4k Monitor: does it make sense?

[palimmo]

Hi,
I'm going to buy a new monitor (something between 27' and 31') soon.
It will be used mainly connected to my laptop to stream movies and do sometimes office stuffs. I am not a gamer or graphic editor.

a) Does it make sense to spend more and buy a 4k monitor over a 1080p? (budget: max. 250€)
Is the difference on a 27'-31' monitor watching full screen movies (ca. 2m away from the screen) noticeable?

b) Right now I do not think many stream services or tv channels provide a 4k resolution. Will it be in the near future?

c) My actual laptop probably doesn't even have enough resources to stream 4k. Am I wrong?

Code: Select all

Machine:
  Type: Laptop System: Packard Bell product: EasyNote TJ65 v: 0100 
  serial: <filter> 
  Mobo: Packard Bell model: SJV50MV v: Rev serial: <filter> BIOS: Phoenix 
  v: 1.28 date: 10/06/2009 
Battery:
  ID-1: BAT0 charge: 2.6 Wh condition: 2.8/48.6 Wh (6%) 
  model: Panasonic AS09A51 status: Unknown 
CPU:
  Topology: Dual Core model: Pentium T4300 bits: 64 type: MCP arch: Penryn 
  rev: A L2 cache: 1024 KiB 
  flags: lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 ssse3 bogomips: 8378 
  Speed: 1197 MHz min/max: 1200/2100 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 1582 2: 1719 
Graphics:
  Device-1: NVIDIA G98M [GeForce G 105M] vendor: Acer Incorporated ALI 
  driver: nvidia v: 340.107 bus ID: 01:00.0 
  Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.19.6 driver: nvidia 
  unloaded: fbdev,modesetting,nouveau,vesa 
  resolution: 1920x1080~60Hz, 1366x768~60Hz 
  OpenGL: renderer: GeForce G 105M/PCIe/SSE2 v: 3.3.0 NVIDIA 340.107 
  direct render: Yes 
Audio:
  Device-1: Intel 82801I HD Audio vendor: Acer Incorporated ALI 
  driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus ID: 00:1b.0 
  Sound Server: ALSA v: k4.15.0-55-generic 
Network:
  Device-1: Broadcom and subsidiaries NetLink BCM5784M Gigabit Ethernet PCIe 
  vendor: Acer Incorporated ALI driver: tg3 v: 3.137 port: 2000 
  bus ID: 02:00.0 
  IF: enp2s0 state: down mac: <filter> 
  Device-2: Qualcomm Atheros AR928X Wireless Network Adapter vendor: Lite-On 
  driver: ath9k v: kernel port: 2000 bus ID: 03:00.0 
  IF: wlp3s0 state: up mac: <filter> 
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 298.09 GiB used: 108.19 GiB (36.3%) 
  ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: Western Digital model: WD3200BEVT-22ZCT0 
  size: 298.09 GiB 
Partition:
  ID-1: / size: 9.90 GiB used: 7.37 GiB (74.5%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda8 
  ID-2: swap-1 size: 3.96 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) fs: swap dev: /dev/sda7 
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 65.0 C mobo: 65.0 C gpu: nvidia temp: 66 C 
  Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A 
Info:
  Processes: 166 Uptime: 26m Memory: 3.85 GiB used: 1.02 GiB (26.5%) 
  Init: systemd runlevel: 5 Compilers: gcc: 7.4.0 Shell: bash v: 4.4.20 
  inxi: 3.0.32 

d) Soon I'll buy a new laptop as well. What should I pay attention to?

e) HDMI 2.0: does it make a substantial difference over 1.4? Should I avoid monitors with only 1.4 HDMI?

Thanks!

