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The Best Monitor for Programming: A Cheap 40" 4K TV

285 points by masonicb00m 9y ago

gnarbarian 9y ago
I've been using a philips 4k for a couple years now. previously the 40" and now the 43" (the 40" died in a terrible VR accident) https://www.amazon.com/Philips-BDM4350UC-43-Inch-IPS-LED-Monitor/dp/B01E18XRY2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1511741816&sr=8-1&keywords=philips+bdm4350uc https://www.amazon.com/Philips-BDM4350UC-43-Inch-IPS-LED-Mon... it's 4:4:4 chroma at 60hz so it's great for gaming too. and has a lower response rate than you'll get with TVs. Highly recommended and it's hard to use anything smaller now. Without using display scaling I wouldn't go lower than 40" and I think maybe even closer to 50" is ideal in terms of keeping the scale comparable between other periphial monitors. a 48" curved display would probably be perfect.
- masonicb00m 9y ago
  That one looks nice. Good port selection. Thanks for the link! Terrible VR accident... punched it while playing Superhot? ;)
  - gnarbarian 9y ago
    GORN. but yes.
- alanfranzoni 9y ago
  Many, too many BDM4065UC monitors suffer from "flashing" black and then, more than occasionally, starting back at 30Hz instead of 60Hz (dp 1.2 connection). Fixing that requires 1-2-3 monitor power cycles, and when the display is in a "bad mood" it can happen 3/4 times per hour. Source: I own and use a BDM4065UC which I'm about to return, and I've been able to test another (previously owned) one, where the owner, who had a totally different setup from me (mbpro retina 2015 is my workstation, his own was a custom-built desktop with nvidia card); many other people on various forums complain about that, and Philips support seems to know about the issue perfectly. I have been interested in BDM4350UC and/or BDM4037UC as well, but both have been reported to suffer from extreme ghosting/persistence; I'm now looking forward to buy an LG 43UD79-B. What I agree is: a large monitor makes the difference. Not in the workflow per se, but in how much eye strain, headache, back pain (from slouching to get closer to the screen) and so on you get at the end of the day - which is almost inexistent with such large displays. Even if it's $700 for the LG, that's well spent money.
  - majewsky 9y ago
    Huh, I guess I'm lucky then. The only problem with my BDM4065UC is that at the upper left corner, the leftmost column of pixels is obscured by something (as if the panel was bent slightly backwards at the edge).
    - alanfranzoni 9y ago
      Possibly it's a problem from a batch of them, but such batch seems rather large. I don't like that myself, because the BDM4064UC would simply be a great monitor for programming work at that price point.
  - LiquidFlux 9y ago
    I've experienced similar with the first BDM40, it dropping the DP1.2 support and needing to open up the OSD to revert back to DP1.1 and again to DP2.2 to resolve, in addition to extreme ghosting. Please update if you do end up investing in a new replacement, the LG especially.
positr0n 9y ago
I wonder how that TV performs for "monitor" tasks like automatic input switching. I have a Sony x720e for my macbook for work and my PC for light gaming. It has graphics and gaming modes that have low input lags, but there is a really annoying quirk where when you turn the tv on it has normal (high) input lag until you switch to another mode then back to graphics mode. This means every time you turn on your PC (or plug in your laptop) you have to: 1. Turn on the TV 2. If necessary, switch inputs 3. Options -> Scene Select -> up arrow, down arrow 1 and 2 are annoying since monitors do that automatically but the TV doesn't. 3 is really annoying but hopefully is fixed in a firmware update... Other than that the screen looks great. I'm hoping for time to hack on an arduino with an IR LED to automate those steps, haha.
- naoru 9y ago
  Offtopic, but this is very interesting. I have this sort of problem as well, but with color rendering. Not on a Sony, but on a Philips (50PUT6400). Makes me think that they might use a common platform for their entry-level TVs.
- masonicb00m 9y ago
  It doesn’t do automatic input switching. That’s a definite drawback. For the price though, I’m not complaining.
corruptbytes 9y ago
Interesting enough, over the summer at Microsoft, they were actually switching out for the 4k TVs. It wasn't that bad tbh. Definitely different. The Surface Books couldn't handle it very well (they didn't have GPUs) but the work stations did great.
dawnerd 9y ago
I just see an article to push an affiliate link for a pretty bad tv let alone the best.
- masonicb00m 9y ago
  3 affiliate links actually. It’s probably not the absolute best, but nuance makes for tedious writing. The general pattern of a 40+ inch 4K display is definitely worth a shot. If you find a better one for price/performance, I’d love to hear.
ta2384428 9y ago
I had a 28/27" 4k monitor, but like the author I found it far too small (the pixel size) to use comfortably. Unfortunately I was working with legacy applications that didn't support scaling and couldn't adjust the DPI. I have no doubt it would be much nicer at 125/150%. One thing that is certain is that people have different preferences. Certainly some people would enjoy the tiny pixels of the 27" 4k monitor at 100%. My current setup is 2x24" 1920x1200 monitors. I have considered 3x24, 1x Ultra wide or 2x Ultra wide, but I'm not convinced I'd get the same comfort. I think that 3x 24, or 2x ultra wides would require to much head rotation to be comfortable. I prefer the vertical break in the screen since it makes snapping windows easier. I'm starting to think that I might prefer a bit more real estate, as I often collapse the vertical file menu in my editor for a little extra room.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
neya 9y ago
I second the author's recommendation. I work with iMacs (5k) all day and I can tell you there were a number of times I simply wished I had gotten an iMac Pro with a bigger screen instead. However, one thing to watchout though when getting these cheap TVs is to be mindful of the color reproduction. Most of them will enhance the colors to make it appear vivid and pleasing to the eyes. So, if you're thinking of doing stuff like logo design, Photoshop, you're gonna find it very hard.
- masonicb00m 9y ago
  Good point. I mainly do programming so color fidelity wasn’t a big concern.
loudandskittish 9y ago
Don't sit too close to the TV, you'll hurt your eyes.
- ioquatix 9y ago
  As long as you are at least 1cm away, your eyes should be fine.
  - Tepix 9y ago
    As long as your eyelashes don't touch the display, it's ok. Some people have cut their long eyelashes to be able to get a larger field of view in Virtual Reality...
greenbush 9y ago
Quick question for those that use a 40" monitor: how far away do you sit from it?
- red75prime 9y ago
  Let me measure it... 77cm (30.315") from the center. 42" TV.
- white-flame 9y ago
  About 20" face to panel.
tluyben2 9y ago
And I find my 13 inch laptop too large :) I loved the 11 inch Macbook but the res was too low; 1920x1200 as I have now is nice, but 11 or 10 inch screen would be better.
sz4kerto 9y ago
Don't buy a cheap TV for programming if you're not constrained by money. You can get 40" monitors for a bit more, and you won't need to fight the firmware and also you can get a better panel. Also, PWM is worse if you're sitting close. Uniformity of backlight (bleed) also matters. Currently the display you want to get around 40" is the Philips BDM4037UW, which has no PWM, relatively low input lag and backlight bleed is low. There are some cheap 43" 4K monitors (Philips and LG), but they're lower quality e.g. LGs have PWM.
- bartread 9y ago
  Reviews on Amazon suggest the Philips BDM4037UW isn't a good choice due to significant ghosting issues: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Philips-BDM4037UW-00-40-Inch-Monitor/dp/B01KUQJ414/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1511768997&sr=8-1&keywords=Philips+BDM4037UW#customerReviews https://www.amazon.co.uk/Philips-BDM4037UW-00-40-Inch-Monito...
  - Awaythrov 9y ago
    Big caveat emptor on this one. I have it on my desk right now and ghosting is really, really bad. Static contrast ratio is best in class, second only to oled monitors. If you are looking for large office/work monitor only or you can borrow one with no strings attached, go for it. Otherwise stay away.
    - sz4kerto 9y ago
      Yep, I specifically meant it for programming / office work.
  - LiquidFlux 9y ago
    I jumped on the Philips BMD40 train immediately at launch for £600 a few years back, the ghosting is an absolute nightmare. A huge boon for productivity having come from multiple 27" 1440p monitors before, and the BDM40 is something I might recommend for somebody looking to get in and get in cheap. I'll definitely be splurging for something better next time however.
- 9y ago
friendzis 9y ago
TVs have very different matrices compared to monitors (and mobile displays too) in physical pixel layout. TV matrices tend to have much larger "border width" and colored cells more prominently spread, which pushes closest optimal viewing distance further. I personally find text on TVs very tiring for the eyes.
peterhajas 9y ago
I have been using 3 inexpensive 4K 40” TVs for my home computer for a year now. I love the insane amount of real estate and the accessible price (<$1K is great). I’d love it if someone made extremely large format displays (100”+ at 3:1 aspect ratio) for computer use. Not sure how large the market would be, but one giant display is nicer than 3 separate one so.
morelikeborelax 9y ago
The TV mounted on blocks and the Hackintosh suggest the author is willing to compromise and using a TV as a monitor confirms it. Don't get me wrong, I also run a Hackintosh and have had monitors stood on boxes, crates and books over the years, but when it comes to displays I really don't think you should compromise. I have converted many professionals away from TVs because when you can actually have real quality monitors to compare them too it's usually a no-brainer to abandon the cheap TV. No trick, no incentive for me, just the better choice. It is also why every employee in our company has a pair of IPS displays. I've looked at 4K TVs as options for a monitor multiple times, from the early Seiki TVs that hit at the start of the pricing change to what's been on offer for Black Friday, don't do it to yourself unless you are spending most of your time gaming/consuming content on the same system or just using it to monitor things. If you are going to be sat in front of displays for 10,000 hours a year working/focusing (like many of us I am sure) then investing in something like a pair of Dell U3415W, LG UM95 or LG 31MU97Z-B will give you a much nicer experience. Totally appreciate that isn't a $300 solution, but as professionals we should invest in (or demand from your employer) good tools. To those of you who are using 4K TVs, it is obviously hard to get in front of these monitors and see the difference, but if you can you should - you've already made the choice to go for something better than a cheap 22" 1080P monitor, there are a lot of options to create a great environment to do your best work. The article is just pure marketing anyway for referrals, so make of that what you will.
- ekelsen 9y ago
  You didn't actually say _why_ monitors are better for the author's use case: programming. "A much nicer experience" - how? in what way? is this quantifiable in any way?
  - stephenr 9y ago
    Usually a computer monitor is higher DPI, and more adjustable for use on a desk.
  - snaky 9y ago
    There are flicker-free (no PWM at all, or at least no PWM at mid and hi brightness) models, and you can find (unfortunately that's usually not that simple because vendors are mostly hesitate to specify it) a model with minimal possible brightness low enough for comfortable programming work.
elnygren 9y ago
Why are 4K TVs cheaper than 4K monitors (same size) ? Something to do with marketing and how the two businesses differ (TVs B2C, monitors B2B)? Or are there actual major differencies in the tech? Like what panel is used or something like that?
- wernercd 9y ago
  Economics of scale - many more TVs sold than computer monitors. Add to that the different features - higher DPI, refresh rate, contrast ratios, etc. Cutting edge features such as NVidia G-Sync and the similar feature from AMD don't come cheap. https://mybroadband.co.za/news/hardware/145753-why-computer-monitors-are-more-expensive-than-tvs.html https://mybroadband.co.za/news/hardware/145753-why-computer-...
