That keeps pricing down and it’s arguably fine for watching TV and playing console games.
The small TV market, meanwhile, is dominated by 1080p sets.
It’s not exactly cheap at $500, but a reasonable option if you want full smart TV functionality in a compact package. The Samsung Q50R is a 32-inch TV with full 4K resolution. In other form factors, you can have anything from 3,440 by 1,440 pixels to 5,120 by 2,160. You can have anything from 1080p to 1440p and 4K from just a 27-inch 16:9 aspect ratio monitor, let alone other shapes and sizes. One area where monitors offer far more choice is resolution. Long story short, proper HDR performance remains out of reach on small TVs and most monitors. But these are extremely expensive displays costing upwards of $1,000 / £1,000.
Some of the very latest high-end PC monitors, such as the Asus ROG Swift PG32UQX, have mini-LED backlights with thousands of dimming zones. In both cases, they’re not very bright and lack local dimming. The same applies to most so-called HDR monitors, which tend to be VESA DisplayHDR 400 certified. In the TV market up to 32 inches, few if any sets offer true HDR performance courtesy of local dimming. So in practice, it’s LCD versus LCD – just remember that TVs and monitors sold as ‘LED’ models are actually LCD displays with LED backlights. For starters, there are almost no OLED monitors and equally few small TVs with OLED panels. All of which begs the question of how TVs and monitors compare when it comes to HDR. It’s all a bit of a moving target as OLED panels get brighter and LCD screens improve their contrast and low-light performance. In terms of panel technology, OLED displays are better at rendering darker elements, while the best LCD panels are superior when it comes to hitting those eye-popping peaks. If that’s the idea, the reality is more complicated. In its simplest sense, an HDR display can show both very bright and very dark image elements at the same time and without compressing any details.
It’s a minefield of competing standards, of confusing and sometimes misleading claims. HDR or high dynamic range rendering has to be the trickiest current display technology. (Image credit: Samsung) Which one does better HDR? If a TV uses an IPS panel, it’s probably RGB, while a VA panel could be either RGB or BGR – but as TV makers don’t always list sub-pixel information, this can be much harder to discern with small TVs than with PC monitors. Many TVs also use RGB, but some stick with BGR (blue, then green and then red), and it means computing applications and browsers largely aren’t ideal – while more complex RBGW systems found on some TVs also tend to reduce detail and sharpness. That’s because operating systems like Windows rely on sub-pixel structure to render fonts accurately and smoothly.
The most common structure is known as RGB, which indicates red, green and blue subpixels in that order.Īlmost all PC monitors are RGB – indeed, for computing, anything other than standard RGB is a problem. Each and every pixel on any full-colour display is made up of a number of sub-pixels. (Image credit: Samsung) The difference in the sub-pixelsĪ less discussed and yet critical issue involving the comparison between TVs and monitors is sub-pixel structure.
However, not all PC games work well with ultra-wide monitors and console gaming support is very limited indeed. They can also add immersion for certain gaming scenarios like driving games and adventure titles. Wider panels can be great for multi-tasking when computing, for instance viewing multiple web pages or documents side by side. For watching video and playing most games, 16:9 remains the best overall compromise.
Monitors, meanwhile, are available in a much broader array of form factors.ġ6:9 is still the most popular aspect ratio – meaning that, for every 16 pixels along the horizontal axis of the display, there are nine pixels along the vertical – but 21:9 and even 32:9 monitors like the monstrous Samsung Odyssey Neo G9 are available, plus a few oddball panels with taller ratios like 3:2 including the Huawei MateView. Pretty much all TVs are 16:9 aspect ratio, matching the format of typical TV content, though films tend to be wider still. Of course, sheer scale is just one aspect, and shape is quite another. If you want a really high-quality small display, a monitor is your best bet. Still, smaller TVs do tend to be lower-end models with limited features and spec.