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posted by chromas on Friday September 21 2018, @03:59AM   Printer-friendly
from the moar-pixels! dept.

[Update: WOW! Thanks for all the useful feedback! Plenty of information on the TV-as-a-monitor side of things (but feel free to add more!) Would very much appreciate it if folks could provide some input as to what has worked for them in using a laptop to drive a 4K display. I'd consider a used system. Would, ideally, like something that costs in the ~$300 range, but am resigned to the fact I may have to kick out more like ~$750. What graphics adapter do you have. Is it an integrated model (e.g. Intel HD 630) or discrete card? What model? What troubles, if any, have you had with getting proper drivers (windows OR Linux/Debian/BSD/etc.) Could you get the full 60 fps or were you limited to 30 fps? See below the fold for details on my current system and what my needs are compute-wise. --Bytram]

Summary: I need more screen space.

Which means I'll need a new (to me) laptop (portability++) which can support more pixels. I want a system that is Linux/BSD friendly. I don't have a whole lot of money to spend, so I'm hoping I can draw on the experience of my fellow Soylentils to help point me in the right direction. I'd like to avoid overspending, but I don't want to find that I've boxed myself into a corner for making an ignorant mistake.

I used to follow the bleeding edge of technology, but I've now firmly moved into the "I want it to just work" camp.

Current Display: I have a 24-inch, 1920x1200 computer monitor. The majority of my display is taken up my Internet Browser (Pale Moon) which generally has 50+ tabs. It is flush with the top of my screen and covers the entire display except for a ~2 inch margin on the sides and 3 inches on the bottom. That overlays my HexChat IRC (Internet Relay Chat) which runs across the bottom 1/3 of my screen. The remainder of the screen has corners of command windows poking out as well as various utilities like an analog clock, performance monitor, connection monitor, etc.

TV as Monitor: Over the past few months I've seen the prices for 4K (3840x2160) televisions plummet. I've got my eye on a TCL 43S517 43-Inch 4K Ultra HD Roku Smart LED TV (2018 Model) which Amazon has on sale for $349.00 with free shipping.

As I see it, I could get a display with better dot pitch than what I have now, and much more screen real estate, for relatively little money.

The vast majority of what I do is command line based, be it in a Windows (7 Pro X64) CMD.exe command window, or an occasional PuTTY session into Soylent's Servers. I do not do any video gaming. My only video needs are an occasional short clip from YouTube, or a DVD (I have neither cable TV nor do I stream video with Netflix or their ilk; no Blu-ray, either). Internet access is currently via a tethered LTE cell phone.

Current computer: Thanks to the generosity of a fellow Soylentil, my current system is a Dell Latitude E6400 with a Core 2 Duo P8700 (1.8-2.5 GHz) with 8GB RAM and a 500GB 7200-rpm WD Black disk drive. Video is handled by a NVIDIA Quadro NVS 160M.

New Laptop: My current is not going to cut it. So, I'm also on the lookout for a new (to me) laptop. I don't need much in the way of compute power. I figure pretty much any i3 or i5 should be more than enough for my computing needs. And, an Intel integrated graphics chip should be up to the task given a recent enough generation, but I'm not sure how current a model I'd need. I'm further confused by the different connection schemes and versions. I've found this page on Intel. What will I need? HDMI 1.4? Display Port 1.2? Other? Would I be able to run both a 4K monitor @ 60Hz and my existing 1920x1200 display?

With the increasing trade war rhetoric, I'm getting nervous there may be a price spike in the not too distant future. Further, I sense merchants are clearing out the current stock in anticipation of the holiday season, so I'm thinking the time is right for me to take the plunge and upgrade.

Conclusion: So, what have your experiences been using a 4K television as a computer monitor? What 'gotchas' have you run into? What things did you learn the hard way that you wish someone had told you about beforehand? What driver problems have you encountered? Did you have any issues with Linux/BSD drivers? What worked for you?


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  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 20 2018, @11:19PM (7 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 20 2018, @11:19PM (#737838)

    If you get a smart tv it will spy on you while giving you nothing in return, so if you are concerned about that don't get one. Maybe that doesn't need to be said, but it seemed like a flaw in your plan to me.

    • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 20 2018, @11:34PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 20 2018, @11:34PM (#737855)

      All right, let's play a prank on your squishy pussy without waking you up! Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

    • (Score: 2) by martyb on Friday September 21 2018, @12:00AM

      by martyb (76) Subscriber Badge on Friday September 21 2018, @12:00AM (#737871) Journal

      If you get a smart tv it will spy on you while giving you nothing in return, so if you are concerned about that don't get one. Maybe that doesn't need to be said, but it seemed like a flaw in your plan to me.

      Thanks for mentioning that. I'd heard that Vizio and Samsung (and likely others) had been caught doing things like sniffing filenames on your network. I neglected to mention it, so I appreciate the reminder... I'm sure there are others here who have been considering a similar move, so it bears mentioning for them as well. Thanks!

      --
      Wit is intellect, dancing.
    • (Score: 2) by Apparition on Friday September 21 2018, @02:11AM (1 child)

      by Apparition (6835) on Friday September 21 2018, @02:11AM (#737936) Journal

      The only problem is that there is no longer such a thing as a "dumb" television.

      • (Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 21 2018, @08:07AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 21 2018, @08:07AM (#738012)

        Don't connect it to the internet, ever. At least all the intel gathered won't reach 'home'.

        A separate media center is anyway orders of magnitude more useful.
        Even a $40 Raspberry or even better an Odroid C2 is a smarter choice most of the time for anyone nerd enough to understand how to copy an image to an sd card.

    • (Score: 4, Informative) by Immerman on Friday September 21 2018, @02:13AM (1 child)

      by Immerman (3985) on Friday September 21 2018, @02:13AM (#737937)

      You can simply refuse to ever connect it to your network - that'll obviously cost you the "smart" features, but it (probably) doesn't have cellular network access.

      I did run into a Samsung recently though that seemingly required the TV be connected to the network to establish communications with the remote. Wifi remote? Spying coercion? I don't really know - it wasn't my TV, and they wanted the smart features anyway, so I didn't dig into it.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 21 2018, @09:12AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 21 2018, @09:12AM (#738023)

        That is a whole new level of creepy.
        Just like a remote I fixed for a friend that needed this 'silverlight' crap to first be installed and then tried to connect to the internet.
        Fun times!

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 21 2018, @11:49AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 21 2018, @11:49AM (#738057)

      The smart TV won't and can't spy on you if you are using it as a dumb TV. HDMI does not spy on your files!

      Also you don't need to use the full resolution in most cases, and the TV will down-sample accordingly. Barely used high quality monitors are available second hand for hardly any money and will work fine.

  • (Score: 4, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 20 2018, @11:21PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 20 2018, @11:21PM (#737844)

    You'll need a cable. For a monitor of that resolution you're going to want a Monster Cable at the very least, but ideally a custom-made oxygen-free unidirectional cable if you can afford it.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 20 2018, @11:54PM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 20 2018, @11:54PM (#737867)

    Find a friend who has a 4K TV and grab along a good quality HDMI cable - test.

    • (Score: 2) by martyb on Friday September 21 2018, @12:37AM (1 child)

      by martyb (76) Subscriber Badge on Friday September 21 2018, @12:37AM (#737896) Journal

      That's a *brilliant* idea, except I don't have a 4K-capable laptop to bring along with the cable. :(

      --
      Wit is intellect, dancing.
      • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 21 2018, @09:43PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 21 2018, @09:43PM (#738370)

        Buy a USB->HDMI adaptor. It will look after the high resolution problems pretty well and the device is too dumb to allow hacking.

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Snotnose on Thursday September 20 2018, @11:58PM (33 children)

    by Snotnose (1623) on Thursday September 20 2018, @11:58PM (#737870)

    Seems it would be cheaper and more effective to buy a couple smaller monitors along with a machine to drive them. Me? My left monitor has my email, web browser, PDF reader, etc. My right monitor shows various files I'm working on, usually source code but it's not uncommon to have Word or Excel files.

    --
    Why shouldn't we judge a book by it's cover? It's got the author, title, and a summary of what the book's about.
    • (Score: 3, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Friday September 21 2018, @12:09AM (5 children)

      by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Friday September 21 2018, @12:09AM (#737876) Journal

      I will second this suggestion. I have a 3 generations old Nvidia 730 card driving two 1080-p monitors. The left monitor is actually a Vizio television, the right monitor is an older LG monitor. I won't go into how I use my screen space, except for gaming. I multibox ten spaceships on The Infinite Black. The game is not highly demanding, graphics wise, the boxes just need to be big enough that I can read in them. My old video card couldn't cope with any demanding graphics, but it is satisfactory to my needs. A better refresh rate would be good, sometimes. Fleet vs fleet encounters can cause me to lag, but I do alright all the same.

      4k just seems to be overkill, for your stated needs. The monitor isn't cheap, nor is the video card capable of driving it cheap. And, of course, any laptop with a 4k capable video will probably carry a premium price.

      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Gaaark on Friday September 21 2018, @01:09AM (4 children)

        by Gaaark (41) on Friday September 21 2018, @01:09AM (#737915) Journal

        I will third this: the last time one of my dual monitors goooshed on me and I had to go back to ONE monitor? Ah feck, just shoot me!

        Dual monitors aaaallllllllll the way, baby!

        --
        --- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 21 2018, @03:01AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 21 2018, @03:01AM (#737950)

          :) My son who is starting on the IT road recently wanted a 2nd screen, so we dug up an unused monitor and he is happy - no new laptop required. Using Mint 18.3 with plans to upgrade to 19 / 19.1 next year.