- thescriptkiddie 9y ago
  Not sure if this is still true, but historically, TVs have had dramatically lower image quality than comparable monitors.
Stratoscope 9y ago
If you enjoy a low density of 110 pixels per inch, then this is for you. I'm much happier with the high-DPI displays in my ThinkPad Yoga 460 WQHD and MacBook Pro Retina 15". I don't like pixels, and I don't want to see them any more. I want to see the text and graphics I'm working on, not pixels. So when I wanted a second monitor to go with those machines, I got a 24" 4K display. At 187 pixels per inch, it's a reasonably close match to the 210-220 pixels per inch on the laptops. I use this monitor in portrait mode next to the laptop display. A portrait mode monitor combined with the laptop monitor is great. I've got a wide screen when I want it, and a tall screen when I want that. It's ideal for reading documentation and especially PDF files, because an entire page fits on the portrait screen. Larger monitors are not very practical in portrait mode. I'm not concerned with cramming the maximum amount of stuff on my screen. I run the monitors at 225% scaling in Windows, and the default Retina scaling in macOS. So text is about the same size it would be on a lower-DPI monitor, just much sharper and crisper. After I got my first taste of high DPI with that MacBook, I swore I'd never go back to a low DPI display. It is so nice to not have to look at pixels any more.
- theWatcher37 9y ago
  Exactly! So glad to see the HighDPI fans gaining acceptance. 110PPI looks like garbage and needs to be relegated to the dust bin.
  - masonicb00m 9y ago
    :) we might have different vision. I can’t resolve individual pixels with this setup unless I put my face near the screen.
    - Stratoscope 9y ago
      Everyone has different vision, of course! If you don't mind my asking, what is your viewing distance to the screen? One big consideration for me: I'm 65, so my eyes are not able to focus back and forth to different distances like a younger person. My solution is a pair of single vision prescription lenses, adjusted to the distance to my monitor(s). I need to be able to use the laptop all on its own, so that determines the focus distance: about 20". Because of that, I also place any secondary monitor at about the same distance from my eyes, otherwise it would be out of focus. I can't go changing glasses to look at a different monitor. :-) A 24" 4K display works nicely for this, and as I mentioned it's small enough to work really well in portrait mode. So I have two recommendations for any programmer. If you haven't used a portrait mode monitor, try it out alongside your laptop display. It's a very practical setup. But more importantly, if you find yourself gravitating toward lower-DPI monitors, it may be time for a vision check and a good pair of single vision prescription glasses adjusted for your monitor distance (again, about 20" if you ever need to use a laptop by itself). I put off doing this for years - I always thought of myself as the kind of person who "didn't need glasses." When I finally got the prescription lenses, it was a real eye-opener - pun intended!
keithnoizu 9y ago
I'm holding out for my Pimax 8k X and infinite size 4k monitor.
rawnlq 9y ago
For a compromise, there are now 32" 4k monitors meant for computer use for around $300 if you look for the black friday and cyber monday deals: https://www.reddit.com/r/buildapcsales/comments/7ehzic/monitor_acer_et322qk_32_inch_4k_uhd_4ms_3840x2160/ https://www.reddit.com/r/buildapcsales/comments/7ehzic/monit... 40" is roughly 1.5625 times in area of a than 32" though...
- Bromskloss 9y ago
  That's a VA panel. Is that really acceptable?
  - Tepix 9y ago
    What's wrong with VA panels? Beats a TN panel any day.
    - Bromskloss 9y ago
      > Beats a TN panel any day. Yes, TN is even worse. One must have an IPS panel! :-) (I hear, though, that TN, and maybe VA, might be preferred by some for high-performance gaming situations, due to a lower latency.)
nottorp 9y ago
That only goes if you're willing to fight the firmware all the time. Bonus, crap colours if it's a cheap TV. Doesn't matter for programming, but if you occasionally do anything else besides shuffling text around...
- masonicb00m 9y ago
  I thought this would be the case, but I have been really pleasantly surprised by the quality. I watched some 4k60 videos on YouTube on this thing and thought they looked great. I have not done any gaming with it though. A photographer or graphic artist could probably find fault, but for me, it is very satisfactory.
  - nottorp 9y ago
    So I said until i had an older cheap monitor and an IPS monitor side by side ;) Tech specs are an easy way to compare stuff, but they don't always say everything.
singularity2001 9y ago
40'' is too much. it just makes it painful to push your mouse and windows around
- empiricus 9y ago
  I use a gaming mouse, it is very quick and precise. I can move 1 pixel if I need or move to the other side of the huge screen with a single movement.
- ianhowson 9y ago
  Get Divvy and never waste your time moving and resizing windows.
  - shoover 9y ago
    Hmm. I’ve been using WindowSpace for years for snapping and centering, but it doesn’t support customization beyond sizing sides and corners. I will check out divvy.
drewmol 9y ago
Does anyone use a projector for this? I have occasionally used a macboook monitor and 10' projector + screen(made of Fomrica countertop) as a duel screen setup, but I have always wanated to rig up some kind of multiple mini-projector office setup with duel or tiple screens.
- fsiefken 9y ago
  You could also get the Pimax 8k VR headset and position your virtual screens.
  - drewmol 9y ago
    Thanks, I think the thing I like about the projector is for me I notice much less eye strain
pixelbash 9y ago
Went from 3x 1920x1080 monitors to a 43" 4k IPS display a little over a year ago and has been great once used to it. Tiling 6 apps using divvy works nicely. Lately I have found myself wishing there was a wider format 5760 x 2160 screen of about 37-43" for 6 full HD screens-worth. But can't have everything I guess.
- BoorishBears 9y ago
  I use a 3840x1600 monitor, not quite there resolution size, but in exchange you don’t need to use DPI scaling
- ianhowson 9y ago
  Agreed -- I find that a single large high-res display works better for my purposes. 32" at 4K is exactly right for three side-by-side 1280xY windows, which means that browsers will display full desktop-sized sites. Text isn't too small with the 32", so no scaling required. Divvy makes window management much faster, with little mouse interaction required. I have two 27" 2560x1440 displays at work, but I find it counterproductive to look side-to-side constantly to see what's on the other screen.
dharma1 9y ago
Anyone spot any UK cyber monday deals with this in mind?
dugmartin 9y ago
I've been using a 44" 4K TV for around two years as my main monitor and it's been great. The only very minor pain point is having to manually turn the TV off and on via the remote in the right order so that Windows 10 doesn't reset my window layout. The Visio TV I use has 1 of the 5 HDMI ports set aside to not route through its image processor which means text stays very clear.
- christophilus 9y ago
  My biggest concern is that TVs generally don't have a good refresh-rate relative to monitors. Have you noticed any lag/annoyances in that department? Do you have a link to the TV you use?
snarfy 9y ago
The stands on a 4K TV suck compared to a monitor. There is no height or tilt adjustment. They also generally have higher input lag.
Insanity 9y ago
I actually prefer having dual monitors over one big monitor. I dedicate certain tasks to certain monitors, and that divide helps me quickly find what I need. It's also nice to have the physical separation for some reason I can't really describe. My brother has a similar setup to the one in the article, and I just never really liked using it. Just personal preference I'm sure. (I also fear my eyesight might be too bad to have a big monitor in 4k, with things being rather small text) For my setup, I prefer having (bright) IPS monitors. Not too large, I'm fine with my 24" 1080p monitors.
d--b 9y ago
I'm much happier with 4 small screens than a big one. 4 screens means I can do 4 x full screens rather than having to arrange my windows in a big sandbox. I also prefer having them in a long row, rather than 2x2, I put the code on one side and emails on the other, so that I don't see notifications when I code...
- phkahler 9y ago
  With a single 4K you can put 3 1280 images across, which IMHO would be good for web, code, email. You also have the option of stretching vertically - sometimes portrait orientation is better. If you don't like arranging windows in a sandbox, you may want to either have a login script to open your common stuff and place it, or try a tiling window manager.
- dbolgheroni 9y ago
  In these cases, a tiling window manager would help.
- spyder 9y ago
  https://maxto.net/ https://maxto.net/ https://www.online-tech-tips.com/free-software-downloads/split-or-divide-your-desktop-screen-into-multiple-parts/ https://www.online-tech-tips.com/free-software-downloads/spl... And there are 4k monitors that can work with 4 inputs at the same time: https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2017/5/2/15513200/lg-4k-monitor-42-inch-ips-freesync-43ud79-b https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2017/5/2/15513200/lg... https://www.pcworld.com/article/3074246/displays/dells-4-screen-multimonitor-setup-looks-like-one-enormous-43-inch-display.html https://www.pcworld.com/article/3074246/displays/dells-4-scr...
hyperpallium 9y ago
Monitor legs on each side drive me crazy, because that's where my mouse wants to go. There's no mouse in this picture.
- masonicb00m 9y ago
  There’s an Apple trackpad in the middle between the split keyboard.
  - hyperpallium 9y ago
    Thanks, I thought that was a paper notepad.
theelous3 9y ago
If you're ok with switching to linux, or are already using it, a tiling wm is easily a better investment (5 mins to learn, orders of magnitude more space and time efficient) than buying a big monitor with low dpi etc. A bad 720p laptop with a tiling wm has more available screen real estate than a 4k monster regular setup.
- oblio 9y ago
  ... how?
  - keenerd 9y ago
    Simple, most other window management paradigms are terrible. The author agrees: > On a laptop screen or normal-sized desktop monitor, I end up putting these different windows on different macOS spaces, but then half the time I swipe the wrong direction to switch spaces and end up going to the wrong space. By the time I get to the correct space my short-term memory is blown and I’ve forgotten what I was doing. I've never had this issue on a tiler. You get 10 (maybe 20) screens accessible with a single key combo. You can thoughtlessly toggle back and forth between any two as fast as you can blink. "Swiping" between a few desktops sounds terrible by comparison. I'm do embedded development, PCB CAD, some graphic design and manage a fleet of servers all from a single 10" laptop screen thanks to tiling. Unless you were asking how a 720p screen can have more real estate than a 4K screen? 4K is 3840x2160 or 8.3M pixels. 1280x720 is 0.92M pixels. So with 10 virtual desktops the 720p screen gives you 9.2M pixels. Slightly more than a 4K screen. You also get the benefit of not having to move your eyes or head from one corner of the screen to the other. What you are working on is always front and center.
- upofadown 9y ago
  ... and tiling WMs make multiple monitor setups more usable as well. Xmonad is probably the best as it allows any virtual workspace to end up on any monitor more or less instantaneously. You can effortlessly juggle a whole whack of virtual workspaces to three monitors. You quickly end up with any possible combination of things you could possibly want in a virtual workspace and you don't have to touch the windows themselves. You can do everything by flipping between the workspaces with everything exactly as you want it and no pointlessly wasted screen space for stuff like window decorations. It has gotten to the point where I feel I am watching something quaint and retro when I watch someone manually moving windows around on a screen.
Tepix 9y ago
