time strain in the neck showed up I downsized to 32" 4K monitor

[alias_neo]

In one sense, yes, but if you live somewhere where energy is expensive why have not only my TV (~30W) on but also the PS5 (~100W+ + ~30W) or gaming PC (~200W+ + ~30W) just so I can watch Netflix?

I'll choose to use the TV's app every time.

I have a higher-end LG 4K OLED with WebOS which is extremely responsive compared to others I've had, also it's rooted to block any ad-crap, but also you can do most of that at the DNS/Network/Router level if you have an issue.

Then there's the fact that the non-tech family members don't want to use more than one remote or fiddle with channels etc, my wife can press the Netflix button in the remote from TV off and have instant Netflix and tue surround sound on too.

Younger me would have agreed with you, but as a parent and husband, in my mid 30s, I just want an easy life.

[Larrikin]

Just use a Roku, why use a video game console? The energy is negligible and you only ever use one remote. The Roku works with most TV remotes, although since I rarely watch broadcast TV I use the much better Roku remote typically. My Switch automatically changes inputs when I turn it on, so don't even need to switch inputs usually.

[swaranga]

For me, the Roku's killer features is its app that lets me instantly stream the audio to my phone/airpods so i do not disturb anyone else while still watching tv. All others require me to pair my headphones with the tv or some other painful process.

[anonymousab]

> Maybe just do not connect it to a network ever.

This is slowly but surely not becoming an option. Beyond automatically connecting to any open networks, some models already will stop working until you give them a network connection to perform a 'necessary' periodic update.

[Wowfunhappy]

Wait, what TV’s are doing this?

Automatically connecting to open networks sounds like a potential legal quagmire, since aiui I’m not legally allowed to just use my neighbor’s wifi without permission.

[FpUser]

Hopefully not all the models will stop working. But we will see. I am an old fart and hate all this sneaking in my backyard. I am fiercely independent and trying to stay this way as much as reasonably possible. Alexa has no place in my life. It can go fuck somebody else.

[Aeolun]

I think it would be shocking to todays people to see a TV from 20 years ago, before all that digital funkiness. Instant switching between channels.

[rosndo]

I certainly don’t miss switching channels.

TV experience 20 years ago sucked. Now I can have all the content I could ever want immediately accessible via Plex, no need to fiddle with DVDs or gasp VHS tapes. Commercials? hah. Unskippable anti-piracy warnings? nope.

[loonster]

Imagine if they were exposed to a laser disk fast forward / skip. Gasp

[rootusrootus]

Or an old copper phone line before cellular ruined call quality.

[stepanhruda]

Maybe he got a large but shitty quality TV? I got an OLED 2 years ago and none of this rings a bell.

[NikolaNovak]

Possible. But this thread is a comparison of tv vs monitor. If we are talking 5000$ tv, that's no longer a relevant comparison.

(Fwiw though my impression was that it was a mid grade brand name tv. Certainly not a no name bottom tier).

[gutitout]

Software is too much. But OP is talking a lot hardware.

[mnkmnk]

Yes, where are the quantum dots, the local dimming, the mini leds that TVs have?

[cercatrova]

New models of monitor have released with quantum dot OLED which are brighter than traditional OLEDs. This is not to be confused with QLED which is simply LED not OLED.

[wowokay]

I think better examples would be the lack of motion control, unlike computers the bulk of content experienced on TVs expects to run at specific refresh rates. Innovations like OLED which offer instantaneous response rates cause issue for that media when expected pixel dimming latency is expected. Causing motion like pan shots to appear jittery. TVS need innovation that focuses on feathering motion, since it's clear the TV and Movie industry have no plans to bump frame rate.

[majormajor]

OLED doesn't have any new issues here compared to LCD. Both sorts of TVs will often have "black frame" insertion options, but I've never found the flicker worthwhile.

