Am I the only one here who uses a TV for gaming? I use 2 22" monitors for productive tasks, but when it comes to gaming I'd much rather plug my PC into a my 32" 1080p Samsung TV. What I'd like to know is why people pay, say £500+ for a 27" monitor when you could just buy a £200 32" TV? I've googled this but can't really get a clear answer.
Smiffydude is under selling it a bit. Dedicated monitors, especially IPS panels have superior clarity. Also, televisions have terrible, terrible refresh rates that leave you with a massive disadvantage in pretty much any scenario. We're not kidding, a decent monitor does look just that good. If you played a game on a nice monitor, you'd never think about using a television again.
Gaming on a good quality big TV is great. But it's great as a second screen for games/media. For dual use on a PC a proper monitor is pretty much necessary in my opinion. I don't know if there are exceptions at top end but in my experience using a TV as a monitor makes for a low quality and fatiguing experience.
I was gonna say, input lag has meant I've never gotten invested in TV gaming. Even for consoles, I plug them into a monitor if it's convenient. After sucking at Guitar Hero for ages I eventually realised that half of what I was struggling with was teaching my brain to work around the input lag. I was always better at console games on a CRT for this reason - lag free. The main thing is picture quality - those really cheap TVs have terrible colour, black levels, contrast and generally look like a pile of ****. Sometimes I go round to peoples' houses and their TVs make me realise how much I'm spoiling myself. I spend as much on a 24" monitor as they do on a 42" TV, but the picture quality I'm getting is ridiculously better. TVs and monitors are basically the same thing. If you spend a lot on a TV you can get monitor-quality picture and response times, and if you go cheap enough you can get monitors that perform as badly as cheap TVs. The markets are just focused differently: there are a lot of good monitors because there's a demand for good monitors, and a lot of cheap (crap) TVs because there's a demand for cheap TVs. For the same size, quality and performance, I would imagine they're actually pretty similar prices (haven't checked either market in a couple of years). If I wanted to get a TV with the same image quality as my monitor I'd have to spend big money, which is the main reason I still haven't. (It's on the list, because situationally gaming on a TV is much more pleasant than sitting 2 feet from a monitor).
Depends on cost of both, sub £200 both are cheap and not a lot dif to one or the other. Hit £400 and you would notice the differences in quality not so much refresh rate. Most low budget TVs do 60hz with 8ms in gamer mode or whatever they call it. Personally racing games and sports games feel better on a 42inch TV than they ever will on a 24-28inch monitor. Just due to the nature of the game. Feels a more immersive experience than a monitor can provide. A lot of that is because you typically sit 30-40 cms from a monitor and 2-3 meters from a TV.
I used to think image quality, but it's no longer the case. Apart from the colours being slightly off compared to my calibrated IPS U2711, the colours on my Samsung 55F8000 actually looks better for those less colourful games. Sound is another win for gaming on the TV. The Yamaha soundbar is so much clearer than the Logitech 5.1 I have. But the monitor always wins at sitting position. A TV is too big to be positioned on one's desk. It's often not possible to have a desk in the middle of living room for keyboard/mouse. Also social reasons: TV is often used by other member of the family. The desktop computer is usually not shared. But end of the day, I'm comparing top of the range TV and soundbar against a 5 year old monitor and a computer speaker system. I'd expect different outcome if I spend similar amount on the latest G-sync/Freesync 144Hz IPS monitor and a set of audiophile full range speaker. So as mentioned in this thread, it all depends on how much you spend, you can't hope to compare a £200 monitor against your £600 TV.
Thanks for the replies everyone, I do feel as though I'm missing out. I'd like to get a 4k 40" monitor but I can't justify paying £700~ for one just yet. I'm hoping the price of the more premium monitors such as this will drop to a figure I could afford this year.
Good 30 inch PC monitors have been £500+ for a while. Can't see a 40inch 4k ever been cheaper than £500-£600 for good quality one. The cheapest tv 4k I've seen does not look too much better than a 1080p screen in the stores I saw it and that was £512 in deals.