The article states: "You need to elevate this beast vertically otherwise you’ll be craning your neck down to look at it." A 40 inch TV is at least 50cm high. You should not be looking up - it's very bad for your neck. Looking down is no problem. The upper edge of the monitor should be at eye level.
- roryisok 9y ago
  I read that this is because we evolved as hunter gatherers, walking and scanning the ground ahead for possible food. Our optimum standing posture is looking straight ahead or slightly down
- randallsquared 9y ago
  I use a 40". If the middle of my monitor is just about eye level, I don't find myself moving my neck vertically very much -- eye movement suffices for vertical travel. If you have the opportunity, though, monitor arms are one of the best ergonomic investments you can make. Being able to reposition the monitor with a touch for whatever position or attitude you want helps reduce fatigue enormously.
- jpalomaki 9y ago
  I was briefly using 43" screen on desktop, but switched to smaller. The screen was too high for me. Parts of it went mostly unused, since it was inconvenient to "look up". Now I'm using 32"4K and this is the sweet spot for me. Not too big, but large enough to use without scaling (I'm running Windows).
zodPod 9y ago
Anyone know what that keyboard is? I need that.
- masonicb00m 9y ago
  Kinesis Freestyle2 Blue (https://masonsimon.com/2017/11/26/the-best-monitor-for-programming-a-cheap-40-4k-tv/#comment-22 https://masonsimon.com/2017/11/26/the-best-monitor-for-progr...)
wernercd 9y ago
Seems very similar to "4K is for programmers" which was written when 4k monitors/TVs had just been released. http://tiamat.tsotech.com/4k-is-for-programmers http://tiamat.tsotech.com/4k-is-for-programmers I, personally, own one of those TVs (Seiki 39") and both love and hate it. I've always seemed to buy TVs for day to day computing because you generally get more cutting edge features for better prices (My first flat screen was a 27" WestingHouse TV. First 4k, Seiki. ETC). Economics of scale factor in heavily - more TVs will be sold than computer monitors leading to better prices. Which is why I could get a Seiki 4k for $400 when similarly sized 4k "Desktop" monitors were going for $1000+. The most annoying thing has been "Turn of monitor, Computer considers it unplugged". So you go from 2 monitors to 1 - and all the icons rearrange. Computer goes to sleep? Monitor turns off... disconnects... Annoying. The price of saving $600+ for 4k (At the time). I've recently upgraded to a smaller "computer" monitor that's better suited for gaming and desktop use... and the Seiki is now my computer room Plex Player.
megaman22 9y ago
I was just thinking about this, since my girlfriend bought a 50" 4k TV for under $250 on black friday. That's about the same size and resolution as my current array of 27" monitors, without having to use four outlets and every available video-out on my desktop.
cpr 9y ago
Funny, I was just pondering this yesterday: whether to "upgrade" to the LG, Phillips or Dell 40+" IPS monitors, or whether to stay with my Samsung 40" TVs (UN40JU6400, 2015 models--later models have annoying misfeatures), which I have in all 3 home offices. These Samsung TVs, once configured properly (Source > HDMI 1 > Tools, select device type as PC, turn off HDMI UHD Color (which blurs), turn on Dynamic Color as well), are excellent, and at the 28" viewing distance I use, are absolutely crisp (no pixels visible) in Retina mode under macOS. And I'm using it over HDMI 30Hz with absolutely no flicker, and no (discernible) mouse lag. The 2015 models don't lose their mind when the Mac goes to sleep, unlike the later models, which require re-configuring each time (the TV "forgets" the HDMI port). Can't recommend them more, especially since you can get these older models refurbished for $400.
- erikig 9y ago
  The UHD, HDR and Movie Modes for most of these tv/monitors seem to modify the picture a little too much. These are usually the first to get disabled when I'm using them for desktop use.
- MikeTV 9y ago
  FWIW I have the 6290 (2016 model) and haven't run into any annoying misfeatures. Crisp and smooth at 60Hz, UHD color mode. Was stuck at 30Hz and perceptibly laggy until I forced it to 4:4:4 in the nVidia control panel. Everything online tells me the display lag is unacceptable, but I haven't noticed it personally even when FPS gaming. Maybe it's the conditioning from gaming on an underpowered PC growing up :)
danso 9y ago
Since people seem to be lukewarm to the TV suggested by the OP, I did an Amazon search for 4K TVs under $600: https://www.amazon.com/s/gp/search/ref=sr_nr_p_n_size_browse-bin_3?fst=as%3Aoff&rh=n%3A172282%2Cn%3A%21493964%2Cn%3A1266092011%2Cn%3A172659%2Cn%3A6459737011%2Cp_36%3A-60000%2Cp_n_feature_keywords_three_browse-bin%3A7688788011%2Cp_n_size_browse-bin%3A1232882011%7C3578042011&bbn=6459737011&sort=review-rank&ie=UTF8&qid=1511789771&rnid=1232878011 https://www.amazon.com/s/gp/search/ref=sr_nr_p_n_size_browse... Anyone have any experience with the top TVs on this list? The top entry from TCL seems to be the leader, by far, in terms of average customer review, but the price point seems almost too good to be true: $379 for the 55' version, though that may have been a sale price, and the TV is currently out of stock. https://www.amazon.com/TCL-49S405-49-Inch-Ultra-Smart/dp/B01MTGM5I9/ https://www.amazon.com/TCL-49S405-49-Inch-Ultra-Smart/dp/B01...
- The_Hoff 9y ago
  I have the 55" TCL and it's great! Reminds me of the early Vizio days where they had to be priced closer to production cost in order to compete with bigger players. My one con is that the HDR doesn't seem perfect. The blacks don't seem "true black" and based on the comparison lower on the page I wonder if this is because it's not "Dolby Vision HDR"
  - danso 9y ago
    Interesting that you mentioned HDR because I had assumed it wasn't a feature (seems like most TVs that have it mention it in the title). Is it now a standard feature for HD TV? (I haven't bought a TV since...ever, no that I think about it)
  - viggity 9y ago
    I have the 43" TCL 4k. I highly recommend turning off HDR when using it as a monitor. Up close it kinda creates this ghosting effect where black text on a gray background will get this light halo kind of thing, ugh, it looked horrible. once you turn it off it is much nicer to look at.
- tetraodonpuffer 9y ago
PeterStuer 9y ago
Televisions aren't optimized for interactive use. They often have a very high latency path from input to display, often over 10x that of the same panel used in a monitor. Depending on the application, this might be a showstopper.
petecooper 9y ago
I'm curious about the mentions of Hackintosh. As I understand it, running macOS on non-Apple hardware (the essence of a Hackintosh) is a violation of the EULA. I'm not here to argue the pros and cons, and I am not a lawyer, but I'm intrigued about the author saying -- and I paraphrase -- "I'm doing this on a computer that's breaking the licence agreement". That's an admission. I'm not judging, it's an observation. Hackintosh admissions on a personal site where they can be traced back to a person seem a bit risky to me. I have no knowledge of Apple legal circling. Perhaps I'm just paranoid.
- singhrac 9y ago
  My guess is that Apple's lawyers are busy enough without worrying about individuals violating their EULA without harming their business (e.g. by selling the Hackintoshes). As long as you're not Psystar I think you'll be fine.
- mikeokner 9y ago
  EULAs in general are somewhat of a farce. Most companies use them as scare tactics but wouldn't want to risk them being scrutinized in court, especially when the only damages they could point to would be lost revenue in small-claims territory.
- schmookeeg 9y ago
  Orz mode on. :) Items in * are poorly translated and not to be taken literally. (edit, lol, fail. Didn't realize asterisks cause italics. Sigh) From my experience with Hackintosh, you're downloading a canned VMWare image of a pirated OS. I'm not exactly sure when they would say you agreed to anything when you downloaded it, since you only have interactions with VMWare Player (or VBox) and the site hosting the VMWare images, plus a few of the BIOS patches that are needed to make it all work. you never interact with Apple in any way. The guy who keeps packaging it is running a risk of legal action when Apple gets their fill of PCs running MacOS, though. In the meantime, though, it allowed me to shelve my Mac Mini for iOS development and keep everything in one PC, albeit one virtualized environment. Being able to copy/paste between PC and Mac is fantastic for workflow. I am a big fan. I probably get burned by something deep in the Apple Developer Program EULA where I agreed not to do unintended things with Apple software. :)
jackmott 9y ago
TVs sometimes have horrible input latency, which when combined with modern IDEs written in electron may add up to bad feel when typing.
NamPNQ 9y ago
I used monitor 27" and it's large with me, how about 40"
mdip 9y ago
To each his own, I guess. In my case, I find advantages to both so much that I routinely switch between them. My main workstation is connected to a 55" Vizio HDTV (a model that supports Chroma 4:4:4 and represents text of various colors very well) that I picked up last year during a post-Thanksgiving sale. While I love it, I do the lionshare of my development using a 1080p display connected to a laptop. Is the 4K screen superior? Absolutely -- in almost every way -- except for portability. I made the switch from multiple 1080p monitors to a single laptop monitor a few years ago and ditched the multiple monitors for the single 4K (which had a total resolution about equal to my multi-monitor arrangement). The transition was tricky at first, though, and coupled with a visual studio extension that aided in navigation/visual identification of important code points (something I wrote for myself), I found downgrading to the 1080p single display to take far less time to get used to than I expected. The one drawback turned out to be a positive thing in the long run: by not being able to see so much code on-screen at all times, it forced me to write code more carefully. Where I could have gotten away with not splitting a class up into smaller pieces, before, because I could see the whole thing on-screen, I couldn't do that any longer and continue to be productive writing code. Sticking with small methods that "do one thing" and small classes that have a single purpose is a best practice and it's one I was pretty religious about before, however, there are times when it's necessary to "get the code out the door" and corners get cut, mostly out of a false-sense that writing it dirty will be faster[0]. There's one place where the 4K screen is vastly superior, though -- debugging. You can get your code, the locals/watch and the application visible in one screen. This, too, turned out to be a double-edged sword. It was easy to skip seemingly unimportant unit tests when I knew my debugging environment was pristine. But the reality (for me at least) is that the moment I have to hop into the debugger and check locals/watch to see what's going on, I can expect to waste an hour fixing a problem 80% of the time. Here's the thing, though, writing tests to cover my code rarely takes more than an hour or two but the simple act of doing so causes me to rethink the problem from a testing standpoint. I'll often find the bug before I've ever run the test to validate that it passes -- and about 1/3 of the time, that bug was subtle. Less often, but still frequent, I'll discover during the act of writing the test that the code could be refactored in a more logical manner, which results in better code. These facts mean I write tests regardless of having a great debugging environment, and I'm obsessive about it -- covering code that seems obvious[1] -- so I end up rarely needing the benefits that a 4K screen offers. Being handicapped by the smaller screen on my laptop does come with advantages beyond just those introduced by the constrained environment. I'm not tethered to a room or location to code. Sometimes walking away or changing my physical environment ends up allowing me to avoid an actual "break" -- just moving from the office to the kitchen (when I worked at home) or from my desk to the office-kitchen couch (now that I'm an office dweller) causes enough of a shift to get me thinking correctly again. All of that aside, one area where the 4K screen shines is anything to do with multimedia, 