        • (Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Friday September 21 2018, @05:00PM (2 children)

          by fyngyrz (6567) on Friday September 21 2018, @05:00PM (#738230) Journal

          I will (literally) fourth this. My desktop is currently driving four monitors. It's OS X, not linux, though.

          I've had as many as six running on this machine at one time, but I've pulled back a bit (needed the monitors for other stuff... security system, second computer.)

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 21 2018, @10:01PM (1 child)

            by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 21 2018, @10:01PM (#738379)

            PC driving four monitors is no problem: Most laptops will drive one external monitor, maybe two. The other three can be driven using USB graphics adaptors. Refresh rates are crap, but who cares if you are using them for work and not play.

            • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday September 23 2018, @12:13AM

              by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Sunday September 23 2018, @12:13AM (#738696) Journal

              Actually, you can put multiple video cards into your machine, for better performance. There are two video cards in the wife's machine right now, although she doesn't use the older, less capable card. I had two in my machine, but the physical dimensions are awkward, and the riser cable for the second video was subject to being jarred loose. Depending on they physical dimensions, and the available slots, you might put as many as four video cards into your machine, each driving it's own monitor. I haven't searched for such a beast, but you might find mainboards with even more slots to populate with video cards!

    • (Score: 2) by martyb on Friday September 21 2018, @12:13AM (20 children)

      by martyb (76) Subscriber Badge on Friday September 21 2018, @12:13AM (#737878) Journal

      Seems it would be cheaper and more effective to buy a couple smaller monitors along with a machine to drive them. Me? My left monitor has my email, web browser, PDF reader, etc. My right monitor shows various files I'm working on, usually source code but it's not uncommon to have Word or Excel files.

      That's a good question.

      I've not had multiple monitors on a single system before, but I have worked at places where I used multiple systems (computer+monitor) to work on the same project simultaneously. Invariably, I run into a case where I wish I had a larger monitor. For an especially wide spreadsheet. For viewing wide log files.

      And then there are the extra pixels in height, as well. It's nice to not have to keep scrolling up and down as much when reading a long document. The more I can see at once, the better!

      Now, anything larger than a 43-inch monitor, there starts getting to be significant differences in distance from my eyes to the center-most pixel versus from my eyes to a pixel in the corner. At a large enough screen size, multiple monitors would be preferable. I don't think this size screen gets me to that point. But, I am open to hearing from others who have found it to be a problem!

      --
      Wit is intellect, dancing.
      • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 21 2018, @12:36AM (6 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 21 2018, @12:36AM (#737895)

        Now, anything larger than a 43-inch monitor, there starts getting to be significant differences in distance from my eyes to the center-most pixel versus from my eyes to a pixel in the corner. At a large enough screen size, multiple monitors would be preferable. I don't think this size screen gets me to that point. But, I am open to hearing from others who have found it to be a problem!

        I bought into the 4k monitor idea about 3 or 4 years ago. I picked up a 28 inch monitor.

        I almost instantly regretted not getting a larger screen. Why? Because you have to set everything especially large (fonts, window sizes) in order to actually read anything comfortably at that resolution. Basically I'd gained resolution and everything looked way better, but I didn't really gain any screen real estate over a 24 inch 1080p monitor.

        If you decide on 4k, get about a 40 inch screen. If you decide on multiple monitors, get 1200p or 1440p screens.

        • (Score: 2) by martyb on Friday September 21 2018, @12:45AM (5 children)

          by martyb (76) Subscriber Badge on Friday September 21 2018, @12:45AM (#737900) Journal

          Your experience with a 28-inch monitor confirms my suspicions. I already have a 24-inch monitor that I am running (maxed out) at 1920x1200; going to 28 inches wouldn't buy me what I am looking for. I want a larger 'desk', not more legible 'documents' on the desk.

          I just checked and my cmd.exe windows are set to use an 8x12 pixel font. These are laid out as 222 characters per line and 55 rows in height. There's been many a time I wished they were wider and/or taller and even to have multiple ones of them displayed at once without overlapping. It is my hope that the physically larger size coupled with the higher resolution would allow me to accomplish that.

          --
          Wit is intellect, dancing.
          • (Score: 2) by Marand on Friday September 21 2018, @04:00AM (4 children)

            by Marand (1081) on Friday September 21 2018, @04:00AM (#737962) Journal

            I want a larger 'desk', not more legible 'documents' on the desk.

            Just like the real thing, if you want a larger desk, then you need to increase the physical space it takes. And just like the real thing, there are two ways to do it: get one (desk or display) that's much larger, or get multiple and use them together. Getting a larger display tends to not be cost effective past a certain point, so what I'd suggest, if you can manage it, is to get three displays: two ~24" displays on the sides, with something even larger for the middle. Or maybe instead of the larger middle display, get a third one of similar size but rotate it 90° so you're viewing it in portrait, which is much better for certain use cases.

            The problem with this sort of use is that, just like a real desk, what you have is never enough because, once you adjust to having it, you start wanting more. It quickly escalates from "I don't really need two, just a larger monitor would be fine" to "fuck, I wish I had room for a fifth display." I originally tried running two displays out of curiosity, and before long I was wishing I had a third because I could use just a bit more space. Three would be plenty, no way I'd want to go past that, I figured. Then I got a third, quickly filled them all, and started planning on getting a fourth. I was pretty happy with four, but after one got damaged I had to retire it, so I'm back at three and frequently frustrated that I'm missing the extra space. :/

            That said, if you're set on getting a laptop you may not be able to manage this, since they tend to be pretty limited on external outputs. It's not entirely hopeless, though, because you can hack together a multi-display kludge with Synergy [wikipedia.org] and multiple X servers. The idea is you connect extra displays to your current desktop and use it as, basically, a thin client connected to the laptop. It just runs an X server that clients on the laptop connect to, with Synergy running on both servers so that you can get seamless mouse/keyboard input between them.

            It sounds hacky but it works, and can be a good way to expand your workable space beyond the physical limits of a single system. You can even rig something similar with a shitty android tablet, which is the situation I was in when I got the idea to rig that sort of thing for myself. I needed some extra screen space while away from my PC, so I ran two X servers (one headless) on my shitty old laptop, with synergy running on both, and then used an Android vnc viewer to connect to the headless one. It effectively turned the tablet into a dumb 13" display, which was precisely what I needed at the time.

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 21 2018, @06:23AM

              by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 21 2018, @06:23AM (#737993)
              When 8K Augmented/Virtual Reality glasses arrive you can have as many huge screens as your hardware and wetware can cope with.

              Assuming people still know how to write "desktop" GUIs and don't force some stupid tablet UI on you.
            • (Score: 2) by martyb on Friday September 21 2018, @01:07PM (1 child)

              by martyb (76) Subscriber Badge on Friday September 21 2018, @01:07PM (#738080) Journal

              No argument on always wanting more display space! "If a little is great, and a lot is better, then way too much is just about right!” ― Mae West [goodreads.com]. =)

              Hence my desk analogy. Why do we even entertain the idea that a 24-inch monitor, say, is an equivalent to having a 3-foot by 6-foot desk? More space allows more documents to be arranged, without overlap, for instant reference whilst still having space to work on writing the current work product. I won't be entirely happy until I have a monitor which has the same size and resolution as an office desk. Yes, I'll wait. =) In the meantime, I'm looking at a 43-inch 4K TV as an interim step to getting there.

              That said, if you're set on getting a laptop you may not be able to manage this, since they tend to be pretty limited on external outputs. It's not entirely hopeless, though, because you can hack together a multi-display kludge with Synergy [wikipedia.org] [wikipedia.org] and multiple X servers. The idea is you connect extra displays to your current desktop and use it as, basically, a thin client connected to the laptop. It just runs an X server that clients on the laptop connect to, with Synergy running on both servers so that you can get seamless mouse/keyboard input between them.

              There may be some confusion here; I do not have a desktop... only the one laptop. Was looking to maintain portability so was looking for another laptop to replace the current one.

              But, the info on Synergy is *much* appreciated! Reminds me of the days when I had 3 separate rigs, each with a 20-inch 1600x1200 display that I used as dumb terminals to access one of the Sun servers where I worked, man years ago. (The left-hand box was for setting up test conditions; middle was for performing the actual steps of the test; and the right-hand box was for gathering and examining the outputs for logging and test pass/fail determination. Good Times!)

              I had heard about "docking stations" or somesuch where one would feed a single Thunderbolt cable in, and have multiple monitor connections out. Ditto for some variants of USB 3.1 Gen 2 or USB 3.2 [wikipedia.org]. (I only know what I've seen in comments on various forums and what I've read over there in the Wiki.)

              Anyway, thanks so much for the feedback, more IS better, and I'll definitely keep Synergy in mind. Thanks again!

              --
              Wit is intellect, dancing.
              • (Score: 3, Informative) by Marand on Friday September 21 2018, @03:49PM

                by Marand (1081) on Friday September 21 2018, @03:49PM (#738185) Journal

                Why do we even entertain the idea that a 24-inch monitor, say, is an equivalent to having a 3-foot by 6-foot desk? More space allows more documents to be arranged, without overlap, for instant reference whilst still having space to work on writing the current work product.

                I think that idea started at a time when it was more common to actually display multiple programs simultaneously. Windows used to have a nice tiling feature that worked well for that exact sort of use case. Now, at a time when displays that are gigantic in comparison, multiple displays are common, and widescreen is perfect for displaying multiple things simultaneously, users primarily maximise one or two applications and swap between them instead of using the space like the desk it is supposed to emulate. Worse still, "UX designers" as a group seem hell-bent on claiming as much screen space as possible for themselves, constantly adding superfluous whitespace and larger text to fill the void without even considering the idea that some of us might want to see two or more applications simultaneously.