[trytip]

no point in using a 4K TV/Monitor if your videos are not 4K. do you have enough bandwidth to play a 4k video? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXb3EKWsInQ <<< this is COSTA RICA IN 4K 60fps HDR (ULTRA HD) you'll need to change to 4k (2160p60) in the youtube controls

my ryzen3 and internet struggle with 4k on youtube. plust not all youtube is in 4k yet and most older videos will be transfered to 4k but it will not be trueHD

[carum carvi]

Dont do it. For the money you have to spent you will only be able to spent a 4K monitor with 30Hz instead of 60Hz. Of course they wont tell you about this troublesome fact in the store and neither on the shiny 4K websites. The troublesome difference between 60Hz or 30Hz is that the latter 30Hz will give you moving pictures that are constantly stuttering / not fluent. I have seen it and it is incredibly annoying. Many people complain about it, who bought a cheap 4K monitor.

Furthermore you will need a really powerful laptop and an expensive internet connection to run 4K smoothly. This means you gotta spent even more bucks than you were planning to.

And last but not least, when your monitor is the size of 27 to 31 inch I wouldnt bother at all. Wait 5 years. Everything will be 4K then and all the new average/cheap computers will probably be able to run it smoothly as well.

You gotta understand that the power of Linux is in making old hardware valuable and snappy and fast again. Linux does not support the newest hardware very well and you can get great beautiful 1080p pictures for practically no money with an average monitor and an old computer.

4K is gorgeous, I really love the looks. But dont fall into the cheap bargain trap and buy a 4K monitor that gives you non fluent 30 Hz pictures...

[athi]

IMO given the limitation of human vision, 4K is marketing hype. To the human eyes, once the pixel get below a certain size, it all looks the same. I have a 15" laptop with 1920x1200 resolution and I find that to be difficult to use, much less 4K with even smaller pixels. That is why many O/S now have a scaling option to make things bigger for comfortable viewing. IMO refresh rate, viewing angle, black level is more important once pixel size get to a certain limit.

[Hoser Rob]

Is the difference on a 27'-31' monitor watching full screen movies (ca. 2m away from the screen) noticeable?

No, This is the silliest part of 4K video. You'd need an enormous screen even at 2M.

4K video is HEVC format whereas BluRays are AVC. HEVC is a mch better codec and that's why 4K looks sharper, not the resolution.

[palimmo]

Are these 2 options worthwhile?

HP 27fw silber/weiß Monitor (1920x1080/16:9/5ms/2x HDMI /1x VGA/AMD FreeSync) 159€
https://cdn.expert.de/e6/60/78/3688afa4 ... 109591.pdf


ACER Nitro RG270bmiix Gaming-Monitor (1920x1080/IPS/1ms/75 HZ/2x HDMI/Zero Frame/Freesync/Lautsprecher) 179€
https://cdn.expert.de/59/a3/4b/b473ed85 ... 104530.pdf

[carum carvi]

They wont be able to depict 4K resolution, but if you are asking if those monitors are ok for displaying HD, then yes they would do fine, because all monitors nowadays will play 1080p pictures perfectly.

At that average price range of 200 euro you will get a decent monitor. Dont expect greatness and dont expect many (future) connections to be present, nor expect a dead pixel guarantee etc, but my previous monitor was in that price range as well and it did fine for 10 years.

There are lots of great quality Hifi / Video test magazines in Germany. Even online you will be able to find great reviews of tv / monitor displays. I always check certain test sites before I buy a monitor to check online which monitor has won an award, 2 years previous, and then I buy it for a reduced price. Have fun choosing. I am curious to know which one you are going to buy

[everwisher]

In my case 4k makes great sense because my eyes were quite fit with Apple retina devices long before I switch back to desktop with Linux distros. Well, if you just aims at video then probably you won't gain a much improved experience since 1080p videos are crystal clear if their encoding quality is greater than mainline H264. However, differences transcend human imagination for vectors by which I mean applications like reading or creating vector graphics or GAMING.

I have two self made 4k monitors using LG LM270WR5-SSA1 panel which is the same as the one in Dell UltraSharp U2718Q. They offer IPS panel with 10bit color HDR and generate gorgeous pictures at half the Dell price!