3D and image editing. Being able to do detail work, zoomed in on a screen that accurately reproduces color -- and at a cost that's a fraction of 4K monitors -- is simply fantastic. I also find the brightness of the 4K TV I purchased to be excellent -- the IPS monitors that I own tend to default to a brightness setting that is almost excessive (yes, adjustable, I know). I purchased a TV that was evenly backlit and once I got everything configured properly, I don't mess with it. The size and amount of light it outputs is pleasant; it's large enough that I can use it with the lights turned off in my office (if I have a headache) and it keeps the room reasonably lit while not blasting so much light out of the display as to be obnoxious. Despite not being IPS, being large and me sitting a couple of feet from it, I didn't notice any issues with edges looking dimmer due to the angle -- though I mostly ignore the edges because I rarely have anything maximized on that screen. It's just not necessary when you have all of that realestate -- you tend to simply move less important things off to an edge and put what you're working on in the middle in a smallish window. [0] And it sometimes is in the short-run, but if that code has any importance to the program, you pay for it. [1] I'm not "Test Driven" -- I write tests "second" because I started writing code quite a bit before "Unit Testing" was a common practice and I find the act of doing "Tests First" to feel backward. Writing tests afterward seems to have the same benefits as doing it the other way around, though it sometimes drives code changes. I've been doing it this way for too long to switch and be as productive as I am. But I cover everything -- I once wrote tests to cover a configuration lookup class that was basically a bunch of retrievals from a dictionary. A coworker chided me for it until I informed him that I found four bugs (and the best part is that said coworker was the one who wrote the buggy code). Because of the way the configuration routine worked -- cascading from a set of values in the database with fallbacks to values in a file and then finally constant values, all of which would always be set correctly from top to bottom in our development environment, the issues I unearthed would have easily gone unnoticed until a customer discovered them.
cat_plus_plus 9y ago
Why only 40 inch - get whatever fits on your desk. 4K monitor will not be painfully pixelated up close. If you coded through the past decade, you will likely see an improvement from some of your recent monitors. At the end of the day, it's about getting the work done, not DPI competition. Although you may use only the center for an IDE, sides are perfect for e-mail, calendar, IM, device emulator, stackoverflow, other source files for reference. A quick side glance is way better than moving windows back and forth. I wish I had attached side panels at an angle for more space.
keredson 9y ago
yep! it's the standard now for new dev boxes where i work. the samsung mu6300 40" is the best option from our experience. how to config: https://medium.com/@keredson/using-the-samsung-mu6300-40-4k-tv-as-a-computer-monitor-8582390bb824 https://medium.com/@keredson/using-the-samsung-mu6300-40-4k-... stay away from the LG TVs. they don't have true 4k RGB.
luckydude 9y ago
Old guy here who disagrees. My neck/eyes get tired moving over that much real estate. For me, work spaces work better. I find it helps to use the same number and place stuff the same way. I use 5. mail work work slack firefox Been doing that for years and I can find stuff fast.
VectorLock 9y ago
I tried this and 40" was just too large. I suppose if you get yourself an extra wide desk but the regular IKEA desk and height adjustable Multitable I used it simply too close to use comfortably.
balabaster 9y ago
I think best is a relative term. For me, as long as my code is readable, it doesn't particularly matter. I'm not doing graphics 95% of the time and when I do graphics, it only really becomes necessary to have a high contrast, high pixel density screen. I run dual Samsung 2770HD TVs at home as my monitors, they sit 2ft from my face and they're perfectly adequate for me and the price was right. I guess if you're anal about picture perfection, then you're going to have a very different opinion of what is "best" and mine are certainly a loooong way from the "best." When I watch a TV show or movie though, I don't get too hung up on the picture quality to just watch the movie and enjoy the story line. Of course, I grew up with a black and white TV in my room until I inherited the colour one that we had to tune with a dial and you got some snow interfering with the picture if the aerial wasn't just right. Oddly, it didn't spoil my enjoyment of the show or movie that I was watching even slightly. The story line is way more important than the picture quality. For coding, the story line is the same... it lives in my head. The screen is really just a means to share that. I get no less enjoyment coding on a screen with a slightly lower pixel density than I do coding on the latest retina. Even after I've sat in front of one that's truly high quality, it doesn't take long to adjust back to a lower quality screen.
z3t4 9y ago
Meanwhile most users are using a mobile device ...
z3t4 9y ago
I actually prefer sharp pixels when programming. Seeing the pixels doesn't bother me. But blurred pixels does bother me.
chrissoundz 9y ago
I have been using a 4K 40" TV as a monitor for maybe two years now, it's great! Windows tiling managers work really well on a large monitor. I keep thinking a curved TV would be better suited though. Also, don't forget to turn on a possible 'gaming mode' (on the TV) which significantly improves the input lag. Here is screenshot of a layout I use https://camo.githubusercontent.com/79de6fc01f5370345d4b9c4c927af1af09d11c45/687474703a2f2f692e696d6775722e636f6d2f754644383757522e6a7067 https://camo.githubusercontent.com/79de6fc01f5370345d4b9c4c9... The above uses XMonad and a custom layout available here https://github.com/chrissound/XMonadLayouts https://github.com/chrissound/XMonadLayouts if anyone is interested.
devonkim 9y ago
I’m all for crisp text however I can get it and avoiding any eye strain and squinting. I’ve got a AW3418DW 34” ultrawide to avoid needing two monitors with a bezel in the middle, and I also use a 24” 4K in portrait mode on the side for reference material (IPS because viewing angle matters when you go into portrait mode). Ergonomics and good habits matters a lot more beyond this point though. My rule has historically been to spend more on the peripherals like chairs, desk, etc. than a computer because my body is a lot more expensive than my computer and accommodating my body’s needs comes first. With that said, I use a $60 medical stool per spine surgeon’s recommendation and I have a $80 IKEA desk to support $6000 of hardware because I don’t get much more utility beyond a certain point and because I move so frequently a heavy desk would be a bigger problem for me than helpful.
bondolo 9y ago
I've been using a 100cm/39" Seiki 4K for about 3 years and wish for a physically smaller 4K screen. Using eye glasses with progressive lens I have to move my head too much with this screen and after long periods of use I find that I have neck strain. I love the 4K pixels but 100cm/39" is simply too much surface area for a monitor used for primarily small text. My next monitor will probably be a 69cm/27" 4K and hopefully OLED if they fix the burn-in issues that make OLED unsuitable for computer use.
- regulation_d 9y ago
  Interesting. I used the 39" Seiki for a couple of years and moved up to a 49" for my next monitor, but mostly just so I could push it further back on my desk.
makkesk8 9y ago
I've tried so many monitor setup's for programming and I always ran out of screen space. Went from 1 24" 1080p to 3 and finally landed on 6 and I now feel like I have enough room. A side benefit of having 6 monitors is that it looks damn cool. Reference: https://i.imgur.com/rjO3bLw.jpg https://i.imgur.com/rjO3bLw.jpg
- rashthedude 9y ago
  Looks pretty sweet. How useful is it though?
- bllguo 9y ago
  What are you putting on 6 (!?) screens when you code?? Does look cool though.
gavanwoolery 9y ago
I've been using a 55 inch 4k TV [1] for the past year. Its a matter of preference, but I prefer more usable space over DPI. I have found at this resolution pixels are small enough that they do not bother me. It takes some tweaking, but if setup right, text quality is indistinguishable from a "real" monitor. Its the rough equivalent of 4 27-inch 1080p monitors arranged in a square. To get an idea of the size, here is a picture of me sitting next to it. [2] [1] https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01EV2094Y https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01EV2094Y [2] https://imgur.com/a/9uBCG https://imgur.com/a/9uBCG
jcadam 9y ago
I've been thinking of going to 4k for a while, just been waiting for prices to drop :) I'm currently using 2 24" dell 1080p monitors, and I have to admit the low DPI is getting to me and I want more screen real estate in general -- I can never have enough code listings open at one time :). OTOH, upgrading my home setup (which I use for side projects, etc.) will only make my work setup seem worse - they gave me 2 22" 1680x1050 monitors. I've only been here for 2 weeks and haven't been given any actual work to do yet, so I don't know how annoying that low resolution is going to be (but I'm sure it will be). Not nearly as annoying as the loudly buzzing/rattling vent and the headache-inducing blazing fluorescent tubes directly over my head, I'm sure (though, combined with the gray carpet, the gray walls, the gray ceiling, and the lack of any and all natural light, I must say, they've really nailed the office environment from "Joe vs the Volcano")...
arca_vorago 9y ago
There is some really good discussion in this thread about the ergonomics of monitors. As a sysadmin, one thing I've learned is that ergonomics of workspaces, at home and at the office, are far too often overlooked or compromised on, so please, for your own future health, take a moment to review how your workspaces affect you physically. That means monitor setup, keyboard and mouse position, chair height and back support, etc. For those who have been neglecting these things, a good stretching routine and daily posture work is probably the best starting point.
mneubrand 9y ago
I just got myself a TCL 43S405 43" as a monitor. It supports Chroma 4:4:4 and I'm really happy with it so far. Target has it on sale for 299 right now: https://www.target.com/p/tcl-43-4k-hdr-120hz-cmi-roku-smart-led-tv-black-43s405/-/A-52177069 https://www.target.com/p/tcl-43-4k-hdr-120hz-cmi-roku-smart-...
eighthnate 9y ago
I personally prefer 2 or 3 monitors rather than one large monitor. One monitor for code. Another for debuggin. Another for servers,VM, testing,etc.
wnevets 9y ago
I actually did this for a couple of years but recently switched back to a dual setup. The dual setup is just better for web development IMO. One screen for chrome dev tools or the website and the other screen for sublime. Also the 4K TV I was using only had a 30hz refresh rate, really bad for eye fatigue.
georgewsinger 9y ago
In the future, people will be able to use VR for programming work. https://github.com/SimulaVR/Simula https://github.com/SimulaVR/Simula This is a modern project which is attempting to pull this off in Linux.
- seanmcdirmid 9y ago
  It isn’t clear that headset VR will beat eventual direct brain connections or the singularity where programming is no longer a human activity.
LIB53 9y ago
I've been using a 4k 49" TV as a monitor for a few weeks now. It was just a lazy stand in for my defective 27" monitor at first, but it's pretty convenient. Lower DPI is the only thing that isn't too great, but now that I have this setup, I think I was overrating DPI. I'm thinking I'll just stick with this.
- regulation_d 9y ago
  I like that with a monitor that big I can push it to the very back of my desk, freeing up a good bit of desk space.
  - LIB53 9y ago
    Me too! I feel like it's a really versatile setup, and definitely de-cluttered my desk at home.
chendragon 9y ago
I have a 50" Sharp (well, made by Hisense) TV I got for C$469. 99.8% sRGB coverage and 81.3% DCI-P3 and very little input lag. It's also a Smart TV. So far, I'm happy with it. I run 100% scaling and don't see any pixels when I sit far enough so I do enjoy it.