                The desire to more efficiently use desk space is what led me to tiling window managers. Specifically static ones like notion [github.io] and herbstluftwm [herbstluftwm.org], where I can still control window sizes.

                I won't be entirely happy until I have a monitor which has the same size and resolution as an office desk. Yes, I'll wait. =) In the meantime, I'm looking at a 43-inch 4K TV as an interim step to getting there.

                That's basically what I do with 3-4 displays. They almost completely fill my desk, giving me the closest thing possible to a full desk worth of virtual space. I wouldn't mind having a larger one in the middle, but I generally prefer having 3 over one huge one because I can tilt the side ones to guarantee they're clearly viewable at the edges.

                There may be some confusion here; I do not have a desktop... only the one laptop. Was looking to maintain portability so was looking for another laptop to replace the current one.

                Yeah, I didn't realise you had a laptop currently when I wrote the comment. The "current computer" section didn't mention being a laptop anywhere, and since you wrote it that way and then "new laptop" in the next section, I mistakenly assumed you wanted to transition from a desktop to something more mobile. That makes the idea of using the old system to drive a lot of displays less feasible, unfortunately. However, you could probably build a thin client-esque system pretty cheaply and put an old GPU with 3+ outputs into it. Some kind of low-power CPU and a small motherboard, the tiniest SSD or HD you can fit a bare-bones Linux distro with Xorg onto, and just enough GPU to drive the displays. Make its entire job be to display stuff from the laptop when you're at home.

                But, the info on Synergy is *much* appreciated! Reminds me of the days when I had 3 separate rigs, each with a 20-inch 1600x1200 display that I used as dumb terminals to access one of the Sun servers where I worked, man years ago.

                Yeah it's realy useful. Synergy is basically a staple for multi-system work, though interacting with Windows sucks now because they went closed-source on it and you have to dig up an old version if you want to interact with the version in Linux distros. :/ Though if you don't care about getting Windows in the mix, there's also xdmx [sourceforge.net]. It's a proxy X server that multiple X servers attach to, presenting them all as a single unified display. Haven't had a chance to use it but it's one of those things I keep in my pocket in case I run into a need.

                Sort of unrelated, but also worth mentioning is xpra [xpra.org]. It's basically screen for X11: it's an X server that isn't attached to a display, and forwards its windows to other clients that attach to it similar to how screen and tmux operate.

                I had heard about "docking stations" or somesuch where one would feed a single Thunderbolt cable in, and have multiple monitor connections out. Ditto for some variants of USB 3.1 Gen 2 or USB 3.2.

                I completely forgot about Thunderbolt. It's technically an open standard anybody can use but it's still managed to be stupidly tied up by Intel in a way that makes it unavailable on AMD boards currently. I avoid Intel when possible because of a combination of 1) distaste for their business practices; 2) annoyance at their style of extreme market fragmentation (locking features behind minor SKU variations to jack up prices), which tends to lock me out of niche features I want to use; 3) the poor chip cooling issues thanks to their use of TIM on chips instead of solder; and 4) priced way too high for what they offer generally.

                Anyway, it's an idea if you can make it work. No idea what the status of it is for general use, I've only ever really heard of people doing multi-monitor like that with macOS, where I believe it's basically the only option for their laptops.

            • (Score: 2) by Reziac on Saturday September 22 2018, @03:28AM

              by Reziac (2489) on Saturday September 22 2018, @03:28AM (#738470) Homepage

              Junk fills the space allotted !!

              --
              And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
      • (Score: 2) by Snotnose on Friday September 21 2018, @12:45AM

        by Snotnose (1623) on Friday September 21 2018, @12:45AM (#737901)

        I've not had multiple monitors on a single system before

        It's one of those "why" things that, once you get it, you wonder what took you so long.

        In my case, while the left monitor has my email and web browser open, the more important thing is the pdf describing the hardware I'm writing a driver for.

        --
        Why shouldn't we judge a book by it's cover? It's got the author, title, and a summary of what the book's about.
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 21 2018, @06:02AM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 21 2018, @06:02AM (#737988)

        Now, anything larger than a 43-inch monitor, there starts getting to be significant differences in distance from my eyes to the center-most pixel versus from my eyes to a pixel in the corner.

        Curved displays are available.

        • (Score: 3, Informative) by martyb on Friday September 21 2018, @02:51PM

          by martyb (76) Subscriber Badge on Friday September 21 2018, @02:51PM (#738154) Journal

          Curved displays are available.

          Heh. I remember when all displays were *convex* and how much of a big deal it was when they first started coming out with a flat CRT!

          OTOH, there is a sweet spot that outside that point, things start looking really funky. Yes, that's the technical term. No, not really, but I am not willing to go that route as yet as I still want to be able to watch OTA television and/or videos and that would have me positioned at an entirely different point than when I would be working on my computer. I'm not totally against the idea, mind you, but I'm leaning against it at this point. Also, Keep It Simple Sweetheart (KISS) comes to mind.

          --
          Wit is intellect, dancing.
      • (Score: 1, Informative) by fakefuck39 on Friday September 21 2018, @06:50AM (8 children)

        by fakefuck39 (6620) on Friday September 21 2018, @06:50AM (#737998)

        so, maybe I'm the dumb one this time and missing something. you have 43-50" TVs out there for like $100 less than what you're looking at. Even a different 43" 2018 model TCL brand, still w/ the precious Roku whatever that is, is $259. PS, I have 3 of those cheapo dumb-tv sceptres, different models over 2 years. this includes a 4k 65". The TV tuner is crap, the audio is crap, blacks shine through a little backlight. Perfectly fine as a monitor. Don't know if you're one of those hippie anti-corporate idiots, but if you have a good card like an AMEX, you get a year added to the free year of mfgr warwrongtee for a total of 2, so flimsy or not, it's covered. Also, seems not flimsy from my experience.

        Used laptop will be interesting. Just about any used laptop will be HDMI1.4. You need HDMI2 for 4k@60Hz, so the way out is your USBC port to an HDMI2 dongle, to the TV. The laptop's HDMI port - hey you can hook that up to your old monitor. May not want it day1, but some people like 3 screens (not me, I prefer 1). A terminal window to run stuff, a reference open, and the code. You'll need 2 video cards in your laptop for that.

        • (Score: 2) by martyb on Friday September 21 2018, @03:20PM (7 children)

          by martyb (76) Subscriber Badge on Friday September 21 2018, @03:20PM (#738167) Journal

          Thanks to your comment, I am now leaning to the lower-priced TCL Model 43S405 which Best Buy currently has on sale for $259.99 — I don't see that, for my needs, the TCL Model 43S517 (at best buy it's the 43S515, and on sale for $319.99) is worth the extra money. OTOH, I've been burned before by "saving too much" and going from inexpensive to cheap.

          Others had pointed out I'd need HDMI 2.0 to get 4k@60hz, or USB 3.2 and a dongle/converter. Nice to have it independently confirmed! I've learned to not confuse confidence with competence.. .get independent verification wherever possible!

          --
          Wit is intellect, dancing.
          • (Score: 0) by fakefuck39 on Friday September 21 2018, @03:26PM (6 children)

            by fakefuck39 (6620) on Friday September 21 2018, @03:26PM (#738171)

            It looks like a major use for the new hardware for you is running this site. If you feel like posting an email address (or just create a throwaway email) here, I'll send you an amazon egift card for the TV.

            • (Score: 2) by martyb on Friday September 21 2018, @03:44PM (4 children)

              by martyb (76) Subscriber Badge on Friday September 21 2018, @03:44PM (#738182) Journal

              Speechless.

              Yes, it would primarily go towards supporting this site.

              OTOH, I prefer to do brick-and-mortar shopping when I can, and there's a Best Buy right near by that price matches. Should I run into any issues, I can show up in the store at 2;30 pm on a Saturday and make a firm, polite explanation of why they need to take care of things.

              So, as much as I would love to take you up on your generous offer, I will politely decline at this time.

              Of course, a week or month from now I'll need a new cable or mounting bracket or somesuch... Murphy and I go WAY back! =)

              It might be helpful toward a laptop though... feel free to send info to my nickname at solentnews.org and I'll give it some further thought.

              Thanks again!

              --
              Wit is intellect, dancing.
              • (Score: 0) by fakefuck39 on Friday September 21 2018, @04:11PM (3 children)

                by fakefuck39 (6620) on Friday September 21 2018, @04:11PM (#738200)

                Sent; please confirm receipt. Careful w/ the laptop though. A couple of years ago my work refreshed me w/ a dell 5510 - xeon, 32GB ram, 1.5TB dual-ssd - I'm thinking latest and greatest. Plugged in the hdmi to the 4k tv and got 30Hz. My only gaming is old dosbox-based crap, so no big deal, but I do watch a lot of french tv online. It sucked for video - had to get w chromecast pro (wired lan) so I don't have to deal w/ the shitty usb-c hubs. The laptop will not be cheap because I doubt any 2yo used one will be what you want.

                • (Score: 2) by martyb on Sunday September 23 2018, @12:14PM (2 children)

                  by martyb (76) Subscriber Badge on Sunday September 23 2018, @12:14PM (#738818) Journal

                  feel free to send info to my nickname at solentnews.org and I'll give it some further thought.

