using a samsung 32" LED instead of a monitor?

[majin buu]

hello

i was thinking of buying a 1080p LED tv instead of a 1080p LED monitor because if i buy the tv i would save more space, can sit back relax more and i can have my consoles/pc all connected to one thing

tv: http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/partNumber/9158702.htm

samsung tv's have pc mode will this make the screen better?
any disadvantages of using a tv? or should i stick to the monitor i was going to purchase?

mainly i will be gaming, watching movies online and general web/word

thanks in advanced!

 

[Yingda Wang]

I suggests the tv. Not much difference at all if for the screen ratio.

 

[mf Red]

Typically TVs have slower refresh rates than monitors. This will only effect you in twitch gaming scenarios like in FPS/RTS or MOBA games. Also there can be some weird resolution stuff going on. My HTPC has the screen just a few pixels off and I haven't been able to figure out a fix. My buddy was gaming on a 32" tv and he couldn't get the resolution to display properly on screen. The pc didn't show up flush with his monitor, like everything was squished in and there was .5" of black around the edges.
I don't know much about TVs but I do know you can get some 1080p monitors** with 144hz panels that will feel much more responsive than a TV.

 

[ERIC J]

I use a toshiba 32" 1080 HD TV as my computer moniter and love it!
I use HDMI out of my GTX 760 into the HDMI in of the TV.

 

[majin buu]

so none of this small/fuzzy letters and being able see pixels up close is true? at least not for all tv's

 

[ERIC J]

so none of this small/fuzzy letters and being able see pixels up close is true? at least not for all tv's

I got lucky, some TV's have 4.4.4 chroma and text is great on the TV. defintely look into this 4.4.4 chroma not all TV's have it

 

[majin buu]

just checcked the tv i mentioned has 4.4.4 chroma when put on "pc mode" but i still cant decide, trying to find tech spec/info for tv's on google is hopeless
monitor seems like the safe option but with the tv you wont know until you try it

 

[ERIC J]

just checcked the tv i mentioned has 4.4.4 chroma when put on "pc mode" but i still cant decide, trying to find tech spec/info for tv's on google is hopeless
monitor seems like the safe option but with the tv you wont know until you try it

since it has 444 chroma i think it will make a amazing monitor for 1/3 the price of what a actual PC monitor that size would cost!
And it is 100HZ and not 60!

 

[AnUnusedUsername]

If it's advertised as 100Hz it (probably) still only takes a 60Hz input. Most TVs don't accept anything but 60Hz (or 24Hz) input. Worst case is that it's like a 120Hz TV, it takes a 60Hz signal then fakes the extra frames, inducing pretty horrid input lag (often more than two or three frames worth).

As for using a TV as a monitor, the main thing to be concerned about is input lag, which is notably worse on some TVs than most monitors. There are exceptions of course, plasma tends to have low input lag and most TVs with a PC mode have minimal input lag in that mode, but you may want to see if you can find someone who has tested the model you're interested in. As a general rule, refresh rate is completely meaningless (there's no standard for calculating it so the advertised numbers are just that, advertisements) but input lag can make a big difference for gaming.

TVs are also very, very finicky about what resolutions they'll accept. Most won't take anything but their native resolution, so if you frequently turn the resolution down in games for better performance a TV isn't a great idea.

Text is hard to read on TVs because they have terrible pixel density (since they're generally 1080p on a 30-50 inch screen when a 30 inch monitor uses 2560x1600).