tl;dr: if you yearn for monitor resolution, have I got a deal for you! <http://forums.redflagdeals.com/real-canadian-superstore-rcss-haier-uhd-4k-tv-43-55-298-468-no-tax-june-24th-2096245/>
I use a cheap and nasty 39" UltraHD TV as my desktop monitor. I am very happy with the experience. Real Canadian Superstore is selling 43" UltraHD TVs for $298 + EHF but with HST already included in that price ($263.72 before taxes). I expect that it is a better TV than my 3 year old 39". I imagine 43" is a good size for a desktop monitor, but I'm not sure. I'm happy with 39" - I can view it at monitor-distance (25"? I haven't measured) and see text on it at normal pixels/character - I don't get whiplash looking around on my screen (but I do have glasses dedicated to this task -- a great investment) - it fits on my desk - it has multiple inputs so I can connect several computers at once There are flaws with my monitor. At full resolution (the only one I every use) it only refreshes at 30Hz. I don't find that bad (I don't game) but I think that the 43" monitor does not have this limitation. Many TV sets do "chroma sub-sampling" <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chroma_subsampling> This means that the colour (not brightness) on adjacent pixels is not totally independant. My monitor uses 4:2:2 sampling and that creates "artifacts" in some cases. I really dislike this in theory but I have rarely found it to be a problem. I have no idea what chroma subsampling, if any, the 43" TV does. I would guess 4:2:2. I expect to replace my TV when a cheap one comes out with HDR (High Dynamic Range) and no chroma subsampling. TV sets don't have DisplayPort inputs. Too bad. HDMI has struggled to keep up with the bandwidth of UltraHD. My TV's 30Hz limitation came from that (the HDMI standard has since been upgraded). Not all video cards can handle this. Nouveau doesn't drive my monitor properly so I'm using the proprietary nvidia driver. Nouveau may have been fixed but I only test every year or so. I don't have a powerful enough ATI card to test. I haven't tried Intel GPUs. --- Talk Mailing List talk@gtalug.org https://gtalug.org/mailman/listinfo/talk