                  Sent; please confirm receipt. Careful w/ the laptop though. A couple of years ago my work refreshed me w/ a dell 5510 - xeon, 32GB ram, 1.5TB dual-ssd - I'm thinking latest and greatest. Plugged in the hdmi to the 4k tv and got 30Hz. My only gaming is old dosbox-based crap, so no big deal, but I do watch a lot of french tv online. It sucked for video - had to get w chromecast pro (wired lan) so I don't have to deal w/ the shitty usb-c hubs. The laptop will not be cheap because I doubt any 2yo used one will be what you want.

                  Umm, I was looking to get information *about* what you were proposing, and you went and sent... the actual GC! Thank you SO much for your generosity!!! Be assured it will be put to good use. Gives me a reason to finally set up an Amazon account. =)

                  I did not see anything about expiration date, so I am assuming there isn't any? Could you please confirm?

                  Thanks again for your incredible generosity!

                  --
                  Wit is intellect, dancing.
                  • (Score: 0) by fakefuck39 on Monday September 24 2018, @06:19PM (1 child)

                    by fakefuck39 (6620) on Monday September 24 2018, @06:19PM (#739311)

                    No expiration date. While I don't use the site as much for tech discussion as to relax by making fun of no-career idiot losers who give stupid advice, I do use the site so I am happy to support it. It is the only one out of the tech sites that does not censor comments by deleting them, and I don't enjoy having my content filtered by random internet retards. I was on /. since it's creation, and boy did that really go to shit.

                    I usually get dell stuff because I just have an insane number of Dell chargers laying around. HP is similar but dipping my toes into their business line twice - build quality is absolute crap. My personal opinion on "what you need" to make sure you're not watering plants with electrolytes. Integrated as well as dedicated graphics. This will allow you to hook up your old monitor as well as your new monitor 4k @60Hz, as well as using your laptop screen. Not a huge used market for 4k@60.

                    Dell is good, Lenovo and ASUS are good, Acer is ok. Unfortunately that's ~$1k new. Here's an example of a new one like that, and it's $1.2k.

                    https://www.amazon.com/Acer15-6-Aspire-Full-Laptop-Fingerprint/dp/B07FQBHPZJ [amazon.com]

                    A 2 year old laptop won't have 4k@60Hz.

                    • (Score: 2) by martyb on Saturday September 29 2018, @06:10PM

                      by martyb (76) Subscriber Badge on Saturday September 29 2018, @06:10PM (#741858) Journal

                      First off, I apologize for the delayed reply... why does "real life" have to interfere with the things that I *want* to do?

                      Much appreciate the clarification on the gift card -- good to know it does not expire! (Now I just have to set up an account on Amazon.)

                      My experiences with computers closely matches yours. I did get an HP Pavilion laptop over a dozen years ago which was a real trooper, but I've heard that the build quality went downhill rather rapidly since my purchase. Have had excellent luck with Dell (business class - am using a Latitude E6400 ATM with a core 2 duo that must be approaching 10 years old and still running like a champ.) I've heard good things about Lenovo business class (they took over the IBM Thinkpad line) but rather meh when it comes to their consumer lines. Along while back I got an ASUS netbook (Eee PC 1000HD) and it held up well over many years. Have had no experience with Acer, but got the impression that they were not up to the level of the other brands previously mentioned, but am willing to be corrected if things have changed.

                      Thanks for the link to the Acer system... looks interesting.

                      Thanks to your generosity, I am now looking to get a laptop that has Thunderbolt port(s) that I could then feed into a 'base' that would provide HDMI and/or Displayport ports for then connecting to the new monitor. Trying to future-proof a bit there, and also simplify going from portable to docked at home.

                      That said, I am now contemplating maybe getting an inexpensive, low-power system to serve as a file server, a desktop for "heavy hitting" activity, and a lightweight (compute-power wise, as well as actual physical weight) laptop for mobile use. My storage needs, atm, are modest. 1TB would more than triple my current usage, but things have a way of expanding to exceed the space provided, so I'd like to be able to handle a few TB not too far down the road. I currently only have spinning rust for storage, so an upgrade to an SSD would certainly make a huge difference performance-wise for portable purposes, but seems too pricey atm for my long term storage needs.

                      Thanks again for your generous gift and very informative feedback!

                      --
                      Wit is intellect, dancing.
            • (Score: 2) by Reziac on Saturday September 22 2018, @03:44AM

              by Reziac (2489) on Saturday September 22 2018, @03:44AM (#738473) Homepage

              +1 Heroic :)

              Best Buy has eGift cards too, tho I know nothing else about 'em.
              https://www.bestbuy.com/site/electronics/gift-cards/cat09000.c?id=cat09000 [bestbuy.com]

              --
              And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
      • (Score: 2) by requerdanos on Friday September 21 2018, @08:20PM

        by requerdanos (5997) Subscriber Badge on Friday September 21 2018, @08:20PM (#738335) Journal

        Now, anything larger than a 43-inch monitor, there starts getting to be significant differences in distance from my eyes to the center-most pixel versus from my eyes to a pixel in the corner.

        I have three 40-inch 1080p monitors side-by-side. There's 4.5 feet from the left edge to the center, and another 4.5 feet from the center to the right edge. I wear bifocals and have to sit far enough back to be able to use the same part of my glasses for the whole screen (as opposed to using the bottom part for things close to the center but the top part for things closer to the edge which are much farther apart).

        This is the best monitor configuration I have ever had. I love it.

        Because of this 4K business, 1080p TVs/monitors are cheap, which explains their presence in my (home) office.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 21 2018, @01:01AM (4 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 21 2018, @01:01AM (#737910)

      It would be even cheaper and much easier to simply not cover so much of the display area with a single web browser window.

      A 16:9 [1] 24 inch monitor is 20.9 inches wide. With a 2" left and right margin, that makes for a 16.9 inch wide browser window.

      The monitor I am presently viewing the browser into which I am typing this is 20.5" wide, and the browser window is 11.5" wide (just slightly over half). This is more than enough width.

      So, the OP could save a load of cash, and fix his problem now by simply making that browser window narrower.

      [1] OP did not state the actual aspect ratio, so I picked a typical ratio.

      • (Score: 2) by martyb on Friday September 21 2018, @02:30AM (3 children)

        by martyb (76) Subscriber Badge on Friday September 21 2018, @02:30AM (#737941) Journal

        It would be even cheaper and much easier to simply not cover so much of the display area with a single web browser window.

        A 16:9 [1] 24 inch monitor is 20.9 inches wide. With a 2" left and right margin, that makes for a 16.9 inch wide browser window.

        The monitor I am presently viewing the browser into which I am typing this is 20.5" wide, and the browser window is 11.5" wide (just slightly over half). This is more than enough width.

        So, the OP could save a load of cash, and fix his problem now by simply making that browser window narrower.

        [1] OP did not state the actual aspect ratio, so I picked a typical ratio.

        First off, in the original story I mentioned that I have a 1920x1200 monitor. =)

        Second, I have frequently needed [soylentnews.org] to view a story submission and the original source article at the same time. I can't say enough positive things about how much of a positive difference the "TileView" addon has made for me:

        Tile View 6.9
        https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/tile-view/ [mozilla.org]
        Firefox 4.0 - 56.*
        Applies tiled layout to the content area so that multiple web sites can be viewed and browsed side by side.
        (NOTE: There is a newer version of TileView which supports later versions of Firefox.)

        I use TileView to view the source and the submission in side-by-side tiles within a single browser window... and even with the browser window taking up 75% of my screen, it is frequently not quite large enough to fully include both documents without horizontal scrolling.

        So, two of your 11.5-inch wide browser windows would be 23 inches... I'd need a larger monitor to do that. =)

        --
        Wit is intellect, dancing.
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 21 2018, @04:13AM (2 children)

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 21 2018, @04:13AM (#737964)

          First off, in the original story I mentioned that I have a 1920x1200 monitor.

          Correct, you did. Relevance? The monitor I'm using for the 11.5" browser window is also 1920x1200.

          Second, I have frequently needed [soylentnews.org] to view a story submission and the original source article at the same time. ... I use TileView to view the source and the submission in side-by-side tiles within a single browser window...

          The above is information not in evidence from the contents of the original submission. Therefore this is akin to a goal-post move.

          Further, This likely indicates that Soylent's shitty CSS plus TileView's likely shittier CSS simply does not auto-adjust itself to fit the available space well. Soylent's CSS already wastes about 2.5" of left edge space in the browser for crap that is unrelated to the story at hand. Add a plugin to display things side-by-side with likely just as shitty a waste of space in its CSS and you've got a recipe for disaster.

          Case in point re. the shitty Soylent CSS. The story submission entry box begins not sized to fit the browser window, but sized at about a fixed 20 inches wide, with overflow set to clip (so no scroll bar) so one has to maximize to find the resize handle to drag the text area back to a size that fits the actual browser window size.

          So I'd submit that better CSS that better adapts to the available space might be a more productive use of your funds, because that would benefit everyone, not just you.

          And then don't get me started about Soylent's absolute shitty CSS when on Android Firefox. The damn site tries to stuff a desktop width layout into a phone sized screen, resulting in 1point font size until one two finger zooms, at which point reading the article means lots of horizontal swish scrolling.

          • (Score: 2) by martyb on Friday September 21 2018, @01:22PM (1 child)

            by martyb (76) Subscriber Badge on Friday September 21 2018, @01:22PM (#738089) Journal

            Second, I have frequently needed [soylentnews.org] to view a story submission and the original source article at the same time. ... I use TileView to view the source and the submission in side-by-side tiles within a single browser window...

