Hi guys,
Looking to get a 32" monitor which i'll be using just for movies and a bit of facebook. I'm hooking it up to my laptop which can output at 1440p however i'm not sure if 1080p is a better choice since all the media i watch is in 720p/1080p and none of it is in 1440p. Would 1080p content still look better upscaled to 1440p?
Cheers,
1080p or 1440p 32" monitor
ClintonL on 12/09/2017 - 10:04
Comments
A 1080p monitor will be cheaper, require less GPU power to drive and if the content you are watching is 1080p it wont be "upscaled", it will just be stretched at the expense of quality. Focus on a good branded IPS monitor & dont worry about more than 60 Hz.
If it's really is primarily movies then I'd just be buying a cheap 32"+ LCD TV and hooking it up through HDMI.
If you are using it for Facebook, desktop browsing etc then definitely go the 1440p. It will look much better
I use a 27" monitor at 1080p for content watching, I have to admit its pretty poor for basic web browsing/ computer tasks when put next to a 24" or 21.5" 1080p simply because the pixels are more spread out and the 27" looks less clear. Having said that, if your mainly doing movies and a bit of facebooking on the side, the 1080p is gonna be fine and plus miles cheaper than the 1440p.
Or get a 4k TV with chroma 4:4:4. Probably end up cheaper and better looking anyways.
I've got a HP Omen 32 which is a 1440p 32" monitor and I am pretty happy with it (Now if only I could find a Vega 56 for less than my first born child to be able to play games on it properly). I can't say I've noticed any issues with scaling 1080p content to it. 720p content will have no scaling issues at all as 1440 is just 2x the width and 2x the height of a 720p screen so it scales perfectly. Scaling isn't really a huge issue for this kind of stuff. It'll be similar to when you use a 720p video on a 1080p screen as they do not scale easily.
I personally went a 1440p screen as I felt that 1080p would look a bit average and I already use 2 27" 1440p monitors at work and wanted more screen real-estate on my home setup.
One thing to check is what refresh rate can your laptop do at 1440p. 30Hz doesn't look as great as 60Hz and you will notice the mouse jerk around the screen instead of flow.
As for the 32" TV instead of a monitor I wouldn't recommend it personally. TV's especially cheap ones can make pretty horrible monitors for a number of reasons.
1 - Scaling - TV's often have overscan which means it will trim some of the signal off. You won't notice this while watching TV but it will often make things look terrible on a computer or just annoy you that it ate part of the start bar.
2 - Image Tuning - While great for making your DTV look acceptably not terrible and movies look pretty good this often tends to make colours from the computer look off or sharpness applied to the image just looks terrible. Definitely crank down sharpness.
3 - Input lag - Not a priority on a TV as you don't care that it takes quite a while to process your image and sound as long as they both arrive at the same time. It may annoy you when using it as a monitor and you feel like you are leading the mouse around on a leash.
The higher the resolution, the better.