Smooth panning would be fixed by content being shot at something higher than 24fps, like you say; but I've seen that same jitter in theater screens for decades, it wasn't something that was designed to depend on CRT tech or such (like videogame lightguns).

TVs have been doing tons of "smart" picture processing to try to smooth out motion since so much content is so low frame rate. It just often looks fake!

[mattgreenrocks]

This is why I passed on an OLED when upgrading my TV. OLED is definitely the future, I just have little desire to beta test it with jittery panning. I’m sure they’ll sort it out.

[brokenmachine]

My 2017 OLED looks fantastic.

Movie cinemas are dead to me now. I would never switch back to a shitty LCD. Or even a "good" LCD.

I'm super sensitive to jitter as well, so your information about OLEDs being jittery is wrong.

[mattgreenrocks]

Thanks for the correction. I may wish I purchased a C1 after all!

[linsomniac]

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.

[jyxent]

I think that is mainly due to being direct-lit backlight. I'm currently using a 43" Sony X800H, which is edge-lit, and the pixels are fully lit at my 2 1/2 - 3 foot viewing distance.

[copperx]

For 32", wouldn't you need an 6-8k display to get Retina-quality text? I believe that's why 32" 4k displays aren't usable for coding, unless you're ok with low resolution text.

[samatman]

Some of us get a larger monitor to see more text, others get a larger monitor to put further away and look at the same amount of text.

Once your eyes turn forty, see which group you're in!

[copperx]

I still have a month to go before 40; I'll see which group I belong to then.

However, right now, I can't tolerate screens with lower PPI than Retina.

[bartvk]

So what monitor do you use then?

[copperx]

A 24" 4k Dell monitor. Not perfect, because it has a moire pattern on white backgrounds because of the anti reflection coating.

[FpUser]

>"32" 4k displays aren't usable for coding"

I use my 32" 4K for just that at 100% scaling and totally happy. Fonts looks fine to me. Do not feel low res at all.

[jamesliudotcc]

I have Dell displays with those specs and at that price point. Probably the same display. They are fine for coding if you are not acclimated to "retina" smoothness for fonts. Since they are so cheap, I bought a second one so my wife. A giant screen is just as useful for legal work as for coding, it turns out.

There are downsides. The colors aren't great. The blacks are just dreadfully light. Sometimes there are artifacts when I use the screen after it has been idle for a time, but the artifacts disappear quickly.

[tomerbd]

Do you use S3221QS with Mac?

[linsomniac]

The model on mine is S3221QS, I had looked earlier but couldn't find the order, but I remembered I have them plugged into the Dell support site. Looks like I paid $360 landed each for them.

[FpUser]

>"if you are not acclimated to "retina" smoothness for fonts"

I am not using magnifying glass so for my eyes smoothness is just fine without "retina" prefix.

>"The colors aren't great. The blacks are just dreadfully light"

If you care so much about colors get real pro display. Just be prepared to second mortgage your house for that.

For mere mortals (I mostly use 32" BenQ monitors) colors on are reasonably fine and so are blacks. No artifacts. I do not see Apple as superior in this department.

Once again, if for some reason you need perfect colors / blacks / uniformity / whatnot Apple with its "retina" is not the one to go with. Try Eizo for example

[linsomniac]

I dunno about Retina Quality text, that moniker isn't important to me. What is important to me is that I get the amount of text on the screen without it being all blocky. My previous Dell U3011 32" 2500x1600 display was a bit blocky. The 4K 32" is quite nice for my use.

I will say that the difficulties I had getting dual 4K working in my setup make me glad I didn't try for something like 8K. In my case, I have a recent Dell XPS 15, but not quite recent enough. My docking station can't do 4K output. The next newer XPS 15 can. In the end I found that using two USB-C to HDMI cables, directly connected to the laptop, will do it, so that's good enough for me. Went from the 1-cable docking to 3, but I'm ok with that. I don't tend to move my laptop much these days.

