What are the best 4K TVs to use as a computer monitor?

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18

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289

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Feb 24, 2019

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Here’s the Deal

The Best 2 of 5 OptionsWhy?

Best 4K TVs to use as a computer monitor	Price	HDR10	Dolby Vision
91 Sony X720E 43" (KD43X720E)	$548.00	Yes	No
90 TCL S405 49" (49S405)	$350	Yes	No
-- VIZIO E-Series 43" (E43-F1)	$349.99	Yes	Yes
-- TCL S517 43" (43S517)	379.99	Yes	Yes
-- Philips PFL405605/98	-	-	-

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TCL S405 49" (49S405)

Top Pro

Works well as a computer monitor

The S405 works well as a computer monitor thanks to its low input lag, barely noticeable motion blur, and full 4:4:4 color support. The 43" model can even be used up close due to its small minimal viewing distance. The low input lag and low motion blur of ~15ms makes it highly responsive to input and gives it the ability to handle dynamic content well. It also has full 4:4:4 color support that, so text or shapes with hard edges on the screen won't be blurry. See More

Top Con

Not suitable for group watching

The S405 has a narrow viewing angle that makes it unsuitable for watching with groups. Audience sitting away from the center of the screen will not experience the same picture as those sitting in the center, because the picture quality starts to deteriorate significantly when viewing from just ≥30° away from the screen's center. See More

Specs

Top Pro

Decent picture quality

The S405 looks decent with adequately deep black levels, above-average color accuracy, and sufficient peak brightness levels for most content. It’s especially great at reproducing dark scenes thanks to the panel’s contrast ratio of about 4000:1, which means blacks can get really dark at about 4000 times darker than the brightest white it can produce. Colors are spot-on even without calibration, and the panel can get bright enough with a peak brightness level of ~200 nits to make them pop in dark environments. The best viewing experience will be in a dark environment where the panel won’t have to compete with light - the S405’s screen can’t really get bright enough to perform as well in bright environments. See More

Top Con

HDR support is basic

The S405 can't reproduce HDR pictures very well because it lacks various important features. HDR won't look much different from SDR due to the lack of wide color gamut and low peak brightness. It can't reproduce the full range of colors necessary for HDR, and the brightness level of only ~200 nits is barely enough for HDR content to stand out. The black levels are also insufficient for highlights to stand out, and it won't be as dynamic as one would expect for HDR due to the lack of local dimming. See More

Top Pro

Excellent value for money

The S405 strikes a nice balance between picture quality, screen size, and input lag, all for an affordable price of below $500. It's a great choice for casual watching and gaming without breaking the bank. Compared to its direct competitors, it offers decent picture quality that is a tad below them, bigger screen size, and lower input lag. Content looks decent enough for most casual viewers - the black levels are sufficiently deep, colors are vivid, and it gets bright enough for most types of content in a dark room. The size difference is pretty huge - options with similar size of 49", or even smaller, cost fairly more than the S405. Its low input lag of ~15ms contributes to a more responsive gaming experience. It's barely noticeable, and it’s also one of the lowest in the 4K TVs market, which is an impressive feat in this price bracket. See More

Top Con

Poor sound quality

The speakers on the S405 is too bassy and distortion becomes a huge problem at high volumes. A relatively cheap speaker system or a soundbar will make a huge difference in sound quality. See More

Top Pro

Decent for watching sports

The S405 is a good pick for watching sports thanks to its low motion blur and reasonably consistent color uniformity. Fast-moving objects, like footballs, won't leave any visible trails on the screen thanks to the low motion blur of ~15ms. While there are slight uniformity inconsistencies in the edges of the panel when displaying large, same-color objects on screen, like football fields, the issues generally go unnoticed by most. See More

Top Con

Remote lacks functionality

The S405 has a basic remote that is only capable of navigation, playback control, and volume control. It doesn't have fancy stuff like voice command found in remotes of other TVs. See More

Top Pro

Intuitive & smooth user interface

The S405 runs on the Roku TV smart platform, touted for its simple, straightforward, and lag-free UI. It’s easy for anyone to grasp how navigation works, thanks to its two-column design with the menu on the left and options on the right. There’s also no noticeable lag during navigation or menu selection. See More

Top Con

Lacks support for Dolby Vision

The S405 only supports the HDR10 format for HDR content. See More

Top Pro

Can be used up close

The 43" model of the TCL S405 can be placed on top of your work desk and used as a computer monitor, thanks to its reasonably small panel size and low minimum viewing distance of 2.2 ft. See More

Top Con

Can't fight glare very well

The S405 can deal with small amounts of light, such as sunlight through curtains, but it won't be able to stand up to huge amounts of light. Its handling of reflections is only average, and it can't get bright enough. The panel has a semi-gloss finish which helps in reducing reflections a little, but its peak brightness level of ~200 nits is not enough for fighting glare. See More

