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I am tempted to do this, at least as a FU to the monitor industry. There is so little innovation in monitor tech! Why are monitors so expensive and old tech com

• Nbox9 5y ago
  I really enjoy the 49” ultrawide 1000R format Samsung has been pioneering. It’s the size/resolution of two 27” 1440p monitors next to each other, has a buttery smooth refresh rate, and a curve that makes viewing more comfortable and natural. The new quantum dot displays are also very innovative.
  • metadat 5y ago
    What do you like about the qDots vs "regular" pixels?
    • thfuran 5y ago
      Samsung's newest qd displays are qdoled so you get extremely fast response time and very high contrast ratio and the dots give high color saturation so the color volume is very large. Brightness is also high (for an oled).
    • Nbox9 5y ago
      They are just an improvement on the OLED technology, with reduced burnin risk and brighter pixels being the largest improvement.
• lordnacho 5y ago
  I've seen trading firms do this. Why have 8 monitors when you can just have one giant screen? All you do with it is show some app, doesn't need to be special.
• Arubis 5y ago
  > Why are monitors so expensive and old tech compared to TVs? (“Smart”) TVs are subsidized by the push advertising and analytics crammed into their firmware.
  • Sujan 5y ago
    (Reputable) source?
    • SixDouble5321 5y ago
      Lol where have you been? There must be a dozen or so articles on HN in the last year alone.
    • MrVitaliy 5y ago
      https://www.samsung.com/us/business/samsungads/ https://www.samsung.com/us/business/samsungads/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/i-spent-3000-on-a-samsung-smart-tv-and-all-i-got-were-ads-and-unwanted-content/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/i-spent-3000-on-a-samsung-smar...
    • joezydeco 5y ago
      Bill Baxter (CTO, Vizio) Smart TVs continue to make money for the manufacture after the sale by providing data to viewer measurement and consumer research companies and through all of those apps they integrate in the TV’s smart functions and subsequent app usage. “This is a cutthroat industry,” Baxter went on to say. “It’s pretty ruthless. The greater strategy is I really don’t need to make money off the TV. I need to cover my costs.” http://cjni.com/smart-tvs-too-smart/ http://cjni.com/smart-tvs-too-smart/
    • blamazon 5y ago
      How about Vizio's Q4 earnings report? You can see that "Platform+" accounts for nearly twice as much profit as hardware in 2021. https://investors.vizio.com/investor-relations/default.aspx https://investors.vizio.com/investor-relations/default.aspx
      • 5y ago
• linsomniac 5y ago
  One thing I noticed about my 46" LG 4K monitor, which was "cheap" at $600-ish (edit: looked it up: $720) 3-4 years ago, is that it really isn't designed for viewing at desk distances. On my desk, as far back as it'll go, the viewing angle puts the backlight not exactly behind the pixels, so the left/right have 4-6 pixels and the bottom has ~10-15 pixels that are unlit. I use it for a bunch of terminals, so part of the left column of text and the entire bottom line, or my status bar, were unreadable. Thankfully my window manager had an unsupported feature that let me "pretend" that those areas didn't exist. So what I learned is that TV-oriented panels aren't just directly usable on the desktop. However, I was more recently able to pick up a couple 32" Dell 4K displays for $300-ish each, and they are glorious! That was on a big year-end sale.
  • copperx 5y ago
    For 32", wouldn't you need an 6-8k display to get Retina-quality text? I believe that's why 32" 4k displays aren't usable for coding, unless you're ok with low resolution text.
    • FpUser 5y ago
      >"32" 4k displays aren't usable for coding" I use my 32" 4K for just that at 100% scaling and totally happy. Fonts looks fine to me. Do not feel low res at all.
      • jamesliudotcc 5y ago
        I have Dell displays with those specs and at that price point. Probably the same display. They are fine for coding if you are not acclimated to "retina" smoothness for fonts. Since they are so cheap, I bought a second one so my wife. A giant screen is just as useful for legal work as for coding, it turns out. There are downsides. The colors aren't great. The blacks are just dreadfully light. Sometimes there are artifacts when I use the screen after it has been idle for a time, but the artifacts disappear quickly.