[copperx]

The Retina moniker isn't important. Text becomes non-blocky at about 200 PPI. A 32" 4k monitor has 138 PPI, which is extremely blocky unless you're using 400% zoom.

[jerlam]

Outside of laptop monitors, there are only a handful of monitors that are "Retina-quality" (>220 ppi). It is very doubtful that programming is difficult or impossible on all other monitors. Most computers cannot also drive a 32" 220 ppi monitor.

[copperx]

That's true. It was really hard to find a 24" 4k monitor for my desktop. It's insane that people can tolerate lower PPIs after seeing a Retina-like screen. You can't go back.

[rootusrootus]

32 inch 4K is perfectly fine. I recently switched to a Samsung CRG9 (I can only have one external display on this computer) and the resolution is pretty crappy compared to the 32 inch. But either one of them is perfectly fine for coding.

[copperx]

I don't trust people who say "it's fine" anymore. After a lot of tests with people I know, many young(!) acquaintances are not able to distinguish between 2k and 4k. People of my age can't sometimes distinguish the difference between HD and 4k on a monitor. And that's for static images. No one I know is able to notice the difference between motion interpolation on/off on a TV.

This is going to sound dismissive and entitled, but I've learned that people's eyesight and visual processing is extremely bad in general.

[rootusrootus]

I won't try to convince you if you don't want to be convinced, and from your perspective I'm just a rando on the 'net. I get that.

But I have my 32in monitor above my CRG9 (I use the 4K screen for my work computer) and I somewhat regularly end up with the same text displayed on both at the same time. The CRG9 resolution is noticeably inferior to my 48 year old eyes. Which I have to tell you, don't have the acuity they once had. 20/20 the last time I tested, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's falling below that now. Getting old blows.

The difference isn't too bothersome unless I'm bouncing back and forth between them. I get used to the lower resolution of the CRG9 pretty quickly and forget about it. And of course it's totally fine for coding.

[411111111111111]

If someone can't distinguish 4k and 2k on a 32" display then the image they're looking at has horrible quality.

Its instantly visible as soon as you see any sharp edges / letters.

2k 32" is 80 dpi, that puts it at the same pixel density as fullhd on 24". That's perfectly usable but not particularly sharp at normal viewing distances

[opan]

It helps if you use bitmap fonts. They look crisp and clean at small sizes and lower resolutions. They make other fonts look blurry by comparison. The trend of scaling seems to largely be because of people using those blurry fonts. I'd rather have crisp fonts and more screen real estate than have to deal with scaling and end up with as much space as before.

[copperx]

Do you have any suggestions for bitmap fonts?

[opan]

Terminus is a classic. I think it's a few decades old. I typically use it at 9pt on low DPI displays, but have gone up to 14 or 16 on large displays viewed from far away like a TV. tewi (8pt?) is another nice one. Scientifica is decent. If you need big font sizes, one of the only options is spleen. It gets rather large. I think OpenBSD uses spleen.

[bdcravens]

I recently bought 4 32" monitors (2 for work, 2 for home), and I wasn't remotely interested in 4k. QHD is perfect, and if you get monitors where that's the max, pretty cheap. (Every 4k monitor I've had I always downscaled it)

[usefulcat]

I also use a 40-something inch desktop monitor and I see slight viewing angle problems on the sides. For my use it would actually be better if it were slightly curved.

[brokenmachine]

IPS panels are much better than VA panels for that, but unfortunately have worse blacks.

OLED is the way to go, but it's a bit spendy at the moment.

[Arubis]

> 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.

[Sujan]

(Reputable) source?

[joezydeco]

Bill Baxter (CTO, Vizio)

Smart TVs continue to make money for the manufacture after the sale by providing data to viewer measurement and consumer research companies and through all of those apps they integrate in the TV’s smart functions and subsequent app usage.

