You may have observed that the smart TVs these days are pretty similar to the PC Monitors in terms of design and features.
I mean, they are slim display devices that either put on the top of a table or mounted on a wall.
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The Smart TVs and Monitors both have got similar kind of input slots, such as USB and HDMI, and above all, they both are advertised as per their display resolution.
Although HD, Full HD, 4K terms are used for TVs while, for Monitors, it’s usually exact resolution capacity in pixels, such as 1280×720, 1980×1080, and 3840×2160, which is HD, Full HD, 4K are respectively.
You are not alone who gets curious weather Smart TVs can be used as monitors or vice versa when it comes to finding the exact answer.
Because mostly the companies that manufacture TVs are also the ones that produce Monitors. Samsung and LG being the top ones.
The simple answer is, smart TVs can very much be used as Monitors, because of the fact they have got HDMI support, so you can connect your laptop or PC using HDMI cable. But there is more to it then just HDMI support.
Things you should look for before buying a Smart TV as a Monitor
Because the use case of TVs and Monitors is different, and you are most likely to browse web pages and do other stuff that requires you to look at the text when you are using your computer.
Chroma 444 support
In that case, using a PC as the monitor can be a little tricky, because the text wouldn’t be as clear as it would be on a monitor specially designed to render web pages and other computer-related tasks.
This is because of the lack of support of Chroma 444 in TVs, which won’t allow it to render text clearly. It is more complicated than that, but in Plain English, if a TV does not have Chrome 444 support, you won’t be able to view text clearly on it, making it unusable as a monitor.
For example, when I tried using in old Samsung Smart TV, which is full HD, the text wasn’t clear enough, because it does not support Chroma 444.
But since it was a 32-inch smart TV with full HD resolution of 1920×1080, the text was big enough to be readable.
But there is no point in using a 32-inch or a giant smart TV having full HD resolution because the amount of space (which is 1920×1080 pixels) will be the same as on a 22-inch for a 24-inch monitor.
To truly benefit from a larger-inch screen, the smart TV needs to be a 4k TV, which would have a resolution of 3840×2160 pixels, which is four times the pixels of a standard full HD monitor.
But when I tried using 43-inch 4k TV from Xiaomi as a monitor, with both Windows 10 as well as MacBook Pro, the text was pretty blurry in 3840×2160 pixels resolution.
Because the Mi TV 4X series from Xiaomi does not support Chroma 444.
I confirmed this with the customer support from your made self, as mentioned in the screenshot below.
But the good thing is, there are Smart TVs available in the market that support Chrome 444. The popular one among them is from Samsung.
There are a handful of Smart TVs from Samsung that has a dedicated feature of using TVs as monitors.
Response time
They are also things like responsive time, which doesn’t matter a lot when it is higher in number on TVs, but for monitors, it has to be as less as possible.
You can find monitors in the market that come with a response time of 1ms to 5ms, while TVs have a response time of 5ms, and some TVs even have 25ms.
You must know the response time of a TV if you are planning to use it as a monitor because the 25ms is going to give you a terrible experience when you are using it as a monitor.
It will show you a huge lag when you input something on your computer, and it displays on the monitor 25ms later, so the less response time, the better.
Size of Smart TV for Monitor
The question for you is, what size would you prefer to use as a monitor, mostly the 4K TVs coming in the market are in the size of 40-inch, 43inch, 50-inch and so on.
For me, the 43-inch was also pretty huge, and I don’t think it would be humanly possible to use a monitor bigger than that if you are planning to put it on a desk 2 to 3 feet away from you.
Also, going for a 4K TV, which is smaller than 32-inch, wouldn’t be ideal to use as a monitor since the text would be too small to be readable.
For comparison, the text on web pages on a 43-inch 4K resolution looks similar to the size of text on web pages on a 22-inch monitor.
So I think if you can handle 43-inch, it would be the sweet spot for choosing a smart TV to use as a monitor, but if it’s too big for you, you can go for a 32-inch smart TV, but again finding a 4K 32-inch smart TV would be a little tricky.
And if you are in the market for buying any monitor for your PC, there are 32-inch 4K monitors available that do not cost a bomb.
A Smart TV is not ideal as a Monitor in the following use cases
As we mentioned, the things you should consider looking for when buying a smart TV to use as a monitor, there are still a few use cases where it is not recommended to use a Smart TV as Monitor.
If you are a graphic designer
You should probably invest in a good monitor that has been calibrated for color correction so that you get to see the actual colors you would want in your graphic design.
TVs are not made for that, and are pretty bad at rendering colors, even after color calibration.
If you are a gamer
Buying a smart TV to use as a monitor for gaming is also not recommended, mainly because of the response time and also because of the refresh rate.
Response time of 5ms to 8ms doesn’t matter a lot if you have to do browsing or want to create content, but it is still a lot if you are into gaming.
Even budget monitors are not recommended for gaming, and you should always go for monitors with low response time and high refresh rate.
Mostly all the TV is have got 60Hz refresh rate, but for gaming, there are dedicated monitors available that have got a refresh rate of as much as 120Hz, and also they come with Freesync 2 technology or G-Sync technology and that makes a considerable difference
So, Smart TV or Monitor?
There is a reason why monitors are a little expensive than smart TVs, but if your use case is not similar to what is mentioned above, you will be ok with a smart TV as a monitor if you to look for the things mentioned in the article above.
While researching for myself, I found a lot of people are already using smart TVs as monitors and are happy about it.
using a smart TV as a monitor comes with its own benefits.
The speakers on TVs are usually better than the speakers on a monitor (if there is any on the monitor)
Smart TVs come with dedicated remotes, which is easy to control the volume, switching off, or on the monitor.
Smart TVs also come with their OS, mostly Android TV, so you can also use it for entertainment purposes for watching TV shows and movies on YouTube, Prime Video, or Netflix, or whatever you feel like. You won’t have to turn on your PC to watch a video on a big screen.
I will write a dedicated recommendation list of all the TVs that are ideal to be used as a monitor, but for now, you can check out this smart TV from Samsung that can be used as a monitor as well.