        • 5y ago
• Stevvo 5y ago
  I think things are changing; at CES this year QD-OLED launched on both TVs and monitors simultaneously with the AW3423DW, and there are some 42 inch OLED monitors derived from TV panels.
  • Nursie 5y ago
    LG also seem to be launching a 32” 4K OLED monitor this year, but it’s really expensive.
• matsemann 5y ago
  > And prices seem artificially high I switched companies last year and was gonna return the screen they gave me to use for home office, and buy my own. I looked it up, and the screen had cost like 700 USD back in 2016. So I thought I for the same price, 5 years later, I would get a sweet upgrade. But no, basically same specs. Same panels, perhaps upgraded a bit, but not much had happened. Prices were the same, perhaps because of the pandemic. Luckily my previous company ended up gifting me the screen. My new company ended up giving me the "newer" version of the monitor at the office. Only difference I can see is that it now charges my laptop via usb-c. Neat, but not much innovation in those 5 years.
• NikolaNovak 5y ago
  Interesting. I find innovation in TV's to be opposite of my desired direction. Smarts that make them slower, wifi, ads, slowness,forced firmware updates, slowness, unfathomable picture controls and auto magic colour correction that's Gawd awful, unresponsiveness and slowness. So I'm more likely to use my monitor as a TV then to want to use tv as monitor. I'm also clinging to my 2008 46" lcd tv that just works, and am stunned by how often my father in law has to call for my help with his shiny 76" tv which is showing blue screen of death or mandatory update or things have moved or icons have changed or their version of Netflix / Disney / whatever app is borked or needs maintenance or no longer supported or just looks different... And slower. Always ever slower.... the slowness of response is astonishing. Reminds me of new cars where if last driver had volume set up max, you can't kill the radio or volume until car is done telling you about its disclaimers and boot up sequence and pretty animation. If you can't move in menus or mute instantly, than no thank you to innovation.
  • gutitout 5y ago
    Software is too much. But OP is talking a lot hardware.
    • mnkmnk 5y ago
      Yes, where are the quantum dots, the local dimming, the mini leds that TVs have?
      • cercatrova 5y ago
        New models of monitor have released with quantum dot OLED which are brighter than traditional OLEDs. This is not to be confused with QLED which is simply LED not OLED.
  • Aeolun 5y ago
    I think it would be shocking to todays people to see a TV from 20 years ago, before all that digital funkiness. Instant switching between channels.
• 0xcde4c3db 5y ago
  I'm far from an industry insider, but I think it could be LCD panel factories needing to be set up for specific sizes in conjunction with mainstream TV sizes going up rapidly over the past ~15 years. That is, the most-updated factories are the ones chasing the TV size trend, and monitors tend to get stuck with the output from the stragglers.
• bhauer 5y ago
  This reminds me of my rant about televisions versus monitors on my 2014 blog entry "4K is for Programmers." https://tiamat.tsotech.com/4k-is-for-programmers https://tiamat.tsotech.com/4k-is-for-programmers
• kayoone 5y ago
  hm I think the industry was stale for quite some time but lately it has picked up a lot. What exactly are you looking for? Today you have high refresh rates,4k or 5k screens, (curved) Ultrawide, Variable Refresh rates, low latencies. Comparing them with TVs is not entirely fair, as those usually are not great for displaying text unless you get a specific panel with good chroma subsampling and in terms of latency TVs are usually also pretty far behind Monitors. The really good TVs are equally as expensive.
• pronlover723 5y ago
  I'm am curious about USB-C vs others. My MBP takes 10-20 seconds to wake up on an external USB-C monitor. Is that a MacOS issue or a USB-C issue?
  • infinityio 5y ago
    I haven't had this issue on Windows, the time to wake seems to be identical for usb c vs other connection methods?
  • novok 5y ago
    The m1 macs are pretty much instant, might be an intel issue
    • somehnguy 5y ago
      Both my Intel & M1 macs wake up instantly with external usb-c monitor, might be a monitor issue.