285 points by masonicb00m 9y ago

I've been using a philips 4k for a couple years now. previously the 40" and now the 43" (the 40" died in a terrible VR accident) https://www.amazon.com/Philips-BDM4350UC-43-Inch-IPS-LED-Monitor/dp/B01E18XRY2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1511741816&sr=8-1&keywords=philips+bdm4350uc https://www.amazon.com/Philips-BDM4350UC-43-Inch-IPS-LED-Mon... it's 4:4:4 chroma at 60hz so it's great for gaming too. and has a lower response rate than you'll get with TVs. Highly recommended and it's hard to use anything smaller now. Without using display scaling I wouldn't go lower than 40" and I think maybe even closer to 50" is ideal in terms of keeping the scale comparable between other periphial monitors. a 48" curved display would probably be perfect.

masonicb00m 9y ago
That one looks nice. Good port selection. Thanks for the link! Terrible VR accident... punched it while playing Superhot? ;)
- gnarbarian 9y ago
  GORN. but yes.
alanfranzoni 9y ago
Many, too many BDM4065UC monitors suffer from "flashing" black and then, more than occasionally, starting back at 30Hz instead of 60Hz (dp 1.2 connection). Fixing that requires 1-2-3 monitor power cycles, and when the display is in a "bad mood" it can happen 3/4 times per hour. Source: I own and use a BDM4065UC which I'm about to return, and I've been able to test another (previously owned) one, where the owner, who had a totally different setup from me (mbpro retina 2015 is my workstation, his own was a custom-built desktop with nvidia card); many other people on various forums complain about that, and Philips support seems to know about the issue perfectly. I have been interested in BDM4350UC and/or BDM4037UC as well, but both have been reported to suffer from extreme ghosting/persistence; I'm now looking forward to buy an LG 43UD79-B. What I agree is: a large monitor makes the difference. Not in the workflow per se, but in how much eye strain, headache, back pain (from slouching to get closer to the screen) and so on you get at the end of the day - which is almost inexistent with such large displays. Even if it's $700 for the LG, that's well spent money.
- majewsky 9y ago
  Huh, I guess I'm lucky then. The only problem with my BDM4065UC is that at the upper left corner, the leftmost column of pixels is obscured by something (as if the panel was bent slightly backwards at the edge).
  - alanfranzoni 9y ago
    Possibly it's a problem from a batch of them, but such batch seems rather large. I don't like that myself, because the BDM4064UC would simply be a great monitor for programming work at that price point.
- LiquidFlux 9y ago
  I've experienced similar with the first BDM40, it dropping the DP1.2 support and needing to open up the OSD to revert back to DP1.1 and again to DP2.2 to resolve, in addition to extreme ghosting. Please update if you do end up investing in a new replacement, the LG especially.

positr0n 9y ago

I wonder how that TV performs for "monitor" tasks like automatic input switching. I have a Sony x720e for my macbook for work and my PC for light gaming. It has graphics and gaming modes that have low input lags, but there is a really annoying quirk where when you turn the tv on it has normal (high) input lag until you switch to another mode then back to graphics mode. This means every time you turn on your PC (or plug in your laptop) you have to: 1. Turn on the TV 2. If necessary, switch inputs 3. Options -> Scene Select -> up arrow, down arrow 1 and 2 are annoying since monitors do that automatically but the TV doesn't. 3 is really annoying but hopefully is fixed in a firmware update... Other than that the screen looks great. I'm hoping for time to hack on an arduino with an IR LED to automate those steps, haha.

naoru 9y ago
Offtopic, but this is very interesting. I have this sort of problem as well, but with color rendering. Not on a Sony, but on a Philips (50PUT6400). Makes me think that they might use a common platform for their entry-level TVs.
masonicb00m 9y ago
It doesn’t do automatic input switching. That’s a definite drawback. For the price though, I’m not complaining.

corruptbytes 9y ago

Interesting enough, over the summer at Microsoft, they were actually switching out for the 4k TVs. It wasn't that bad tbh. Definitely different. The Surface Books couldn't handle it very well (they didn't have GPUs) but the work stations did great.

dawnerd 9y ago

I just see an article to push an affiliate link for a pretty bad tv let alone the best.

masonicb00m 9y ago
3 affiliate links actually. It’s probably not the absolute best, but nuance makes for tedious writing. The general pattern of a 40+ inch 4K display is definitely worth a shot. If you find a better one for price/performance, I’d love to hear.

ta2384428 9y ago

I had a 28/27" 4k monitor, but like the author I found it far too small (the pixel size) to use comfortably. Unfortunately I was working with legacy applications that didn't support scaling and couldn't adjust the DPI. I have no doubt it would be much nicer at 125/150%. One thing that is certain is that people have different preferences. Certainly some people would enjoy the tiny pixels of the 27" 4k monitor at 100%. My current setup is 2x24" 1920x1200 monitors. I have considered 3x24, 1x Ultra wide or 2x Ultra wide, but I'm not convinced I'd get the same comfort. I think that 3x 24, or 2x ultra wides would require to much head rotation to be comfortable. I prefer the vertical break in the screen since it makes snapping windows easier. I'm starting to think that I might prefer a bit more real estate, as I often collapse the vertical file menu in my editor for a little extra room.

deleted 9y ago
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neya 9y ago

I second the author's recommendation. I work with iMacs (5k) all day and I can tell you there were a number of times I simply wished I had gotten an iMac Pro with a bigger screen instead. However, one thing to watchout though when getting these cheap TVs is to be mindful of the color reproduction. Most of them will enhance the colors to make it appear vivid and pleasing to the eyes. So, if you're thinking of doing stuff like logo design, Photoshop, you're gonna find it very hard.

masonicb00m 9y ago
Good point. I mainly do programming so color fidelity wasn’t a big concern.

loudandskittish 9y ago

Don't sit too close to the TV, you'll hurt your eyes.

ioquatix 9y ago
As long as you are at least 1cm away, your eyes should be fine.
- Tepix 9y ago
  As long as your eyelashes don't touch the display, it's ok. Some people have cut their long eyelashes to be able to get a larger field of view in Virtual Reality...

greenbush 9y ago

Quick question for those that use a 40" monitor: how far away do you sit from it?

red75prime 9y ago
Let me measure it... 77cm (30.315") from the center. 42" TV.
white-flame 9y ago
About 20" face to panel.

tluyben2 9y ago

And I find my 13 inch laptop too large :) I loved the 11 inch Macbook but the res was too low; 1920x1200 as I have now is nice, but 11 or 10 inch screen would be better.

sz4kerto 9y ago

Don't buy a cheap TV for programming if you're not constrained by money. You can get 40" monitors for a bit more, and you won't need to fight the firmware and also you can get a better panel. Also, PWM is worse if you're sitting close. Uniformity of backlight (bleed) also matters. Currently the display you want to get around 40" is the Philips BDM4037UW, which has no PWM, relatively low input lag and backlight bleed is low. There are some cheap 43" 4K monitors (Philips and LG), but they're lower quality e.g. LGs have PWM.

bartread 9y ago
Reviews on Amazon suggest the Philips BDM4037UW isn't a good choice due to significant ghosting issues: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Philips-BDM4037UW-00-40-Inch-Monitor/dp/B01KUQJ414/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1511768997&sr=8-1&keywords=Philips+BDM4037UW#customerReviews https://www.amazon.co.uk/Philips-BDM4037UW-00-40-Inch-Monito...
- Awaythrov 9y ago
  Big caveat emptor on this one. I have it on my desk right now and ghosting is really, really bad. Static contrast ratio is best in class, second only to oled monitors. If you are looking for large office/work monitor only or you can borrow one with no strings attached, go for it. Otherwise stay away.
  - sz4kerto 9y ago
    Yep, I specifically meant it for programming / office work.
- LiquidFlux 9y ago
  I jumped on the Philips BMD40 train immediately at launch for £600 a few years back, the ghosting is an absolute nightmare. A huge boon for productivity having come from multiple 27" 1440p monitors before, and the BDM40 is something I might recommend for somebody looking to get in and get in cheap. I'll definitely be splurging for something better next time however.
9y ago

friendzis 9y ago

TVs have very different matrices compared to monitors (and mobile displays too) in physical pixel layout. TV matrices tend to have much larger "border width" and colored cells more prominently spread, which pushes closest optimal viewing distance further. I personally find text on TVs very tiring for the eyes.

peterhajas 9y ago

I have been using 3 inexpensive 4K 40” TVs for my home computer for a year now. I love the insane amount of real estate and the accessible price (<$1K is great). I’d love it if someone made extremely large format displays (100”+ at 3:1 aspect ratio) for computer use. Not sure how large the market would be, but one giant display is nicer than 3 separate one so.

morelikeborelax 9y ago

The TV mounted on blocks and the Hackintosh suggest the author is willing to compromise and using a TV as a monitor confirms it. Don't get me wrong, I also run a Hackintosh and have had monitors stood on boxes, crates and books over the years, but when it comes to displays I really don't think you should compromise. I have converted many professionals away from TVs because when you can actually have real quality monitors to compare them too it's usually a no-brainer to abandon the cheap TV. No trick, no incentive for me, just the better choice. It is also why every employee in our company has a pair of IPS displays. I've looked at 4K TVs as options for a monitor multiple times, from the early Seiki TVs that hit at the start of the pricing change to what's been on offer for Black Friday, don't do it to yourself unless you are spending most of your time gaming/consuming content on the same system or just using it to monitor things. If you are going to be sat in front of displays for 10,000 hours a year working/focusing (like many of us I am sure) then investing in something like a pair of Dell U3415W, LG UM95 or LG 31MU97Z-B will give you a much nicer experience. Totally appreciate that isn't a $300 solution, but as professionals we should invest in (or demand from your employer) good tools. To those of you who are using 4K TVs, it is obviously hard to get in front of these monitors and see the difference, but if you can you should - you've already made the choice to go for something better than a cheap 22" 1080P monitor, there are a lot of options to create a great environment to do your best work. The article is just pure marketing anyway for referrals, so make of that what you will.

ekelsen 9y ago
You didn't actually say _why_ monitors are better for the author's use case: programming. "A much nicer experience" - how? in what way? is this quantifiable in any way?
- stephenr 9y ago
  Usually a computer monitor is higher DPI, and more adjustable for use on a desk.
- snaky 9y ago
  There are flicker-free (no PWM at all, or at least no PWM at mid and hi brightness) models, and you can find (unfortunately that's usually not that simple because vendors are mostly hesitate to specify it) a model with minimal possible brightness low enough for comfortable programming work.

elnygren 9y ago

Why are 4K TVs cheaper than 4K monitors (same size) ? Something to do with marketing and how the two businesses differ (TVs B2C, monitors B2B)? Or are there actual major differencies in the tech? Like what panel is used or something like that?

wernercd 9y ago
Economics of scale - many more TVs sold than computer monitors. Add to that the different features - higher DPI, refresh rate, contrast ratios, etc. Cutting edge features such as NVidia G-Sync and the similar feature from AMD don't come cheap. https://mybroadband.co.za/news/hardware/145753-why-computer-monitors-are-more-expensive-than-tvs.html https://mybroadband.co.za/news/hardware/145753-why-computer-...
thescriptkiddie 9y ago
Not sure if this is still true, but historically, TVs have had dramatically lower image quality than comparable monitors.