“This is a cutthroat industry,” Baxter went on to say. “It’s pretty ruthless. The greater strategy is I really don’t need to make money off the TV. I need to cover my costs.”

http://cjni.com/smart-tvs-too-smart/

[MrVitaliy]

https://www.samsung.com/us/business/samsungads/

https://www.zdnet.com/article/i-spent-3000-on-a-samsung-smar...

[blamazon]

How about Vizio's Q4 earnings report? You can see that "Platform+" accounts for nearly twice as much profit as hardware in 2021.

https://investors.vizio.com/investor-relations/default.aspx

[davidgay]

Because money is "funny" inside companies, and because there's no platform sales without hardware sales, I would think that the relevant metric from an external perspective is total revenue (The change in fraction of revenue over the years is probably interesting too).

[threeseed]

I use a LG CX 48 as a monitor.

Every time I switch it on I get an ad for Apple Music that I can't disable.

[SixDouble5321]

Lol where have you been? There must be a dozen or so articles on HN in the last year alone.

[thrwawy283]

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>

[zamadatix]

There is never going to be a single product that has a great display, a great casting solution, a great app solution, a great privacy solution, a great input solution, a great docking solution, a great selection of leading edge technology, a great content mixing solution, and whatever else you could want at a great price. Apart from such a thing inherently needing to cost an arm and a leg it needs to outdo every best of breed, it's just not possible.

On the other hand what is possible is buying a great display (link a 120 Hz HDR OLED), buying a great dock (thunderbolt 4 doing power, ethernet, and more), buying a great app/casting solution (like a Shield TV providing Android apps and Chromecast casting), buying a great multiview HDMI matrix, and so on and connecting them to the TV with the advent of HDMI CRC making it so you never have to manually adjust sources (excluding the multiview case where you want to see PiP versions of multiple sources at once in which case there is no adjusting outside adjusting what is PiP'd). This all comes with the upside when you want a better display or a new technology comes along you don't have to replace all $$$$ of it at once.

[thrwawy283]

I was mostly remarking on the lack of (significant) innovation. I'd say the best feature here has been airplay/miracast for drive-by screen sharing from my sister/mom/dad on their iPads or phones.

For what we pay, I wish they'd consider some of these niches rather than startup ads or an AI that looks at what you're viewing and suggests other channels mid-viewing. Creeeeeepy.

[opan]

>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..

I've seen some business monitors that will show a 2x2 grid of your inputs. I think you can get some sort of device/box to add this feature to existing screens.

I really wanted this feature a few years ago, but hadn't thought about it lately. I wanted to turn a 65" 4K TV into 4 1080p monitors, basically. When a PC is hooked to it, I run i3wm, but this doesn't handle cases like someone hooking up a game console or another PC and wanting to show both. Maybe with some capture cards you could display other inputs in mpv.

If we could put our own software on TVs or swap out the boards with more hackable ones, that would be cool. Just buy a dumb display with speakers and let the free software community handle the rest.

[brokenmachine]

The new LG C2 OLEDS have PIP. It's demonstrated in this video https://youtu.be/FrVJLlzQcQw

Even my 2017 C7 has it, but it's pretty clunky - no overlay and only two small screens next to each other, and it's pretty slow to enter/leave that mode as well, maybe 3s of black screen before it enters or exits that mode (I think it's called multi-display).

I wouldn't use it, but it's there.

Personally I don't want the TV companies experimenting with more networking options, because I know they'd only use it for evil.

[stragies]

When looking for Monitors with these options, I found the term "PBP" (Picture-Beside-Picture) useful for searching.

LG has one, the 43UN700, which also has a serial port for controlling picture-input layout options, and sound-source. It has a mode for showing any4of6 inputs at the same time, and a bunch of layout options for any2of6 ( Top/Botton, Left/Right, Main/PiP) inputs. Sound output can only come from active sources, though. My only "software gripe" up to now. It comes with a ton of cables, but NOT the required RS232C (looks like audio-jack) adapter. Hrmpf.

