Whatever your reason, it can be a good or fun idea to turn your TV into a monitor for PC or laptop. Handy for working from home or when you want to quickly show a video or give a presentation.
The first question is actually: is it possible? The short answer is yes. Most laptops and computers nowadays have HDMI connections, so you can connect your system to your television with a simple HDMI cable. It is possible that your computer still uses DVI or VGA, but then you have an older model. Not every modern TV has those connections; in the case of dvi, you can still buy a special dvi to hdmi cable. And otherwise you have the DisplayPort and the corresponding DisplayPort to HDMI cable. So check carefully which cable you need for your PC or laptop.
It is also useful to check in advance whether the graphics card can handle the resolution of your TV. That is often no problem with modern hardware: laptops run 720, 1080p and 4k and televisions too. If you have a slightly older laptop, for example, with an integrated graphics card, it could be a different story. You can find the resolution of your screen by going to Settings / System / Display to go.
TV as a monitor: things to keep in mind
Furthermore, there are other things to take into account. The smaller a screen and the higher the resolution, the more compact the pixels are. That is the pixel density. If that number is high, the image quality is sharp and good. If you project the same PC resolution on a screen that is perhaps four, five or six times larger, the pixel density – and therefore the quality of the screen – will decrease. In addition, it can help to distance yourself from the television, such as in the living room.
In addition, there is a higher input lag, because TVs – unlike real monitors – take less or no account of this. So if you want to play competitively with your mouse and keyboard on your lap, it can help to switch on the game mode. The same goes for the response time: monitors have a higher response time than TVs; if the TV takes too long (milliseconds), the ghosting effect may occur.
And then of course we have the refresh rate. Monitors usually have a higher refresh rate, especially the screens intended for gamers. Many TVs have 60 Hz on board. When you watch videos or presentations, there is not much going on. But if you plan to play a lot, a higher speed can be much easier on the eyes.
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