Stratoscope 9y ago

If you enjoy a low density of 110 pixels per inch, then this is for you. I'm much happier with the high-DPI displays in my ThinkPad Yoga 460 WQHD and MacBook Pro Retina 15". I don't like pixels, and I don't want to see them any more. I want to see the text and graphics I'm working on, not pixels. So when I wanted a second monitor to go with those machines, I got a 24" 4K display. At 187 pixels per inch, it's a reasonably close match to the 210-220 pixels per inch on the laptops. I use this monitor in portrait mode next to the laptop display. A portrait mode monitor combined with the laptop monitor is great. I've got a wide screen when I want it, and a tall screen when I want that. It's ideal for reading documentation and especially PDF files, because an entire page fits on the portrait screen. Larger monitors are not very practical in portrait mode. I'm not concerned with cramming the maximum amount of stuff on my screen. I run the monitors at 225% scaling in Windows, and the default Retina scaling in macOS. So text is about the same size it would be on a lower-DPI monitor, just much sharper and crisper. After I got my first taste of high DPI with that MacBook, I swore I'd never go back to a low DPI display. It is so nice to not have to look at pixels any more.

theWatcher37 9y ago
Exactly! So glad to see the HighDPI fans gaining acceptance. 110PPI looks like garbage and needs to be relegated to the dust bin.
- masonicb00m 9y ago
  :) we might have different vision. I can’t resolve individual pixels with this setup unless I put my face near the screen.
  - Stratoscope 9y ago
    Everyone has different vision, of course! If you don't mind my asking, what is your viewing distance to the screen? One big consideration for me: I'm 65, so my eyes are not able to focus back and forth to different distances like a younger person. My solution is a pair of single vision prescription lenses, adjusted to the distance to my monitor(s). I need to be able to use the laptop all on its own, so that determines the focus distance: about 20". Because of that, I also place any secondary monitor at about the same distance from my eyes, otherwise it would be out of focus. I can't go changing glasses to look at a different monitor. :-) A 24" 4K display works nicely for this, and as I mentioned it's small enough to work really well in portrait mode. So I have two recommendations for any programmer. If you haven't used a portrait mode monitor, try it out alongside your laptop display. It's a very practical setup. But more importantly, if you find yourself gravitating toward lower-DPI monitors, it may be time for a vision check and a good pair of single vision prescription glasses adjusted for your monitor distance (again, about 20" if you ever need to use a laptop by itself). I put off doing this for years - I always thought of myself as the kind of person who "didn't need glasses." When I finally got the prescription lenses, it was a real eye-opener - pun intended!

keithnoizu 9y ago

I'm holding out for my Pimax 8k X and infinite size 4k monitor.

rawnlq 9y ago

For a compromise, there are now 32" 4k monitors meant for computer use for around $300 if you look for the black friday and cyber monday deals: https://www.reddit.com/r/buildapcsales/comments/7ehzic/monitor_acer_et322qk_32_inch_4k_uhd_4ms_3840x2160/ https://www.reddit.com/r/buildapcsales/comments/7ehzic/monit... 40" is roughly 1.5625 times in area of a than 32" though...

Bromskloss 9y ago
That's a VA panel. Is that really acceptable?
- Tepix 9y ago
  What's wrong with VA panels? Beats a TN panel any day.
  - Bromskloss 9y ago
    > Beats a TN panel any day. Yes, TN is even worse. One must have an IPS panel! :-) (I hear, though, that TN, and maybe VA, might be preferred by some for high-performance gaming situations, due to a lower latency.)

nottorp 9y ago

That only goes if you're willing to fight the firmware all the time. Bonus, crap colours if it's a cheap TV. Doesn't matter for programming, but if you occasionally do anything else besides shuffling text around...

masonicb00m 9y ago
I thought this would be the case, but I have been really pleasantly surprised by the quality. I watched some 4k60 videos on YouTube on this thing and thought they looked great. I have not done any gaming with it though. A photographer or graphic artist could probably find fault, but for me, it is very satisfactory.
- nottorp 9y ago
  So I said until i had an older cheap monitor and an IPS monitor side by side ;) Tech specs are an easy way to compare stuff, but they don't always say everything.

singularity2001 9y ago

40'' is too much. it just makes it painful to push your mouse and windows around

empiricus 9y ago
I use a gaming mouse, it is very quick and precise. I can move 1 pixel if I need or move to the other side of the huge screen with a single movement.
ianhowson 9y ago
Get Divvy and never waste your time moving and resizing windows.
- shoover 9y ago
  Hmm. I’ve been using WindowSpace for years for snapping and centering, but it doesn’t support customization beyond sizing sides and corners. I will check out divvy.

drewmol 9y ago

Does anyone use a projector for this? I have occasionally used a macboook monitor and 10' projector + screen(made of Fomrica countertop) as a duel screen setup, but I have always wanated to rig up some kind of multiple mini-projector office setup with duel or tiple screens.

fsiefken 9y ago
You could also get the Pimax 8k VR headset and position your virtual screens.
- drewmol 9y ago
  Thanks, I think the thing I like about the projector is for me I notice much less eye strain

pixelbash 9y ago

Went from 3x 1920x1080 monitors to a 43" 4k IPS display a little over a year ago and has been great once used to it. Tiling 6 apps using divvy works nicely. Lately I have found myself wishing there was a wider format 5760 x 2160 screen of about 37-43" for 6 full HD screens-worth. But can't have everything I guess.

BoorishBears 9y ago
I use a 3840x1600 monitor, not quite there resolution size, but in exchange you don’t need to use DPI scaling
ianhowson 9y ago
Agreed -- I find that a single large high-res display works better for my purposes. 32" at 4K is exactly right for three side-by-side 1280xY windows, which means that browsers will display full desktop-sized sites. Text isn't too small with the 32", so no scaling required. Divvy makes window management much faster, with little mouse interaction required. I have two 27" 2560x1440 displays at work, but I find it counterproductive to look side-to-side constantly to see what's on the other screen.

dharma1 9y ago

Anyone spot any UK cyber monday deals with this in mind?

dugmartin 9y ago

I've been using a 44" 4K TV for around two years as my main monitor and it's been great. The only very minor pain point is having to manually turn the TV off and on via the remote in the right order so that Windows 10 doesn't reset my window layout. The Visio TV I use has 1 of the 5 HDMI ports set aside to not route through its image processor which means text stays very clear.

christophilus 9y ago
My biggest concern is that TVs generally don't have a good refresh-rate relative to monitors. Have you noticed any lag/annoyances in that department? Do you have a link to the TV you use?

snarfy 9y ago

The stands on a 4K TV suck compared to a monitor. There is no height or tilt adjustment. They also generally have higher input lag.

Insanity 9y ago

I actually prefer having dual monitors over one big monitor. I dedicate certain tasks to certain monitors, and that divide helps me quickly find what I need. It's also nice to have the physical separation for some reason I can't really describe. My brother has a similar setup to the one in the article, and I just never really liked using it. Just personal preference I'm sure. (I also fear my eyesight might be too bad to have a big monitor in 4k, with things being rather small text) For my setup, I prefer having (bright) IPS monitors. Not too large, I'm fine with my 24" 1080p monitors.

d--b 9y ago

I'm much happier with 4 small screens than a big one. 4 screens means I can do 4 x full screens rather than having to arrange my windows in a big sandbox. I also prefer having them in a long row, rather than 2x2, I put the code on one side and emails on the other, so that I don't see notifications when I code...

phkahler 9y ago
With a single 4K you can put 3 1280 images across, which IMHO would be good for web, code, email. You also have the option of stretching vertically - sometimes portrait orientation is better. If you don't like arranging windows in a sandbox, you may want to either have a login script to open your common stuff and place it, or try a tiling window manager.
dbolgheroni 9y ago
In these cases, a tiling window manager would help.
spyder 9y ago
https://maxto.net/ https://maxto.net/ https://www.online-tech-tips.com/free-software-downloads/split-or-divide-your-desktop-screen-into-multiple-parts/ https://www.online-tech-tips.com/free-software-downloads/spl... And there are 4k monitors that can work with 4 inputs at the same time: https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2017/5/2/15513200/lg-4k-monitor-42-inch-ips-freesync-43ud79-b https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2017/5/2/15513200/lg... https://www.pcworld.com/article/3074246/displays/dells-4-screen-multimonitor-setup-looks-like-one-enormous-43-inch-display.html https://www.pcworld.com/article/3074246/displays/dells-4-scr...

hyperpallium 9y ago

Monitor legs on each side drive me crazy, because that's where my mouse wants to go. There's no mouse in this picture.

masonicb00m 9y ago
There’s an Apple trackpad in the middle between the split keyboard.
- hyperpallium 9y ago
  Thanks, I thought that was a paper notepad.

theelous3 9y ago

If you're ok with switching to linux, or are already using it, a tiling wm is easily a better investment (5 mins to learn, orders of magnitude more space and time efficient) than buying a big monitor with low dpi etc. A bad 720p laptop with a tiling wm has more available screen real estate than a 4k monster regular setup.

oblio 9y ago
... how?
- keenerd 9y ago
  Simple, most other window management paradigms are terrible. The author agrees: > On a laptop screen or normal-sized desktop monitor, I end up putting these different windows on different macOS spaces, but then half the time I swipe the wrong direction to switch spaces and end up going to the wrong space. By the time I get to the correct space my short-term memory is blown and I’ve forgotten what I was doing. I've never had this issue on a tiler. You get 10 (maybe 20) screens accessible with a single key combo. You can thoughtlessly toggle back and forth between any two as fast as you can blink. "Swiping" between a few desktops sounds terrible by comparison. I'm do embedded development, PCB CAD, some graphic design and manage a fleet of servers all from a single 10" laptop screen thanks to tiling. Unless you were asking how a 720p screen can have more real estate than a 4K screen? 4K is 3840x2160 or 8.3M pixels. 1280x720 is 0.92M pixels. So with 10 virtual desktops the 720p screen gives you 9.2M pixels. Slightly more than a 4K screen. You also get the benefit of not having to move your eyes or head from one corner of the screen to the other. What you are working on is always front and center.
upofadown 9y ago
... and tiling WMs make multiple monitor setups more usable as well. Xmonad is probably the best as it allows any virtual workspace to end up on any monitor more or less instantaneously. You can effortlessly juggle a whole whack of virtual workspaces to three monitors. You quickly end up with any possible combination of things you could possibly want in a virtual workspace and you don't have to touch the windows themselves. You can do everything by flipping between the workspaces with everything exactly as you want it and no pointlessly wasted screen space for stuff like window decorations. It has gotten to the point where I feel I am watching something quaint and retro when I watch someone manually moving windows around on a screen.