            The above is information not in evidence from the contents of the original submission. Therefore this is akin to a goal-post move.

            Disagree. I simply stated, originally, that my browser took up about 75% of my screen. Then came the claim that I did not need all that width -- that I would be fine with just 11.5 inches. I disagreed and explained why, for me, it made sense that I used such a large browser window. IOW, pointing out that what works for you is not generally applicable to everyone, specifically myself. You made the assumption as to what my needs were, and I clarified that was not the case.

            And, as for the rant about "shitty CSS": (1) We don't have anyone on staff who is gifted in that realm... wanna step up and help out the rest of the community? (2) There are other use cases where having a wide browser window is useful for me, besides just SoylentNews. I need not, and will not, go into ALL of the circumstances. I may be ignorant about some of the minutia of current system specifications, but I've been at this a while (first computer programming I did was using a genuine Teletype with 110-baud acoustical coupler dial-up access to a DEC PDP-8. I've since tested Operating Systems, Compilers, Data Bases, and a plethora of customer-facing applications and web sites.) So take the snark somewhere else.

            --
            Wit is intellect, dancing.
            • (Score: 3, Informative) by Reziac on Saturday September 22 2018, @03:55AM

              by Reziac (2489) on Saturday September 22 2018, @03:55AM (#738475) Homepage

              And then there's the whole rest of the web... I have browser window set at 1150px wide, because that's the minimum to avoid misbehavior (sidescrolling or partly invisible) among "sites I use all the time". I'd prefer a window about 800px wide, but then I'd spend half the day resizing it.

              --
              And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
    • (Score: 2) by wisnoskij on Friday September 21 2018, @01:13PM

      by wisnoskij (5149) <reversethis-{moc ... ksonsiwnohtanoj}> on Friday September 21 2018, @01:13PM (#738084)

      This. I have yet to encounter any situation where more pixels helps much at all. The real benefits you only get with two or more separate monitors and their corresponding Super ultra wide aspect ratio.

  • (Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 21 2018, @12:01AM (7 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 21 2018, @12:01AM (#737872)

    T221, look it up, yo. None of this 2160p crap, I'm talking 3840x2400. Since I needed my other outputs for other monitors (including a wicked 2048x1536 medical display fed from 2 inputs -- unlike the T221, it couldn't run at reduced refresh from a single link), I only had the T221 connected with one single-link DVI-D, feeding it at a whopping 17 Hz.
    And you know what? 17Hz was just fine for use much like you describe. Youtube was just a little juddery, but then I didn't waste much time on that -- and you can always put your youtube window on the laptop's display or the old monitor.
    So I wouldn't even worry about making sure you can get 4k@60Hz, luxurious 24-30Hz is fine. But do set your current monitor for 30Hz and use it for a week, see how big a deal it is to you.

    Anyway, the TV you linked has HDMI and no DP, so you'll need one of:

    • HDMI 1.4 (for 24-30Hz)
    • DP 1.0/1.1 plus an HDMI 1.4 adapter (for 24-30Hz)
    • HDMI 2.x (for 60Hz)
    • DP 1.2 or newer plus HDMI 2.x adapter (for 60Hz)
    • (Score: 2) by martyb on Friday September 21 2018, @12:22AM (3 children)

      by martyb (76) Subscriber Badge on Friday September 21 2018, @12:22AM (#737886) Journal

      T221? Yowza! I remember reading about them when they came out. I recall they were a bit... pricey. =)

      I go back to when the original IBM PC first came out and struggled under the flicker of sub-60Hz CRTs; was hoping to avoid a repeat. I take it that LCDs don't have the same issue?

      As for the rest of your post, thanks a bunch! That's the kind of thing I was hoping for... experiential knowledge that would (1) save me from stubbing my toes while (2) keeping me from paying out the nose. That's the most succinct summation of the competing formats and their attributes/versions I've seen anywhere!

      --
      Wit is intellect, dancing.
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 21 2018, @12:52AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 21 2018, @12:52AM (#737904)

        I got the T221 used, long after they came out -- under $2k. But that was still a bit pricey for a grad student.

        Yeah, I won't be that guy who says "LCDs don't flicker", but the ones that do are generally due to a PWMed backlight, and will flicker exactly the same no matter what refresh rate you feed it.
        I should note that the T221 specifically isn't "actually" running at 17Hz -- it updates the display at 48Hz from the internal framebuffer regardless of the input rate -- but it doesn't exhibits any 48Hz flicker either. Likewise, monitors without such a buffer (or in a "gaming" mode that disables the buffer to reduce lag) have no refresh-rate flicker.

      • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 21 2018, @06:20AM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 21 2018, @06:20AM (#737992)

        With a CRT, it lights up and thus colors the pixels at the refresh rate. Low rates give flicker.

        With an LCD, the light is separate from coloring the pixels. The refresh rate only refers to coloring the pixels, which is done by switching a polarizer on and off. That switching is naturally too slow to keep up with the refresh rate, but you won't see this as flicker. You see it as motion blur, and generally an output lag. You get a white backlight. Normally this won't flicker. If it does flicker, this is unrelated to the refresh rate.

        To put it another way, pixels in a CRT are only on for a tiny fraction of the time. They blink on for about 5 nanoseconds (really) and then turn off for about 20000000 nanoseconds, though it isn't quite that horrid because the phosphors take some time to emit their light. Pixels in an LCD stay on for a long time, and it has been a struggle to get them switching fast enough to not make games and video get blurry.

        IMHO, the worst part of a slow LCD is that the mouse pointer can be hard to see if it moves quickly. Motion blur makes it disappear. A larger pointer helps a bit.

        • (Score: 2) by martyb on Friday September 21 2018, @02:44PM

          by martyb (76) Subscriber Badge on Friday September 21 2018, @02:44PM (#738145) Journal

          Now that you put it that way... it makes perfect sense! Thanks a bunch for not just answering the question, but for also explaining the why behind it!

          Oh, and I use an animated cursor (wagtail) to make it easier to find my cursor on the screen. I'm *extremely* sensitive to motion, so it works out perfect!

          --
          Wit is intellect, dancing.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 21 2018, @09:18AM (2 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 21 2018, @09:18AM (#738025)

      I've never tried DP
      What's your experience?

      • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 21 2018, @12:01PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 21 2018, @12:01PM (#738061)

        My girlfriend absolutely loves it, but it does take a bit of the spontaneity out of it when you have to work around a third person's schedule.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 21 2018, @02:50PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 21 2018, @02:50PM (#738153)

        I'm not sure what you're asking. It's a port. You plug cables in. Signals flow through cables. Graphics appear.

  • (Score: 2) by stretch611 on Friday September 21 2018, @12:21AM (1 child)

    by stretch611 (6199) on Friday September 21 2018, @12:21AM (#737883)

    Not available for shipping, but in store only... for $250; a 48.5 inch 4k Polaroid TV [microcenter.com], not smart... but does come with Chromecast integrated.

    I had to get one because a recent lightning storm fried my 10 year old 47" Vizio. I have not hooked my computer up to it, but TV looks fine. Of course, its not like there is 4k content from cable yet.

    --
    Now with 5 covid vaccine shots/boosters altering my DNA :P
    • (Score: 2) by martyb on Friday September 21 2018, @12:33AM

      by martyb (76) Subscriber Badge on Friday September 21 2018, @12:33AM (#737894) Journal

      Would that I could... the nearest Microcenter to me is about a 2+ hour drive, each way. :(

      I considered maybe getting a larger than 43-inch display, but then I run into a different problem. The distance from my eyes to the centermost pixel on the screen versus the distance to a pixel in one of the corners is sufficient to be a problem for me. I'm near-sighted and can get along "okay" with my current 24-inch 1920x1200 monitor, though I tend to lean forward a bit to make out details. With a 48-50-inch display, my eyes would be struggling with the repeated changes in depth of focus.

      That's a great price -- I'm hoping some other Soylentil can take advantage of it!

      --
      Wit is intellect, dancing.
  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 21 2018, @12:22AM (17 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 21 2018, @12:22AM (#737884)

    First, to be clear, I've done this with a LG 48" 4k screen. This screen actually supports 4096x2160. It's price was approximately what you're planning on spending.

    Pros:
    1. 3d gaming becomes super sharp. So sharp you can turn off the anti-aliasing and not notice the jaggies. This, in my opinion, is the only reasonable use case.
    2. Astounding amounts of text in your favorite editor at 1:1 with "normal" font sizing (12-16pt). (over 255x100 characters in a full screen console).
    3. Snapping applications to the corners makes them generally act like they're on their own 1080p desktop.
    4. Your desktop wallpaper will look better than it ever has. Especially earth-porn.

    Cons:
    1. If you want 1:1 pixel ratios for your desktop, with no scaling, expect your nice 12pt font to be crazy tiny on the screen. Hard on the eyes.
    2. Text near the borders of the screen (about 1cm worth) tend to wash out and is difficult to see unless you move your head to view the edges closer to a 90deg angle.
    3. Red pixels at 1:1 (at least on my screen) bleed horribly, to the point where text becomes illegible.
    4. Most 4k screens that are large have a intended viewing distance of about 2 meters. Most 1080p PC monitors, about 1 meter. At 1 meter, you really cannot see the entire screen and keep it visually in focus.
    5. You're really trying to display 4x 1080p screens at the same time. This affects your frame buffer size and will lower GPU performance a little. Just plugging the TV into my PC made the GPU's cooling fans spin.

    Needless to say, I went back to using 1080p screens rather quickly.