  • culopatin 5y ago
    Your monitor.
• grishka 5y ago
  Ever since I got the new MacBook Pro, I've wanted a monitor that would be its screen but 27" of it, in 5K resolution. But apparently I'm asking for something impossible. Or maybe Apple announces a "Studio Display XDR" next year? Who knows.
  • mh- 5y ago
    I've had an UltraFine 5K for around 4 years now. Is that not what you're asking for? edit: if you meant aesthetically, yeah, no, it's ugly plastic.
    • throwaway684936 5y ago
      The new Studio Display is the same panel as the UltraFine but ever-so-slightly brighter, and with a better shell.
    • grishka 5y ago
      I'd like a higher refresh rate (120 hz scrolling feels so much better) and, if at all possible, same HDR capabilities, or at least truer blacks. And preferably also glossy finish.
      • throwaway684936 5y ago
        Unfortunately, Apple uses Thunderbolt, and they're the only ones who do 5k/6k. We absolutely have the bandwidth for 5k120 over DisplayPort, but Apple insists on sticking to Thunderbolt.
        • opan 5y ago
          I thought thunderbolt used DP for video.
          • DiabloD3 5y ago
            Thunderbolt doesn't use DP for video when in Thunderbolt mode.
• thangalin 5y ago
  > affordable large monitor with 120Hz refresh rate This year, I went through four different monitors to find one that works. Stay away from IPS panels, they all suffer from "IPS glow", which is visible when using high contrast colours (i.e., a bright window on a dark desktop background will blast a translucent white "overlay" above and below the window). "Smart" 4K TVs are untrustworthy, IMO (e.g., Samsung is known for spying/spyware and inopportune ads, making them a hard pass). The ROG STRIX XG43UQ was the only display I could find that runs at 120 Hz, works with a KVM switch (IOGEAR 2-Port 4K DP), has a 16:9 aspect ratio, offers 4K resolution, uses a VESA 100 adapter, and is suitable for programming. The OS must be instructed to render using BGR instead of RGB, which Linux supports. The panel has some subtle horizontal glow in rare high-contrast situations, but it's nowhere as noticeable as IPS panels. Depending on your definition of affordable, it runs for about $1,300. https://rog.asus.com/ca-en/monitors/above-34-inches/rog-strix-xg43uq-model/ https://rog.asus.com/ca-en/monitors/above-34-inches/rog-stri...
  • mnkmnk 5y ago
    I can get a 2021 65 inch Samsung qled tv for $1k and it has 100% dci-p3 coverage compared to 90% of the monitor, has HDR and 120Hz refresh rate, has usable speakers, has a good remote to control it and is larger and cheaper. I don’t know the numbers, but I bet the contrast would also be better on the TV.
    • threeseed 5y ago
      On any Mac you won't be able to get 4K 120Hz if that TV just has HDMI. It only works on monitors/TVs that support DisplayPort.
    • opencl 5y ago
      Does the 4K 120Hz actually work properly? There are a lot of TVs that claim to support 4K 120Hz but actually display the signal at half vertical resolution as 3840x1080.
• ptero 5y ago
  My main monitor is Dell u3014, 60Hz. I had a Dell 3008 at work and replaced it with 3017 when it died, so I had this tech for over 10 years both at home and at work. What am I missing with 60Hz compared to 120Hz? Honest question. When I look at friends' office setups with latest curved 4k (or now 8k) monitors I do not see anything that I like more than my current monitor, so while we are generally not limited in workstation or monitor options at work I see no reason to upgrade.
  • Macha 5y ago
    Honestly for office worker/programming/professional use, high refresh rate doesn't make much difference. It's neat that windows are more legible while dragging or curse movement looks smoother, but I wouldn't buy high refresh rate if I wasn't also a gamer
  • Stevvo 5y ago
    If you don't feel you are missing anything without 120hz then don't try it. Once you go back to 60Hz you feel as soon as you move the mouse cursor; you can never be content at 60 again.