Tepix 9y ago

The article states: "You need to elevate this beast vertically otherwise you’ll be craning your neck down to look at it." A 40 inch TV is at least 50cm high. You should not be looking up - it's very bad for your neck. Looking down is no problem. The upper edge of the monitor should be at eye level.

roryisok 9y ago
I read that this is because we evolved as hunter gatherers, walking and scanning the ground ahead for possible food. Our optimum standing posture is looking straight ahead or slightly down
randallsquared 9y ago
I use a 40". If the middle of my monitor is just about eye level, I don't find myself moving my neck vertically very much -- eye movement suffices for vertical travel. If you have the opportunity, though, monitor arms are one of the best ergonomic investments you can make. Being able to reposition the monitor with a touch for whatever position or attitude you want helps reduce fatigue enormously.
jpalomaki 9y ago
I was briefly using 43" screen on desktop, but switched to smaller. The screen was too high for me. Parts of it went mostly unused, since it was inconvenient to "look up". Now I'm using 32"4K and this is the sweet spot for me. Not too big, but large enough to use without scaling (I'm running Windows).

zodPod 9y ago

Anyone know what that keyboard is? I need that.

masonicb00m 9y ago
Kinesis Freestyle2 Blue (https://masonsimon.com/2017/11/26/the-best-monitor-for-programming-a-cheap-40-4k-tv/#comment-22 https://masonsimon.com/2017/11/26/the-best-monitor-for-progr...)

wernercd 9y ago

Seems very similar to "4K is for programmers" which was written when 4k monitors/TVs had just been released. http://tiamat.tsotech.com/4k-is-for-programmers http://tiamat.tsotech.com/4k-is-for-programmers I, personally, own one of those TVs (Seiki 39") and both love and hate it. I've always seemed to buy TVs for day to day computing because you generally get more cutting edge features for better prices (My first flat screen was a 27" WestingHouse TV. First 4k, Seiki. ETC). Economics of scale factor in heavily - more TVs will be sold than computer monitors leading to better prices. Which is why I could get a Seiki 4k for $400 when similarly sized 4k "Desktop" monitors were going for $1000+. The most annoying thing has been "Turn of monitor, Computer considers it unplugged". So you go from 2 monitors to 1 - and all the icons rearrange. Computer goes to sleep? Monitor turns off... disconnects... Annoying. The price of saving $600+ for 4k (At the time). I've recently upgraded to a smaller "computer" monitor that's better suited for gaming and desktop use... and the Seiki is now my computer room Plex Player.

megaman22 9y ago

I was just thinking about this, since my girlfriend bought a 50" 4k TV for under $250 on black friday. That's about the same size and resolution as my current array of 27" monitors, without having to use four outlets and every available video-out on my desktop.

cpr 9y ago

Funny, I was just pondering this yesterday: whether to "upgrade" to the LG, Phillips or Dell 40+" IPS monitors, or whether to stay with my Samsung 40" TVs (UN40JU6400, 2015 models--later models have annoying misfeatures), which I have in all 3 home offices. These Samsung TVs, once configured properly (Source > HDMI 1 > Tools, select device type as PC, turn off HDMI UHD Color (which blurs), turn on Dynamic Color as well), are excellent, and at the 28" viewing distance I use, are absolutely crisp (no pixels visible) in Retina mode under macOS. And I'm using it over HDMI 30Hz with absolutely no flicker, and no (discernible) mouse lag. The 2015 models don't lose their mind when the Mac goes to sleep, unlike the later models, which require re-configuring each time (the TV "forgets" the HDMI port). Can't recommend them more, especially since you can get these older models refurbished for $400.

erikig 9y ago
The UHD, HDR and Movie Modes for most of these tv/monitors seem to modify the picture a little too much. These are usually the first to get disabled when I'm using them for desktop use.
MikeTV 9y ago
FWIW I have the 6290 (2016 model) and haven't run into any annoying misfeatures. Crisp and smooth at 60Hz, UHD color mode. Was stuck at 30Hz and perceptibly laggy until I forced it to 4:4:4 in the nVidia control panel. Everything online tells me the display lag is unacceptable, but I haven't noticed it personally even when FPS gaming. Maybe it's the conditioning from gaming on an underpowered PC growing up :)

danso 9y ago

Since people seem to be lukewarm to the TV suggested by the OP, I did an Amazon search for 4K TVs under $600: https://www.amazon.com/s/gp/search/ref=sr_nr_p_n_size_browse-bin_3?fst=as%3Aoff&rh=n%3A172282%2Cn%3A%21493964%2Cn%3A1266092011%2Cn%3A172659%2Cn%3A6459737011%2Cp_36%3A-60000%2Cp_n_feature_keywords_three_browse-bin%3A7688788011%2Cp_n_size_browse-bin%3A1232882011%7C3578042011&bbn=6459737011&sort=review-rank&ie=UTF8&qid=1511789771&rnid=1232878011 https://www.amazon.com/s/gp/search/ref=sr_nr_p_n_size_browse... Anyone have any experience with the top TVs on this list? The top entry from TCL seems to be the leader, by far, in terms of average customer review, but the price point seems almost too good to be true: $379 for the 55' version, though that may have been a sale price, and the TV is currently out of stock. https://www.amazon.com/TCL-49S405-49-Inch-Ultra-Smart/dp/B01MTGM5I9/ https://www.amazon.com/TCL-49S405-49-Inch-Ultra-Smart/dp/B01...

The_Hoff 9y ago
I have the 55" TCL and it's great! Reminds me of the early Vizio days where they had to be priced closer to production cost in order to compete with bigger players. My one con is that the HDR doesn't seem perfect. The blacks don't seem "true black" and based on the comparison lower on the page I wonder if this is because it's not "Dolby Vision HDR"
- danso 9y ago
  Interesting that you mentioned HDR because I had assumed it wasn't a feature (seems like most TVs that have it mention it in the title). Is it now a standard feature for HD TV? (I haven't bought a TV since...ever, no that I think about it)
- viggity 9y ago
  I have the 43" TCL 4k. I highly recommend turning off HDR when using it as a monitor. Up close it kinda creates this ghosting effect where black text on a gray background will get this light halo kind of thing, ugh, it looked horrible. once you turn it off it is much nicer to look at.
tetraodonpuffer 9y ago

PeterStuer 9y ago

Televisions aren't optimized for interactive use. They often have a very high latency path from input to display, often over 10x that of the same panel used in a monitor. Depending on the application, this might be a showstopper.

petecooper 9y ago

I'm curious about the mentions of Hackintosh. As I understand it, running macOS on non-Apple hardware (the essence of a Hackintosh) is a violation of the EULA. I'm not here to argue the pros and cons, and I am not a lawyer, but I'm intrigued about the author saying -- and I paraphrase -- "I'm doing this on a computer that's breaking the licence agreement". That's an admission. I'm not judging, it's an observation. Hackintosh admissions on a personal site where they can be traced back to a person seem a bit risky to me. I have no knowledge of Apple legal circling. Perhaps I'm just paranoid.

singhrac 9y ago
My guess is that Apple's lawyers are busy enough without worrying about individuals violating their EULA without harming their business (e.g. by selling the Hackintoshes). As long as you're not Psystar I think you'll be fine.
mikeokner 9y ago
EULAs in general are somewhat of a farce. Most companies use them as scare tactics but wouldn't want to risk them being scrutinized in court, especially when the only damages they could point to would be lost revenue in small-claims territory.
schmookeeg 9y ago
Orz mode on. :) Items in * are poorly translated and not to be taken literally. (edit, lol, fail. Didn't realize asterisks cause italics. Sigh) From my experience with Hackintosh, you're downloading a canned VMWare image of a pirated OS. I'm not exactly sure when they would say you agreed to anything when you downloaded it, since you only have interactions with VMWare Player (or VBox) and the site hosting the VMWare images, plus a few of the BIOS patches that are needed to make it all work. you never interact with Apple in any way. The guy who keeps packaging it is running a risk of legal action when Apple gets their fill of PCs running MacOS, though. In the meantime, though, it allowed me to shelve my Mac Mini for iOS development and keep everything in one PC, albeit one virtualized environment. Being able to copy/paste between PC and Mac is fantastic for workflow. I am a big fan. I probably get burned by something deep in the Apple Developer Program EULA where I agreed not to do unintended things with Apple software. :)

jackmott 9y ago

TVs sometimes have horrible input latency, which when combined with modern IDEs written in electron may add up to bad feel when typing.

NamPNQ 9y ago

I used monitor 27" and it's large with me, how about 40"

mdip 9y ago

To each his own, I guess. In my case, I find advantages to both so much that I routinely switch between them. My main workstation is connected to a 55" Vizio HDTV (a model that supports Chroma 4:4:4 and represents text of various colors very well) that I picked up last year during a post-Thanksgiving sale. While I love it, I do the lionshare of my development using a 1080p display connected to a laptop. Is the 4K screen superior? Absolutely -- in almost every way -- except for portability. I made the switch from multiple 1080p monitors to a single laptop monitor a few years ago and ditched the multiple monitors for the single 4K (which had a total resolution about equal to my multi-monitor arrangement). The transition was tricky at first, though, and coupled with a visual studio extension that aided in navigation/visual identification of important code points (something I wrote for myself), I found downgrading to the 1080p single display to take far less time to get used to than I expected. The one drawback turned out to be a positive thing in the long run: by not being able to see so much code on-screen at all times, it forced me to write code more carefully. Where I could have gotten away with not splitting a class up into smaller pieces, before, because I could see the whole thing on-screen, I couldn't do that any longer and continue to be productive writing code. Sticking with small methods that "do one thing" and small classes that have a single purpose is a best practice and it's one I was pretty religious about before, however, there are times when it's necessary to "get the code out the door" and corners get cut, mostly out of a false-sense that writing it dirty will be faster[0]. There's one place where the 4K screen is vastly superior, though -- debugging. You can get your code, the locals/watch and the application visible in one screen. This, too, turned out to be a double-edged sword. It was easy to skip seemingly unimportant unit tests when I knew my debugging environment was pristine. But the reality (for me at least) is that the moment I have to hop into the debugger and check locals/watch to see what's going on, I can expect to waste an hour fixing a problem 80% of the time. Here's the thing, though, writing tests to cover my code rarely takes more than an hour or two but the simple act of doing so causes me to rethink the problem from a testing standpoint. I'll often find the bug before I've ever run the test to validate that it passes -- and about 1/3 of the time, that bug was subtle. Less often, but still frequent, I'll discover during the act of writing the test that the code could be refactored in a more logical manner, which results in better code. These facts mean I write tests regardless of having a great debugging environment, and I'm obsessive about it -- covering code that seems obvious[1] -- so I end up rarely needing the benefits that a 4K screen offers. Being handicapped by the smaller screen on my laptop does come with advantages beyond just those introduced by the constrained environment. I'm not tethered to a room or location to code. Sometimes walking away or changing my physical environment ends up allowing me to avoid an actual "break" -- just moving from the office to the kitchen (when I worked at home) or from my desk to the office-kitchen couch (now that I'm an office dweller) causes enough of a shift to get me thinking correctly again. All of that aside, one area where the 4K screen shines is anything to do with multimedia, 3D and image editing. Being able to do detail work, zoomed in on a screen that accurately reproduces color -- and at a cost that's a fraction of 4K monitors -- is simply fantastic. I also find the brightness of the 4K TV I purchased to be excellent -- the IPS monitors that I own tend to default to a brightness setting that is almost excessive (yes, adjustable, I know). I purchased a TV that was evenly backlit and once I got everything configured properly, I don't mess with it. The size and amount of light it outputs is pleasant; it's large enough that I can use it with the lights turned off in my office (if I have a headache) and it keeps the room reasonably lit while not blasting so much light out of the display as to be obnoxious. Despite not being IPS, being large and me sitting a couple of feet from it, I didn't notice any issues with edges looking dimmer due to the angle -- though I mostly ignore the edges because I rarely have anything maximized on that screen. It's just not necessary when you have all of that realestate -- you tend to simply move less important things off to an edge and put what you're working on in the middle in a smallish window. [0] And it sometimes is in the short-run, but if that code has any importance to the program, you pay for it. [1] I'm not "Test Driven" -- I write tests "second" because I started writing code quite a bit before "Unit Testing" was a common practice and I find the act of doing "Tests First" to feel backward. Writing tests afterward seems to have the same benefits as doing it the other way around, though it sometimes drives code changes. I've been doing it this way for too long to switch and be as productive as I am. But I cover everything -- I once wrote tests to cover a configuration lookup class that was basically a bunch of retrievals from a dictionary. A coworker chided me for it until I informed him that I found four bugs (and the best part is that said coworker was the one who wrote the buggy code). Because of the way the configuration routine worked -- cascading from a set of values in the database with fallbacks to values in a file and then finally constant values, all of which would always be set correctly from top to bottom in our development environment, the issues I unearthed would have easily gone unnoticed until a customer discovered them.