    Now, as for the Roku embedded smartness. Meh. It's fine. Not great, but just mediocre. Get a Shield TV instead. Even though it's another 150-200$, it's a significantly better streaming device, with excellent Android compatibility. Kodi works out of the box, and adding Android based emulations is as easy as installing from the Play store. If you've got a Nvidia equipped PC, you can stream just about anything from the PC to the Shield, including the desktop, if that's your fancy.

    Never, ever plug that TV into your network. Just don't. It could easily spy on you.

    • (Score: 5, Interesting) by jmorris on Friday September 21 2018, @12:53AM (11 children)

      by jmorris (4844) on Friday September 21 2018, @12:53AM (#737905)

      You discovered the problem with trying to use a TV as a monitor. Unless you can get the very latest HDMI port on both monitor and PC you can't really display 4K on it. They had to cheat, you have to give something up to stay inside the bandwidth limit. Usually what goes is full RGB in favor of 4:1:1 component. 60Hz refresh also has to go. When you run the math the bandwidth for 30Hz 4:4:1 at 2160 is exactly the same as 60Hz 4:4:4 at 1080.

      DisplayPort could apparently do the real thing a little earlier but again, make sure the display AND video source can do what you need. And if you want to run a browser or a terminal emulator you want 2160p with 4:4:4 RGB. And if you play games you want 60fps, preferably without having to shift video modes. Otherwise text will look like crap unless you stick to strictly black on white or white on black. Single pixels can't have a color with 4:1:1 so you get the bleeding you describe.

      The next problem with TVs as monitors is overscan. If you buy the good name brand stuff you can usually switch it off or it does it automatically if you feed RGB but the house brands often remove those features as "incentives" to upgrade.

      DPMS is another monitor feature often missing from TV sets, which you want to make sure you get.

      • (Score: 2) by martyb on Friday September 21 2018, @02:47AM (8 children)

        by martyb (76) Subscriber Badge on Friday September 21 2018, @02:47AM (#737945) Journal

        I'd heard bits and pieces of that (HDMI / DisplayPort) over the years, but never put together as clearly as this; thanks!

        Overscan? With an LCD? Really??!!? I thought that was a holdover from the old CRT days were they needed to have some "fudge factor" so the image would fit "properly" within the bezel. And that applies to LCDs? Huh! Thanks for that!

        As for DPMS (Display Power Management Signaling), I would never have thought about checking for that. Thanks so much for mentioning it!

        --
        Wit is intellect, dancing.
        • (Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 21 2018, @04:26AM (2 children)

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 21 2018, @04:26AM (#737968)

          Overscan? With an LCD? Really??!!?

          With a TV LCD, yes. All LCD's labeled for "Television" actually perform overscan.

          Now, I can anticipate your next question: "why?"

          The answer is because of "legacy". Television broadcast signals were created presuming overscan in the receiver (because it was a CRT and all but studio 'monitor' CRT's were setup to overscan) and so all "TV" signals are produced assuming that the receiver overscans.

          Also, because TV's overscanned, other, enterprising, folks decided they could use the overscan area for transmitting other data (it, afterall, would be invisible to the viewer, because "overscan"). So if modern LCD TV's didn't overscan to compensate for the signal assuming it does so, you'd have your tv picture sitting in a box with all kinds of moving dots around it where other 'stuff' (one big one that did this was the text overlays for the hearing impaired, they get transmitted on several of the lines at the bottom of the picture that are in the "overscan zone". And most "joe sixpack's" wouldn't understand why their "movin pitcur" has all these 'ants' crawling around on the edges.

          The same reason is the cause for why most TV's now have "zoom" modes that cut off the edges of the picture so it "fills the screen" because "joe sixpack" could not understand that a film aspect viewport was not the same aspect ratio as his newfangled "movin pitcur box" and those black bars on the edges did not really mean that he wasn't getting "all the pitcur he paid fo".

          • (Score: 2) by martyb on Friday September 21 2018, @02:31PM

            by martyb (76) Subscriber Badge on Friday September 21 2018, @02:31PM (#738133) Journal

            TIL! Thanks so much for the clear explanation of the history and cause for the overscan. Makes perfect sense the way you explained it. It's replies like this which make all the time I put in posting stories and doing QA worthwhile. Thank you!

            --
            Wit is intellect, dancing.
          • (Score: 1) by ChrisMaple on Saturday September 22 2018, @01:07AM

            by ChrisMaple (6964) on Saturday September 22 2018, @01:07AM (#738436)

            I've seen signalling in the flyback (blanking) time, but having signalling in the overscan region seems quite peculiar. After all, overscan in CRT systems is typical, not guaranteed.

        • (Score: 2) by kazzie on Friday September 21 2018, @04:29AM (1 child)

          by kazzie (5309) Subscriber Badge on Friday September 21 2018, @04:29AM (#737969)

          My Raspberry Pi has overscan settings [stackexchange.com] in its config to compensate for this. I've had to use them on my HDMI LCD.

          • (Score: 2) by martyb on Friday September 21 2018, @02:34PM

            by martyb (76) Subscriber Badge on Friday September 21 2018, @02:34PM (#738137) Journal

            Good to know! Thanks for that... The more I'm learning about this, the more I'm learning how much I did not know. =)

            --
            Wit is intellect, dancing.
        • (Score: 2) by jmorris on Friday September 21 2018, @04:56AM (2 children)

          by jmorris (4844) on Friday September 21 2018, @04:56AM (#737974)

          Lack of DPMS is common. No idea why. Even signage displays often lack it. Had to use the serial port to control power on some LG screens.

          • (Score: 2) by martyb on Friday September 21 2018, @02:57PM (1 child)

            by martyb (76) Subscriber Badge on Friday September 21 2018, @02:57PM (#738157) Journal

            Orly? Sense No Makes. Well, actually, anything to save a few pennies and make it look less expensive than the competition and thereby win a sale. Caveat emptor, once again!

            Thanks for the warning!

            --
            Wit is intellect, dancing.
            • (Score: 2) by jmorris on Friday September 21 2018, @03:43PM

              by jmorris (4844) on Friday September 21 2018, @03:43PM (#738181)

              But these were high dollar units with serial ports and daisy chainable VGA in/out ports for building a video wall. It is what makes no sense, why do they omit basic features like DPMS on anything that isn't explicitly sold for a desktop PC?

              Even more fun, my older LG TV set at home also has a serial port but since it is a consumer product it is gimped. You can send commands to it, you can even power it down over the serial port. If you knock the secret knock you can get a root console over it. But the serial port is connected to the main SoC which is powered down once you send a power off code. The power button and IR sensor are connected to a little 8051 microcontroller and it is responsible for bringing the power supply back on and it has no link to the serial port. Dumbness level of that is at least several hundred milli-Kohns. (I stole that gag from Ace at Ace of Spades HQ, he uses Sally Kohn at the NYT as a "reference dumb level" and rates stupid utterances, articles and other dumb things in milli-Kohns.)

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 21 2018, @03:16PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 21 2018, @03:16PM (#738165)

        The next problem with TVs as monitors is overscan. If you buy the good name brand stuff you can usually switch it off or it does it automatically if you feed RGB but the house brands often remove those features as "incentives" to upgrade.

        I have a $120 TV and it has that feature. I think all modern ones must have such a feature.

        • (Score: 2) by jmorris on Friday September 21 2018, @03:50PM

          by jmorris (4844) on Friday September 21 2018, @03:50PM (#738188)

          I tried an Insignia (Worst Buy's house brand) and it lacked setting for overscan and discrete IR codes to select inputs, power on/off, etc. Read online that defeaturing house brands is a fairly common thing. Took that set back the next day. I use a hacked remote with extensive macros and such to make the home theater and MythTV all play nice. If one knows where to look you can find the tools to take the bog standard remotes and make them useful, much nicer than those Logitech horrors that more resemble a tablet and a remote's unholy spawn. But key to any smart remote is discrete IR codes.

    • (Score: 2) by martyb on Friday September 21 2018, @01:10AM (4 children)

      by martyb (76) Subscriber Badge on Friday September 21 2018, @01:10AM (#737916) Journal

      Wow! Thanks for all of that!

      Yes, I had already concluded that anything larger than 43 inches would be problematic for me; thanks for confirming that. I'd not thought of the issues with different colors having different 'visibility' -- thanks!

      My current system with a 1920x1200, 24-inch monitor is setup to create cmd.exe command windows with an 8x12 font arranged as 55 rows of 222 characters each. (I never seem to be able to get as many characters visible at one time as I like and have been willing to put up with reduced legibility to achieve that.)

      Maintaining focus across a large display... I'd thought of that and it's why I am looking into getting a 40-43 inch display instead of a 48+ inch display. Though only a small increment in price, I figured it would exacerbate the problem of keeping everything in focus at one time. Thanks for confirming that!

      Equivalence to 4 1080p screens... intellectually I was aware of that, but had not thought that it would be sufficient to drive up fan noise because of it... thanks!

      As for videos, I don't have cable TV. I don't have Netflix or any other streaming media. Just a rare DVD or occasional downloaded YouTube video. So, I appreciate the cautions but do not think it is applicable in my particular case. I'm sure there are others who are contemplating making this move, and for them this is a much more important factor, so thanks for bringing it up!

      Yes, never ever plug into my home network. Got it. Also, don't get it wet and don't feed it after midnight. ;)

      --
      Wit is intellect, dancing.
      • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 21 2018, @02:07AM (3 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 21 2018, @02:07AM (#737934)

        Make sure your HDMI cable doesn't support ethernet-over-hdmi either.