Top Pro

Colors are accurate even without calibration

The S405 is excellent at reproducing colors accurately out of the box. Even without calibration, the colors are spot-on - they're very close to what the source signal demands, and any inaccuracies are generally considered imperceptible to most end users. The overall average difference between the source signal and the panel's reproduction of the color is measured in Delta-E, where lower means better accuracy. The S405 has a Delta-E of below 2.0, and anything below 3.0 is generally considered accurate for most end users. See More

Top Pro

Main interface has no ads

The S405 has no ads on its main interface, although there can be ads in third-party applications. Third-party ads can't be blocked, but the tracking and personalisation can be limited through the TV's settings. See More

Top Pro

Excellent for gaming

The S405 is excellent for gaming - the overall experience will be very responsive thanks to the barely noticeable input lag and motion blur. The TV only takes ~15ms to respond to the user's input, and it can also fully change its pixels color in that same time, resulting in fast-moving objects not leaving any trails on the screen, eliminating virtually all motion blur. It's also great for HDR gaming because there is no increased input lag for HDR, and it has full 4K @ 60 FPS support, which makes it suitable for all new 4K games. See More

Top Pro

Highly versatile

The S405 is versatile enough to be used as a general-purpose display. The picture quality is decent for movies and TV shows, and it checks all the boxes that makes a TV suitable for gaming, sports, and as a computer monitor: low input lag, low motion blur, good screen uniformity, and full 4:4:4 color support. See More

Top Pro

Colors are easy to calibrate

Color calibration can be performed easily via the Roku mobile app. You won't have to fiddle with the remote trying to set the values correctly. See More

Top Pro

Decent for casual movies/TV watching

The S405 is a decent, affordable pick if you're a casual viewer. You'll get decent picture quality and a good 4K experience, but the HDR performance might be lacklustre due to the lack of local dimming, wide color gamut, and low HDR peak brightness. See More

Top Pro

Well-balanced side inputs

Even when the S405 is mounted on a wall, you'll still have access to all essential inputs and outputs which are situated on the side of the unit. See More

See All

3 Other Options Considered

VIZIO E-Series 43" (E43-F1)

Top Pro

Can work as a computer monitor

The VIZIO E-Series TV is an excellent choice for those looking for a large panel to hook up with a computer thanks to the TV's excellent responsiveness and its ability to work with the non-compressed video signal received from a computer. When connected to a computer, the TV doesn't feel laggy because of its low input lag that measures at around 20 milliseconds - on par with the best TVs in its price range. Text appears sharp and free of artifacts thanks to the TV's full chroma 4:4:4 support. Motion looks smooth and free of the artificial effects of motion blur thanks to the TV's low pixel response time. Measuring at 12 milliseconds, the TV's full pixel response time ensures that each pixel needs only 12 milliseconds to change its color fully. See More

Top Con

Poor viewing angles

Those who view the TV at an angle will see a degraded picture because of the TV's bad overall viewing angles. For example, the image's black levels will start to shift once the viewing angle gets larger than 13 degrees. See More

Specs

Top Pro

Good performance in a dark room

The VIZIO E-Series is a good home theater TV because it offers good picture quality when placed in a dark environment where it can reproduce beautiful images that have inky blacks and bright and colorful highlights. The blacks look good thanks to the TV's high native contrast ratio that measures at 5900:1 which is a decent result for a TV in this price range. Additionally, the blacks don't look cloudy thanks to their high uniformity. See More

Top Pro

Requires no calibration

You'll not need to spend time calibrating this TV because its out-of-the-box color accuracy is quite high. The color inaccuracies cannot be spotted by a human eye because of the TV's average color inaccuracy measures at the dE of 1.97. See More

See All

TCL S517 43" (43S517)

Top Pro

Decent for use as a PC monitor

The S517 offers a pleasant PC monitor experience not only due to the good responsiveness but also because of the video signal's compression. The TV won't make text appear blurry while connected to a PC because the signal has no compression and transports color data and luminance fully. This is also known as chroma 4:4:4, and the “Computer” and “Game” modes display it properly at 60Hz. See More

Top Con

Bad viewing angle

The S517 is a bad choice for a wide room because colors and blacks shift when viewed even slightly off center. Leaning sideward just a little bit will drastically alter what you see. Colors shift at 18 degrees, brightness shifts at 28 degrees, but the blacks shift at the incredibly tiny angle of 9 degrees. See More

Specs

Top Pro

Impressive picture quality

In terms of picture quality, the S517 is comparable to high-end TVs. It displays remarkably deep blacks due to its great contrast and reproduces details in color very well due to its good color gradient. The 6000:1 native contrast ratio allows the TV to reproduce dark scenes particularly well. It is easily one of the best in this price range – it’s often compared to high-end counterparts. The S517 has superb black uniformity and contrast that create pleasant, deep blacks. They are much better than those of the similarly-priced competitors. The maximum deviation sits at around 1.02% . The TV is good at capturing small differences in color such as skin tones, green colors in nature, details in shadows, etc. This is because of the color gradient, which is on par with other options of the same price. There is almost no banding and the standard deviation of color doesn't go past 0,11%. See More