cat_plus_plus 9y ago

Why only 40 inch - get whatever fits on your desk. 4K monitor will not be painfully pixelated up close. If you coded through the past decade, you will likely see an improvement from some of your recent monitors. At the end of the day, it's about getting the work done, not DPI competition. Although you may use only the center for an IDE, sides are perfect for e-mail, calendar, IM, device emulator, stackoverflow, other source files for reference. A quick side glance is way better than moving windows back and forth. I wish I had attached side panels at an angle for more space.

keredson 9y ago

yep! it's the standard now for new dev boxes where i work. the samsung mu6300 40" is the best option from our experience. how to config: https://medium.com/@keredson/using-the-samsung-mu6300-40-4k-tv-as-a-computer-monitor-8582390bb824 https://medium.com/@keredson/using-the-samsung-mu6300-40-4k-... stay away from the LG TVs. they don't have true 4k RGB.

luckydude 9y ago

Old guy here who disagrees. My neck/eyes get tired moving over that much real estate. For me, work spaces work better. I find it helps to use the same number and place stuff the same way. I use 5. mail work work slack firefox Been doing that for years and I can find stuff fast.

VectorLock 9y ago

I tried this and 40" was just too large. I suppose if you get yourself an extra wide desk but the regular IKEA desk and height adjustable Multitable I used it simply too close to use comfortably.

balabaster 9y ago

I think best is a relative term. For me, as long as my code is readable, it doesn't particularly matter. I'm not doing graphics 95% of the time and when I do graphics, it only really becomes necessary to have a high contrast, high pixel density screen. I run dual Samsung 2770HD TVs at home as my monitors, they sit 2ft from my face and they're perfectly adequate for me and the price was right. I guess if you're anal about picture perfection, then you're going to have a very different opinion of what is "best" and mine are certainly a loooong way from the "best." When I watch a TV show or movie though, I don't get too hung up on the picture quality to just watch the movie and enjoy the story line. Of course, I grew up with a black and white TV in my room until I inherited the colour one that we had to tune with a dial and you got some snow interfering with the picture if the aerial wasn't just right. Oddly, it didn't spoil my enjoyment of the show or movie that I was watching even slightly. The story line is way more important than the picture quality. For coding, the story line is the same... it lives in my head. The screen is really just a means to share that. I get no less enjoyment coding on a screen with a slightly lower pixel density than I do coding on the latest retina. Even after I've sat in front of one that's truly high quality, it doesn't take long to adjust back to a lower quality screen.

z3t4 9y ago

Meanwhile most users are using a mobile device ...

z3t4 9y ago

I actually prefer sharp pixels when programming. Seeing the pixels doesn't bother me. But blurred pixels does bother me.

chrissoundz 9y ago

I have been using a 4K 40" TV as a monitor for maybe two years now, it's great! Windows tiling managers work really well on a large monitor. I keep thinking a curved TV would be better suited though. Also, don't forget to turn on a possible 'gaming mode' (on the TV) which significantly improves the input lag. Here is screenshot of a layout I use https://camo.githubusercontent.com/79de6fc01f5370345d4b9c4c927af1af09d11c45/687474703a2f2f692e696d6775722e636f6d2f754644383757522e6a7067 https://camo.githubusercontent.com/79de6fc01f5370345d4b9c4c9... The above uses XMonad and a custom layout available here https://github.com/chrissound/XMonadLayouts https://github.com/chrissound/XMonadLayouts if anyone is interested.

devonkim 9y ago

I’m all for crisp text however I can get it and avoiding any eye strain and squinting. I’ve got a AW3418DW 34” ultrawide to avoid needing two monitors with a bezel in the middle, and I also use a 24” 4K in portrait mode on the side for reference material (IPS because viewing angle matters when you go into portrait mode). Ergonomics and good habits matters a lot more beyond this point though. My rule has historically been to spend more on the peripherals like chairs, desk, etc. than a computer because my body is a lot more expensive than my computer and accommodating my body’s needs comes first. With that said, I use a $60 medical stool per spine surgeon’s recommendation and I have a $80 IKEA desk to support $6000 of hardware because I don’t get much more utility beyond a certain point and because I move so frequently a heavy desk would be a bigger problem for me than helpful.

bondolo 9y ago

I've been using a 100cm/39" Seiki 4K for about 3 years and wish for a physically smaller 4K screen. Using eye glasses with progressive lens I have to move my head too much with this screen and after long periods of use I find that I have neck strain. I love the 4K pixels but 100cm/39" is simply too much surface area for a monitor used for primarily small text. My next monitor will probably be a 69cm/27" 4K and hopefully OLED if they fix the burn-in issues that make OLED unsuitable for computer use.

regulation_d 9y ago
Interesting. I used the 39" Seiki for a couple of years and moved up to a 49" for my next monitor, but mostly just so I could push it further back on my desk.

makkesk8 9y ago

I've tried so many monitor setup's for programming and I always ran out of screen space. Went from 1 24" 1080p to 3 and finally landed on 6 and I now feel like I have enough room. A side benefit of having 6 monitors is that it looks damn cool. Reference: https://i.imgur.com/rjO3bLw.jpg https://i.imgur.com/rjO3bLw.jpg

rashthedude 9y ago
Looks pretty sweet. How useful is it though?
bllguo 9y ago
What are you putting on 6 (!?) screens when you code?? Does look cool though.

gavanwoolery 9y ago

I've been using a 55 inch 4k TV [1] for the past year. Its a matter of preference, but I prefer more usable space over DPI. I have found at this resolution pixels are small enough that they do not bother me. It takes some tweaking, but if setup right, text quality is indistinguishable from a "real" monitor. Its the rough equivalent of 4 27-inch 1080p monitors arranged in a square. To get an idea of the size, here is a picture of me sitting next to it. [2] [1] https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01EV2094Y https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01EV2094Y [2] https://imgur.com/a/9uBCG https://imgur.com/a/9uBCG

jcadam 9y ago

I've been thinking of going to 4k for a while, just been waiting for prices to drop :) I'm currently using 2 24" dell 1080p monitors, and I have to admit the low DPI is getting to me and I want more screen real estate in general -- I can never have enough code listings open at one time :). OTOH, upgrading my home setup (which I use for side projects, etc.) will only make my work setup seem worse - they gave me 2 22" 1680x1050 monitors. I've only been here for 2 weeks and haven't been given any actual work to do yet, so I don't know how annoying that low resolution is going to be (but I'm sure it will be). Not nearly as annoying as the loudly buzzing/rattling vent and the headache-inducing blazing fluorescent tubes directly over my head, I'm sure (though, combined with the gray carpet, the gray walls, the gray ceiling, and the lack of any and all natural light, I must say, they've really nailed the office environment from "Joe vs the Volcano")...

arca_vorago 9y ago

There is some really good discussion in this thread about the ergonomics of monitors. As a sysadmin, one thing I've learned is that ergonomics of workspaces, at home and at the office, are far too often overlooked or compromised on, so please, for your own future health, take a moment to review how your workspaces affect you physically. That means monitor setup, keyboard and mouse position, chair height and back support, etc. For those who have been neglecting these things, a good stretching routine and daily posture work is probably the best starting point.

mneubrand 9y ago

I just got myself a TCL 43S405 43" as a monitor. It supports Chroma 4:4:4 and I'm really happy with it so far. Target has it on sale for 299 right now: https://www.target.com/p/tcl-43-4k-hdr-120hz-cmi-roku-smart-led-tv-black-43s405/-/A-52177069 https://www.target.com/p/tcl-43-4k-hdr-120hz-cmi-roku-smart-...

eighthnate 9y ago

I personally prefer 2 or 3 monitors rather than one large monitor. One monitor for code. Another for debuggin. Another for servers,VM, testing,etc.

wnevets 9y ago

I actually did this for a couple of years but recently switched back to a dual setup. The dual setup is just better for web development IMO. One screen for chrome dev tools or the website and the other screen for sublime. Also the 4K TV I was using only had a 30hz refresh rate, really bad for eye fatigue.

georgewsinger 9y ago

In the future, people will be able to use VR for programming work. https://github.com/SimulaVR/Simula https://github.com/SimulaVR/Simula This is a modern project which is attempting to pull this off in Linux.

seanmcdirmid 9y ago
It isn’t clear that headset VR will beat eventual direct brain connections or the singularity where programming is no longer a human activity.

LIB53 9y ago

I've been using a 4k 49" TV as a monitor for a few weeks now. It was just a lazy stand in for my defective 27" monitor at first, but it's pretty convenient. Lower DPI is the only thing that isn't too great, but now that I have this setup, I think I was overrating DPI. I'm thinking I'll just stick with this.

regulation_d 9y ago
I like that with a monitor that big I can push it to the very back of my desk, freeing up a good bit of desk space.
- LIB53 9y ago
  Me too! I feel like it's a really versatile setup, and definitely de-cluttered my desk at home.

chendragon 9y ago

I have a 50" Sharp (well, made by Hisense) TV I got for C$469. 99.8% sRGB coverage and 81.3% DCI-P3 and very little input lag. It's also a Smart TV. So far, I'm happy with it. I run 100% scaling and don't see any pixels when I sit far enough so I do enjoy it.