        • (Score: 2) by martyb on Friday September 21 2018, @03:42AM

          by martyb (76) Subscriber Badge on Friday September 21 2018, @03:42AM (#737959) Journal

          Make sure your HDMI cable doesn't support ethernet-over-hdmi either.

          Gack! Would never have thought of that... thanks!!!

          --
          Wit is intellect, dancing.
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 21 2018, @06:36AM (1 child)

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 21 2018, @06:36AM (#737996)

          How am I supposed to make sure my HDMI cable doesn't support ethernet (aka: HEC) when it has been part of the standard since v1.4? Even the super cheap AmazonBasics cables support it. So everyone who thought they were protected because they didn't let their smart TV connect the WiFi but still connected their computer/xbox/playstation/etc with an HDMI cable made after ~2010 were unknowingly providing the TV with a wired network connection. DOH!

          If you want to avoid ethernet over HDMI, the only option is to verify the TV itself doesn't support HEC. It costs extra to build in support and some manufacturers opted to lower BOM costs rather than provide it. However that may have changed...

          • (Score: 2) by martyb on Friday September 21 2018, @03:02PM

            by martyb (76) Subscriber Badge on Friday September 21 2018, @03:02PM (#738158) Journal
            Excellent point. I would like to think that there would be a way on my computer to enable/disable that ethernet connection over the HDMI cable? Just guessing here, but it seems like an obvious thing to be able to do. Can anyone confirm one way or the other?
            --
            Wit is intellect, dancing.
  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by KilroySmith on Friday September 21 2018, @12:22AM (4 children)

    by KilroySmith (2113) on Friday September 21 2018, @12:22AM (#737885)

    I've used a 4K TV as a monitor for a couple of years, and used HDTV's as monitors prior to that.

    Fortunately for me, I crossed the age that my eyes were no longer able to focus at monitor distance after HDTV's got cheap. I hate wearing my glasses, so instead I bought 32" HDTVs. Black Friday a couple of years ago, I upgraded to a 40" Samsung 4K cheap.

    Nowadays when I walk through the office, I notice how many people are leaned forward squinting at their 15" laptop screens, or 24" external monitors. None of the people with 32s are doing so. A 32" 4K monitor may be about perfect for those with good eyes; for me, a 40" 4K monitor isn't quite big enough without my glasses - I should have got a 49". The 40 isn't so big that I have to move my head significantly to see the corners; I figure a 49 will be, but that's fine.

    The biggest problem I've had over the years is adjusting the controls for sharp text. Most of the TVs are aimed at movies and shows, and like to "smooth" the picture. Not so good for computer output. I've always been able to adjust for a good picture, but there have been one or two monitors over the years where the picture wasn't as sharp as I would have liked.

    I've never had an issue with refresh rate - 30p or 60i work fine for work and casual play. It also means that you can use a $5 HDMI cable and not worry about bandwidth. DisplayPort and Mini-Displayport are easily converted to HDMI, so don't worry too much about those. Likely any CPU that is capable of 4K output would have zero issues displaying YouTube videos, all the way through 4K NetFlix movies. That's just not a concern either.

    There's nothing better than being able to put up four 1920x1080 non-overlapping windows on the screen. All of the "flipping" that you have to do on smaller screens simply goes away. I also found that, with bigger displays, you get a bonus - you can reduce the font size in console-type windows and still have the text legible. I can read 160 column text displays in a 1920x1080 window on my 40" monitor easily; this means that you can size the window for 120 column text, and get 6 non-overlapping windows on the screen (or enjoy the 160 column goodness).

    As far as hardware capabilities in a laptop, you'll have to play that one by ear. My four year old Lenovo business laptop was incapable of driving a 4K display; I'd guess that today even the low-end consumer laptops would have no problems doing so. Getting two external monitors working is probably going to be difficult with a consumer machine (where there'll likely be only a single HDMI output), but may be trivial with a higher end laptop with two outputs (probably one HDMI and one DisplayPort). This'll be the thing that you'll have to watch carefully and probably test before you purchase a new laptop.

    • (Score: 2) by martyb on Friday September 21 2018, @01:20AM (3 children)

      by martyb (76) Subscriber Badge on Friday September 21 2018, @01:20AM (#737919) Journal

      Sounds like you were in the exact same boat I am now, just a couple years ahead of me... can't thank you enough for sharing your experiences!

      I'll watch for "smoothed" pixels vs clear text... thanks!

      Glasses-free viewing is one of my goals, as well.

      No problem with a sub-60Hz refresh rate? I find that... surprising. I first started using computers before there even was an IBM PC. So, I've seen all the noise about screen flicker over the years, and experienced it first hand. Maybe things are different/better with an LCD versus the old CRTs that I had experienced the flickering on?

      As for driving multiple displays, it seems to me that if I had the latest thunder-something or USB 3.0 version/class gobbledegook, I could get a hub which would split out multiple monitor connectors from that single cable. That would be a significant step up in system capability than what I am looking for at the moment, but it might be good to keep in mind for the future.

      --
      Wit is intellect, dancing.
      • (Score: 2) by KilroySmith on Friday September 21 2018, @02:02AM (2 children)

        by KilroySmith (2113) on Friday September 21 2018, @02:02AM (#737931)

        Don't worry about flickering from low refresh rate - the technology in flat screens is vastly different than CRTs, and there's no flicker.

        There are USB->HDMI dongles (like https://www.amazon.com/Cable-Matters-SuperSpeed-Adapter-Windows/dp/B00BPEV1XK [amazon.com] ) that'd work fine for an HDMI second monitor with limited performance (you won't be playing Doom on it) but web pages, IRC, terminal windows would work fine.

        • (Score: 2) by martyb on Friday September 21 2018, @03:40AM (1 child)

          by martyb (76) Subscriber Badge on Friday September 21 2018, @03:40AM (#737958) Journal

          Don't worry about flickering from low refresh rate - the technology in flat screens is vastly different than CRTs, and there's no flicker.

          Good to know; thanks!

          There are USB->HDMI dongles (like https://www.amazon.com/Cable-Matters-SuperSpeed-Adapter-Windows/dp/B00BPEV1XK [amazon.com] [amazon.com] ) that'd work fine for an HDMI second monitor with limited performance (you won't be playing Doom on it) but web pages, IRC, terminal windows would work fine.

          From that link:

          USB 3.0 TO HDMI ADAPTER leverages SuperSpeed USB 3.0 bandwidth up to 5 Gbps for the best performance; Functions like an external graphics card to deliver smooth high definition video to your HDTV or monitor; Supports video resolutions up to 2560 x 1440 with HDMI and up to 1920 x 1200 with DVI; Supports flawless audio pass-thru for Dolby TrueHD, DTS Master Audio, and more; Backwards compatible with USB 2.0

          (Emphasis added).

          Looks like the right idea, but lacks the resolution that I am looking for, i.e. 4K (3840x2160).

          --
          Wit is intellect, dancing.
          • (Score: 2) by KilroySmith on Friday September 21 2018, @06:54PM

            by KilroySmith (2113) on Friday September 21 2018, @06:54PM (#738306)

            I was suggesting that for connection of your old monitor (1920x1200), presuming that you'd connect the 4K monitor directly to the new laptop (assuming it supports 4K) to maximize performance for it. They you'd have three screens - laptop, 4K, 2K. Or, if you buy wisely, you won't need it.
            For example, this laptop:
            https://www.ebay.com/itm/Lenovo-ThinkPad-T440s-14-Intel-i5-8GB-RAM-500GB-HDD-Win-10-Pro-Business-Laptop/283096820164?hash=item41e9e2a9c4 [ebay.com]
            has, I believe, a 4K capable HDMI port and a VGA port, to which you can likely attach your 4K and your 2K monitors without the USB dongle. If you buy the docking station for it, you'll end up with even more connection options. Now, it's an older laptop, and you'd probably want to replace the HDD with an SSD (which might cost more than the laptop!) (of course, this laptop has an empty M.2 slot so you can ADD an SSD, rather than replacing the HDD, ending with twice the storage). It's from Lenovo's business line, so it's likely built better than the average consumer machine.

            It'd be hard to argue with the value you get for something like this. But, I'm just a random joe on the internet, so I'd suggest verifying anything I've said.

  • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 21 2018, @12:28AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 21 2018, @12:28AM (#737891)

    Google the title. I've used a Seiki 39" like that for a few years and like it. Only drawback is that I'm limited to 30 Hz at 4k, which is a bit laggy. You need HDMI 2 for 60 Hz.

  • (Score: 5, Informative) by Immerman on Friday September 21 2018, @01:02AM (8 children)

    by Immerman (3985) on Friday September 21 2018, @01:02AM (#737911)

    Chroma 4:4:4 above (almost) all else. Viewing angle is also important.

    I haven't seen it mentioned anywhere else, so I'll chime in. Chroma 4:4:4 support is extremely important if you ever what to be able to read colored text, or text on a colored background (icon names on your desktop for example, or if you prefer less eye-singing contrast in your text editor of choice). It basically means that each pixel gets full color information, rather than sharing much of it with surrounding pixels. Without it you get nasty color artifact "halos" around the edges of things - most aggravatingly all around text, where it can render it completely illegible if the wrong colors are involved.

    Unfortunately it's almost impossible to find any information on it - it's never on the box, and almost never even on the manufacturer's website. rtings.com seems to be a good source for info about particular models though. They also have recommendations for specific models to use as monitors - there's a $300 40" TCL model I've been eyeballing that gets good reviews as a budget option, as well as a 43" that might be the one you're looking at.