Top Con

Struggles with reflections

While the S517 is okay for dimmer environments, the weakness shows in bright rooms and especially rooms with the light source facing the TV. The reflection handling of the TV is a bit worse than that of its competitors. It reflects approximately 6% of light off the screen. See More

Top Pro

Well calibrated out-of-the-box

The picture quality when you first open the TV up is quite decent. The only settings that could potentially require tweaking are grey inaccuracy and color inaccuracy. Either way, these are things that most people won't even notice. See More

Top Con

Some dirty screen effect is present

This might cause some discomfort to sports fans because the playing surface might look darker at points. The S517's gray uniformity is decent at best, which, unfortunately, is often the case for lower-end TVs. The image is a little darker around the edges and the middle of the TV. The standard deviation of sits at around 3.1% See More

Top Pro

Suitable for gaming

The S517 is fit for all gamers because it offers a clear, lag-free experience. The TV is very responsive - it has struck a good balance between decent refresh rate, solid input lag, and good response time. The TV is an ideal choice for console gaming in terms of its native refresh rate. It caps at 60Hz, which is perfect since most games won't benefit from anything higher than this. The S517 is fast. An action shows on the screen in around 18 milliseconds, which can make the difference between managing to get a frag or waiting for a respawn. The time doesn't substantially increase when gaming in HDR or 4K either - it goes up to roughly 20.5 milliseconds. The only thing to remember is to keep "Game" mode enabled for the lowest possible input lag. The TCL S517 also handles motion and fast-paced content quite well, it has a good response time. This makes sure you can keep up with fast-moving objects and a lot of action without it all appearing blurry. A full pixel color transition takes only 15.8 milliseconds. See More

Top Con

Can't overcome glare

The S517 is a better fit for dim environments or dark room viewing since the brightness can’t peak very high, only at 277 nits. This is common for TVs in this price range. See More

Top Pro

Accessible inputs

All of the inputs are conveniently placed on the side of the S517, so you won't have to worry about leaving space between a wall and the TV. See More

Top Con

Runs ads

The main interface page contains big advertisements that can’t be disabled. There’s also a “Featured” tab that promotes all kinds of apps and channels. See More

Top Pro

Good HDR playback

The S517 is a much better fit for HDR content and HDR gaming than its competitors due to the wide color gamut, decent color depth, and high contrast. The TV can display a lot more colors than its similarly-priced counterparts. The coverage of the Digital Cinema P3 color space is very good - 90%. The color depth is on par with competing options. The S517 has 10-bit color depth, which means that it can display approximately 1.07 billion colors in total. This is important for HDR content because HDR media takes advantage of 10-bit. The S517 can display deep blacks in the HDR mode because of its high native contrast ratio of 6000:1, which is easily one of the best in the given price range. The TV can also play all HDR content because it supports both standard formats of HDR - HDR10 and Dolby Vision. They enhance the viewing experience by editing the metadata, that is, the extra information that tells the TV how to display HDR. The formats differ in the way they deal with it, however - Dolby Vision edits the picture on a per scene basis, whereas HDR10 edits everything at the start of the video. See More

Top Con

HDR content lacks brightness

Small bright details in dark scenes won’t stand out. Unfortunately, this is usually the case with TVs in this price range. The TV's brightness for HDR media peaks at only 273 nits. Moreover, the TV doesn't support local dimming, which is also a big drawback for HDR content. See More

Top Pro

Handles 4K scaling well

The S517 does a reasonably good job with upscaling most content to 4K quality, be it 480p DVDs, HDTV or full HD Blu-rays. See More

Top Con

Inconvenient calibration access

The only way to access the calibration menu is via the mobile app. This might be uncomfortable for people without smartphones or for people who prefer all control on the real remote. See More

Top Pro

A well-rounded option

The TCL S517 is a decent option for pretty much everything, be it gaming, movies, sports, or HDR content. It has noteworthy picture quality, good all-around responsiveness, decent smart features, nice motion handling, and, most importantly, a great price. See More

Top Pro

Optional video smoothing feature

The S517 offers the possibility to represent motion in videos smoother, also known as the "soap opera effect". This is done by making the TV take two frames and try to guess what would a frame in between of those look like, also known as motion interpolation. The frame rate can interpolate up to 60 frames per second. See More

Top Pro

Great smart features

The S517 comes with the Roku TV smart platform, which provides a comfortable interface and a big app selection. The interface is quite basic and easy to overlook. It’s smooth and simple to swap to your favorite apps. Roku TV offers a vast app store with all the most popular apps – Netflix, YouTube, Hulu Plus, Amazon Instant, HBO Go, Vudu and much more. Some apps are even absent from other TV manufacturers Smart TV platforms and unique to Roku. See More

Top Pro

Functional mobile app

The mobile remote app for both iOS or Android can fully and comfortably substitute the real remote – launch apps, input text in apps, control most TV settings, etc. Also, colors can easily be adjusted close to perfection thanks to the app’s calibration menu. See More

See All

Philips PFL405605/98

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