[grishka]

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.

[mh-]

I've had an UltraFine 5K for around 4 years now. Is that not what you're asking for?

edit: if you meant aesthetically, yeah, no, it's ugly plastic.

[throwaway684936]

The new Studio Display is the same panel as the UltraFine but ever-so-slightly brighter, and with a better shell.

[grishka]

I'd like a higher refresh rate (120 hz scrolling feels so much better) and, if at all possible, same HDR capabilities, or at least truer blacks. And preferably also glossy finish.

[throwaway684936]

Unfortunately, Apple uses Thunderbolt, and they're the only ones who do 5k/6k. We absolutely have the bandwidth for 5k120 over DisplayPort, but Apple insists on sticking to Thunderbolt.

[grishka]

Isn't Thunderbolt 4 supposed to support some ridiculous bandwidth too, like tens of gigabits or something?

[throwaway684936]

5k120 is 57.08Gbps, Thunderbolt 4 is 40Gbps. Not enough without compression.

[opan]

I thought thunderbolt used DP for video.

[DiabloD3]

Thunderbolt doesn't use DP for video when in Thunderbolt mode.

[0xcde4c3db]

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.

[matsemann]

> 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.

[thangalin]

> 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...

[mnkmnk]

I can get a 2021 65 inch Samsung qled tv for $1k and it has 100% dci-p3 coverage compared to 90% of the monitor, has HDR and 120Hz refresh rate, has usable speakers, has a good remote to control it and is larger and cheaper. I don’t know the numbers, but I bet the contrast would also be better on the TV.

[threeseed]

On any Mac you won't be able to get 4K 120Hz if that TV just has HDMI.

It only works on monitors/TVs that support DisplayPort.

[opencl]

Does the 4K 120Hz actually work properly? There are a lot of TVs that claim to support 4K 120Hz but actually display the signal at half vertical resolution as 3840x1080.

[kurthr]

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.

[Nbox9]

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.

[metadat]

What do you like about the qDots vs "regular" pixels?

[thfuran]

Samsung's newest qd displays are qdoled so you get extremely fast response time and very high contrast ratio and the dots give high color saturation so the color volume is very large. Brightness is also high (for an oled).

[Nbox9]

They are just an improvement on the OLED technology, with reduced burnin risk and brighter pixels being the largest improvement.

[bhauer]

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

[bsder]

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!

[Macha]

1440p (and by extension 5k) have advantages from a productivity point of view too. In my experience, no OS really consistently supports fractional scaling, so if you want a good time you want to run at 1x or 2x. In terms of how much "stuff" you can fit onto a screen at a comfortable size on modern monitor sizes, that means you'll end up using 1x for 1080p/1440p and 2x for 4k/5k.

1440p@1x or 5k@2k let you fit more than 1080p@1x or 4k@2x while feeling plenty large enough with modern application design on a typical (24/27 inch) sized display.

[Stevvo]

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.

[Nursie]

LG also seem to be launching a 32” 4K OLED monitor this year, but it’s really expensive.

[ptero]

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.

[Macha]

Honestly for office worker/programming/professional use, high refresh rate doesn't make much difference. It's neat that windows are more legible while dragging or curse movement looks smoother, but I wouldn't buy high refresh rate if I wasn't also a gamer

[Stevvo]

If you don't feel you are missing anything without 120hz then don't try it. Once you go back to 60Hz you feel as soon as you move the mouse cursor; you can never be content at 60 again.

[kayoone]

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.

[lordnacho]

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.

[pronlover723]

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?

[infinityio]

I haven't had this issue on Windows, the time to wake seems to be identical for usb c vs other connection methods?

[novok]

The m1 macs are pretty much instant, might be an intel issue

[somehnguy]

Both my Intel & M1 macs wake up instantly with external usb-c monitor, might be a monitor issue.

[culopatin]

Your monitor.