    Having used a 40" 1080p TV as a monitor for a decade or so (augmented by a better resolution secondary monitor as needed) I will say one thing - it's big. Ridiculously big. Almost annoying at arm's length in how much visual space it consumes. To the point that I've just about discounted the 43" TCL since it would be the same size (including bezel) as my current 40" Samsung, and I'm really leaning toward shrinking things down a bit. On the other hand I've started using it asymmetrically - centering myself on one side of the screen, and using the other half as "secondary" space. That actually helps a lot, but I'm still on the fence.

    If you're not twitch gaming then you probably don't care about lag (and even the appalling 30+ms on mine isn't all that bad, I only really notice it with high-accuracy sniping in FPSes), and most TVs have a "PC mode" that will turn off all the "image enhancing" tricks that will ruin your day, visually and with far worse lag. Note, on some models you may have to name the input source "PC" or "Computer" to turn off all the image-mangling "enhancements" - a fact mentioned nowhere in the documentation for mine.

    The other big thing to consider is viewing angle - sitting at a monitor distance your horizontal viewing angle can easily go from 0* in the center, to +/- 45* at the edges. If you sit off-center, one side will be even worse. And especially on budget TVs that can mean the edges can appear considerably dimmer than the middle, and may even show weird colors. rtings gives numerical info about that, but you probably want to go to a brick and mortar store and really get up close and personal with a few TVs to see what your own acceptable range is. Find some that you consider great, acceptable, and intolerable, then look up their model numbers for reference.

    • (Score: 2) by martyb on Friday September 21 2018, @01:28AM (2 children)

      by martyb (76) Subscriber Badge on Friday September 21 2018, @01:28AM (#737920) Journal

      Bingo! That's the kind of thing (4:4:4) I would not have thought of and which would kick me in the butt in short order. Thanks for the heads up!

      Yes, there are two highly-rated 43-inch TCL monitors on rtings.com; I was looking not at the cheapest budget model, but the next step up.

      "PC" or "Computer" mode... I've got to remember that one; thanks!

      --
      Wit is intellect, dancing.
      • (Score: 2) by Immerman on Friday September 21 2018, @01:42AM (1 child)

        by Immerman (3985) on Friday September 21 2018, @01:42AM (#737927)

        You're most welcome! If you go for one of the TCLs let me know what you think - I may not be far behind.

        • (Score: 2) by martyb on Friday September 21 2018, @02:50AM

          by martyb (76) Subscriber Badge on Friday September 21 2018, @02:50AM (#737947) Journal

          You're most welcome! If you go for one of the TCLs let me know what you think - I may not be far behind.

          In that case, let me be a perfect gentleman and insist, "After you!"

          =)

          --
          Wit is intellect, dancing.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 21 2018, @05:13AM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 21 2018, @05:13AM (#737976)

      "Note, on some models you may have to name the input source "PC" or "Computer" to turn off all the image-mangling "enhancements" - a fact mentioned nowhere in the documentation for mine."
      one monster gold nugget of information right there!

      it is curious that a switch like this is made difficult considering a display is either tv -or- monitor ... and furthermore considering that with internet streaming all tv's are turning into monitors...

      • (Score: 2) by Immerman on Friday September 21 2018, @02:11PM

        by Immerman (3985) on Friday September 21 2018, @02:11PM (#738111)

        Well, with internet streaming you're still watching video - which means the image enhancements work about as well as they do for TV - it's only when you get into detailed static images (or fine text) that they become a problem.

        But yeah - if you have a feature like that, you'd think you'd actually mention it prominently *somewhere*. I had spent hours trying to coax a decent image out of it, and finally resigned myself to having to use the VGA port. I didn't discover the name-change trick until much later when setting it up to also function as a second monitor for a laptop. As I recall I basically gave up that time too, but didn't really *need* to read text, so just decided to live with it and went in to name the source as PC so I could spot it in the rotation easier, and suddenly the image was perfect. ARGHH!

    • (Score: 2) by EvilSS on Friday September 21 2018, @01:24PM (2 children)

      by EvilSS (1456) Subscriber Badge on Friday September 21 2018, @01:24PM (#738090)
      This, so much this. I use a 4K TV (40") and 4:4:4 @ 30hz to make the text not look like wet hairy ass. As for gaming, I swap it over to 60hz if I feel like it. But on a laptop he won't be doing any serious gaming at 4K. Only a handful of laptops can come close to handling it. For everything else integrated graphics can do 4K 2D just fine.
      • (Score: 2) by Immerman on Friday September 21 2018, @02:14PM (1 child)

        by Immerman (3985) on Friday September 21 2018, @02:14PM (#738114)

        Well, they have the *power* to do 4K 2D fine - do they necessarily support the resolution though? Probably anything made in the last few years does, but older stuff might not even know 4k exists (though I would *hope* a driver update could fix that)

        • (Score: 2) by EvilSS on Friday September 21 2018, @04:41PM

          by EvilSS (1456) Subscriber Badge on Friday September 21 2018, @04:41PM (#738214)
          Well on the Intel side, anything 3rd gen Core and up will support 4K output over HDMI or Displayport (depending, of course, on MB support for the ports). So any ix-3xxx or later. And that goes back to 2012.
  • (Score: 1) by jinuq on Friday September 21 2018, @01:07AM (1 child)

    by jinuq (5497) on Friday September 21 2018, @01:07AM (#737913)

    Been using an Vizio M43-C1 for almost 4 years(2015-05) and it has been great. A monitor might be better and I am looking at the Dell 43", but for the price I can knock it.

  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by RamiK on Friday September 21 2018, @01:11AM (7 children)

    by RamiK (1813) on Friday September 21 2018, @01:11AM (#737917)

    You don't stream; You don't game; You use DVD and won't use BluRay; You tether LTE for Internet access; Your use case is... IRC.

    You know what? Forget about 4k, 2k or even 1080p. Try a $30 720p 19". Get a 5$ "usb vga adapter" off ebay or something if you can't find an empty port...

    4k IRC...
    *RamiK slaps martyb with a large trout

    --
    compiling...
    • (Score: 2) by martyb on Friday September 21 2018, @01:33AM (4 children)

      by martyb (76) Subscriber Badge on Friday September 21 2018, @01:33AM (#737921) Journal

      I gotta admit you had me chuckling all along with that one, culminating with a guffaw!

      You did happen to omit mentioning the browser window, though, which takes up about 75% of my screen real estate.

      As for getting another 1080p, I currently run a 1920x1200 TYVM. I wouldn't mind using m current monitor in addition to the 4K monitor. I'd prolly use it to collect all my monitoring applications (CPU usage, I/O, analog clock, CPU speed, internet connection, etc.)

      Thanks for the laugh!

      --
      Wit is intellect, dancing.
      • (Score: 2) by RamiK on Friday September 21 2018, @10:43AM (3 children)

        by RamiK (1813) on Friday September 21 2018, @10:43AM (#738039)

        Happy to amuse :)

        But I was sorta serious recommending dual monitors. One for the IRC and stuff and the other for the browser is quite a lot. I admit I'm not sure about cards and can't recommend a specific monitor though... Still, it's a fairly common setup. No?

        Just my 2cents really.

        --
        compiling...
        • (Score: 2) by martyb on Friday September 21 2018, @03:26PM (2 children)

          by martyb (76) Subscriber Badge on Friday September 21 2018, @03:26PM (#738169) Journal

          Nothing says I have to discard my old laptop when I get a new-to-me one. I might just use my current setup (laptop w/ 1920x1200) for, say, just IRC and e-mail. Use the new one for actual hands-on stuff. makes it a little harder to cut-n-paste between programs on the other system, but might be tractable nonetheless. Thanks for the ideas!

          --
          Wit is intellect, dancing.
          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 21 2018, @03:58PM (1 child)

            by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 21 2018, @03:58PM (#738194)

            Somebody else recommended you Synergy, but I don't think they mentioned, in addition to letting your mouse seamlessly control the cursor of the next computer over, it can also do clipboard synchronization. It's really indispensable for any setup with two computers on one bench.

            • (Score: 2) by martyb on Saturday September 22 2018, @03:25AM

              by martyb (76) Subscriber Badge on Saturday September 22 2018, @03:25AM (#738468) Journal

              A great many things happen just once, but getting two different people who enthusiastically recommend the same thing? Well, that tells me I *really* need to take a look at it! Thanks for the recommendation!

              --
              Wit is intellect, dancing.
    • (Score: 2) by Freeman on Friday September 21 2018, @03:07PM (1 child)

      by Freeman (732) on Friday September 21 2018, @03:07PM (#738159) Journal

      I still have my 5 to 10 yr old 32" 720p LCD Sony TV that I've been using as my main Monitor essentially the entire time. Recently, my previous generic 720p 32" TV died and I got a replacement for the Mrs. The replacement was a 39" 720p for $200. I paid $600 for the generic it replaced and $600 for the Sony I'm currently using. TV prices are good right now. Though, I would like to get a 32" Freesync compatible monitor to go with my RX480. Then again, I kind of want to replace my RX480 with a Vega. I'd also like to get the wireless adapter for my HTC Vive. So, really I have no idea what I want. Since, I'm not going to be affording all three.

      --
      Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
      • (Score: 2) by Freeman on Friday September 21 2018, @03:14PM

        by Freeman (732) on Friday September 21 2018, @03:14PM (#738163) Journal

        Funny fact, the bezel on the 32" made it the same size as the 39" that replaced it. My wife literally asked me, if the new screen was smaller than the old one. The old LCD looked and felt like a behemoth. The new LCD even though it had 7" more screen real estate, was slimmer and lighter.

        --
        Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
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