Monitor or tv?

[sabriah]

I am thinking of buying a new monitor for my desktop but have not decided yet if I will buy a true computer monitor with 1920x1200 or a tv with 1900x1080p.

Has anyone tried a tv and been satisfied with that? What is the main difference?

I'm thinking of something like 26-27" for $300-500.

As I work a lot in spreadsheets the extra vertical pixels may well be the deciding point. But otherwise, what would you recommend and why?

Thanks for your views!

[chithanh]

If you buy a TV as computer monitor replacement you should inform yourself well (or better test in a shop with the desired model).

A number of TVs have permanently enabled overscan, others apply "enhancements" to the picture which will make movies look better but cause artifacts for computer desktop use. Then the delay for this processing can also amount to a noticeable length of time.

And some TVs (but this applies mostly to older models) cannot be driven at their native resolution through all inputs.

[LightningCrash]

These are 23" but have a lot of pixels for the money:
Dell SP2309W
Acer B233HU bmidhz

Both are 2048x1152 and under $250.

Hard to go wrong there.

[droidhacker]

I would seriously stick with a proper monitor.

The extra-wide aspect ratio of a TV really messes with you on a computer. At work recently, I requested an upgrade to dual displays.... they gave me two monitors, but tv-aspect-ratio and 1920x1080. It sucks! You really miss the extra 120 pixels.

[kazetsukai]

@chithanh: Alot of cheapo TVs have perm. overscan, but generally they have workarounds or a "full screen" solution as well.

It really depends what you are doing with it. Reading and general computer use is best left to a smaller monitor with higher DPI. IF you're into multimedia or gaming, the bigger the better, and for the most part the content is designed to "scale" to TV resolutions anyway.

[sabriah]

Thank you for your replies. It will probably be a proper WUXGA monitor as WUXGA won't ruin my eyes going away from my ten year old 1600x1200 CRT monitor to a measly 1080...

The WUXGA gives me an extra 320 pixels on the sides, and stays the same verically. Here is the monster graph for all screen sizes:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e5/Vector_Video_Standards2.svg

It is in .svg format and best viewed in Linux and/or Firefox as it is an international WW3 standard and therefore probably not compatible with anything from Bill Haley and the Comets.

Hmmmm. Everything else in the tech market has improved. My ten year old CRT outshines some fancy new monitors, even if it does now show some horizontal striping across the screen. Technology improves, but, pixels numbers decrease...