• kurthr 5y ago
  I assume you're looking for an LCD monitor... not OLED or something novel. I'm not sure why you would want 120Hz, that seems like the only challenge to a competative price. Most LCD materials have long response times (>5ms) so they tend to blur at high refresh rates. High refresh rates at high resolution are also a challenge and thus higher cost. If you're looking for 4k, it's also worth noting that most non-premium TVs will use 2subpixel (RGBG rather than RGBRGB) rendering for higher brightness ans lower cost whereas most monitors will use 3. There are also economies of scale to much larger glass >40" which aren't usually seen in monitors. I am surprised how relatively poor the color matching on many monitors is, however.
• bsder 5y ago
  The problem is that the monitors are only about gaming. In particular, I find the "1440" Y dimension resolution particularly infuriating. Yeah, I know the reason is that modern games make all the graphic cards left over that aren't being used for crypto die in horrible flaming balls of heat when you actually ask them to ... you know ... actually use the pixels on your monitor. GASP! The Horror! So, how can we fix this? I know! Let's make sure the monitors don't have enough pixels to cause the graphics cards grief. Brilliant!
  • Macha 5y ago
    1440p (and by extension 5k) have advantages from a productivity point of view too. In my experience, no OS really consistently supports fractional scaling, so if you want a good time you want to run at 1x or 2x. In terms of how much "stuff" you can fit onto a screen at a comfortable size on modern monitor sizes, that means you'll end up using 1x for 1080p/1440p and 2x for 4k/5k. 1440p@1x or 5k@2k let you fit more than 1080p@1x or 4k@2x while feeling plenty large enough with modern application design on a typical (24/27 inch) sized display.
• thrwawy283 5y ago
  The thing that really bothers me are all these "AI" technologies in my new LG oled tv that don't actually get used. All of them to reduce "crushed" images, correct color, improve blurriness in motion scenes, etc are only used when not using HDMI/PC hookup. My feeling is they're used when viewing things streamed on Netflix/Hulu/HBOMax/etc. But I spend most of my time using the TV as a computer monitor. I'm in a niche group, but this was my only option for large-format oled. I wish they did more with HDMI, even though HDMI is being phased out. I want to hook up my computer and have the computer gain an ethernet link from the TV, even though the TV is wirelessly connected to my router. The TV should be a "dock" that includes a 2nd monitor. I have a wireless controller reciever plugged into the USB port on the TV. I want that to give input to my computer from it. I also want my computer to charge while being hooked up to my TV. I think the only answer is this TV should have type-c and do all those things as a dock, but it's frustrating that we're 1 step behind. I wish I could watch a program, while showing my computer hdmi input picture-in-picture. Hell this thing has 4 HDMI inputs on the back, let me do each input to a quarter of the screen. Another niche use.. Don't even get me started on the ads. Doesn't make sense to keep the TV on when my computer is locked for long periods of time, so I generally come back, turn on the TV, and unlock the computer. First thing I see is fucking ads. Takes 2 clicks on the remote to dismiss but it colors my experience that they're always pushing another $30 or $40/month service when I first see things onscreen. They know you can't get this quality elsewhere so they're happy to push you ads. And the telemetry, my god. It's my $3k TV! Most TVs are still waiting to support the next hdmi standard so you can do 120fps & hdr simultaneously. The 2 things that did impress me were this LG tv supporting both Miracast and Airplay with /no/ hoops to jump through. It just worked. I do wish I could "cast" things to the TV, and that's like pushing a link to it where the TV navigates to that stream and plays. No other device has to stream or push the video to the TV, it does it itself in the Chomecast paradigm. That would be nice. </rambling>
  • brokenmachine 5y ago
    The new LG C2 OLEDS have PIP. It's demonstrated in this video https://youtu.be/FrVJLlzQcQw https://youtu.be/FrVJLlzQcQw Even my 2017 C7 has it, but it's pretty clunky - no overlay and only two small screens next to each other, and it's pretty slow to enter/leave that mode as well, maybe 3s of black screen before it enters or exits that mode (I think it's called multi-display). I wouldn't use it, but it's there. Personally I don't want the TV companies experimenting with more networking options, because I know they'd only use it for evil.