Thoughts on monitors? Supersize me.

I keep eyeing the 27" iMac, simply for its beautiful and HUGE display. However, I'm pretty deep into the PC world, and I have a pretty nice purpose built PC, with huge storage, lots of ram, great video card, you get the idea.
So I've been eyeballing some of the monitors out there, and obviously, I've been looking at big ones.... 27". Then it occured to me, a 32" 'TV' is in the same price range... I've been gravitating towards the idea of one huge monitor, instead of 2 smaller ones.
I've read the praises of the IPS monitors and frankly, I'm just not going to drink the koolaid. I beleive in choosing a monitor, calibrating it and using it.
Having said that, the point of this post is this question: As tech improves, How closes are 'tv' monitors getting to the detail and performance to pc 'monitors'? What specs would be the important details to pay attention to when looking at monitors? it seems both 'tv's and monitors are using vga, HDMI and DVI connectivity.
Help me understand why I shouldn't use a 32" Samsung LED or similar, for editing?

Regards, -Todd-

I tried this. The television is made to be viewed from a distance, so if you are sitting right in front of it on your desk it looks terrible. I had a monitor and the 32" television connected to the same PC, and I had to put the television further away than the monitor for the best view. I now have a smaller HDTV connected to my PC with two monitors and it's a much better experience.

The physical size of a monitor is not whats important, how much you can fit on it, and how much detail you can see in an image depends on its resolution.

My 27inch Dell has a resolution of 2560 x 1440.
My 42inch TV has a resolution of 1920 x 1080.

That that means is when I open light room, I can view the image in more detail and still have room for the adjustment panels etc around the edge of the image.

Get the Dell U3011...It's gorgeous and the resolution is positively ridiculous! (2560x1600)

I used to use a TV and all I can say is don't do it. They are not made to truly be used for PC monitors nor do they calibrate well. Just upgraded to the Dell and it is fantastic

Drink the Koolaid. Seriously, panel type does make a difference. What's the use in calibrating a panel that won't hold/achieve decent calibration and looks different if you tilt it/ your head 10 degrees?

I use my Samsung LCD TV as, well, a TV/to share pictures on, and it looks OK, but it does not in any way, shape or form even remotely resemble an 'accurate' monitor suitable for editing. Leaving aside the fact it has absurdly low resolution for a monitor that size, further decreasing it's usefulness. And we're not even talking about evenness of lighting/colour yet.

Get the Dell U2711. 27", sweet spot in terms of pricing/size, high res, IPS panel, not stupid expensive, if you want a big monitor. I'll be buying one with the next paycheck

Panel type does matter. Yes, there are decent TN (cheap) panels out there, the thing is it's impossible to identify them without looking at them first, and the best of them still don't compare to PVA or IPS. Also, I'm pretty sure all decent TVs use IPS...

The difference between a TV and a monitor is the resolution. Size isn't everything, on a TV everything is larger so you're not actually fitting any more content compared to a 24" monitor.

If you don't want to spend $1000 on an Apple 27, buy the HP ZR2740w. Same panel and LED backlight, just cheaper.

I don't know of any TV, decent or not, that uses IPS panels, unfortunately. That's one of the biggest reasons to not use the TVs for photo editing that I've found.

And there you have it folks:

TVs have bigger pixels, made for viewing from farther away.

Monitors have more pixels, for viewing more overall, and those pixels are small, for viewing close.

SVG, IPS colors and brightness don't change much with different viewing angles.

Quiz: who edits photos on the screens in Times Square?

Show of hands: Who'd do it (once), just because, if they could? <hand up>

toxic wrote in post #13908604
If you don't want to spend $1000 on an Apple 27, buy the HP ZR2740w. Same panel and LED backlight, just cheaper.

The New Apple displays are Thunderbolt only.
I've yet to see any Thunderbolt enabled graphics cards, except on Macs.

Snydremark wrote in post #13909166
Show of hands: Who'd do it (once), just because, if they could? <hand up>

What, and have everyone see my un-edited images??

Another vote for the Dell u2711.

I only got it yesterday after my cheap 6 yr old 2nd monitor gave up the ghost.

My previous main monitor (Dell u2410) is now my secondary and the u2711 my main.

The are both great monitors but the u2711 shades it in terms of colour and absolutely kicks the 2410 into the middle of last week when it comes to resolution.

Don't think about it - just go and buy it, you won't be dissapointed.

Moppie wrote in post #13909187
The New Apple displays are Thunderbolt only. I've yet to see any Thunderbolt enabled graphics cards, except on Macs.

The Thunderbolt port is a modified Mini DisplayPort, so if you have MDP, DP, DVI or HDMI (1920x1200 only) then you just need a cable with that plug on one end and a MDP connector on the other.

Guys, thanks for the reminder that RESOLUTION is the reason not to use 'tv' monitors. 1080 is the max I've seen avail in that genre.

Regards,


-Todd-

TVs are very low resolution. Get a monitor.

Tony-S wrote in post #13909545
The Thunderbolt port is a modified Mini DisplayPort, so if you have MDP, DP, DVI or HDMI (1920x1200 only) then you just need a cable with that plug on one end and a MDP connector on the other.

Nope.

The signal passed down the cable is different, you need a graphics card which will out put the video signal in the thunderbolt format.
Currently only the iMacs and Mac Books will do this, there are as yet, no cards for Windows based machines that will work (or even Mac Pros).