That is encouraging, thanks!
I've been thinking more about this and have decided to try it, if all goes well. Initially it feels like an extravagance for a PC monitor, just to avoid having to sit at a desk all evening. But many people would consider it perfectly reasonable to have such a thing as a TV; I don't watch TV, but the use-case is otherwise very similar. The clincher may be AllenB's dual monitor suggestion; keeping the current monitor too, for serious work.
Lest I forget, I've been doing some testing of some linux desktops and am a bit happier now; things have improved since last I tried scaling them. Setting the scale factor to 200% brings less blurriness now, better than resizing the display to half the monitor's resolution, and quite a lot of applications will respect the scaling these days. That is with gnome and cinnamon (on fedora), anyway. For some reason the KDE spin renders scaled displays quite poorly, but I'm guessing it just has different defaults that I'd need to change somewhere; it seems to have fractional scaling available by default whereas the other two don't.
Gnome and KDE are a bit more complicated by the wayland thing, whilst as I understand it cinnamon hasn't gone there yet. But wayland could offer more flexibility (when I get a second monitor).
Surprisingly, fractional scaling in Cinnamon (this time tested on mint) is actually quite reasonable even though considered experimental, so all might not be lost if I decided a whole integer of 200% was too much.
Gnome and KDE are a bit more complicated by the wayland thing, whilst as I understand it cinnamon hasn't gone there yet. But wayland could offer more flexibility (when I get a second monitor).
Surprisingly, fractional scaling in Cinnamon (this time tested on mint) is actually quite reasonable even though considered experimental, so all might not be lost if I decided a whole integer of 200% was too much.
Although... another issue has come to light, during trials scaling my existing monitor to an equivalent dpi. It turns out that I can't actually see at this distance...
It is too far to use my reading glasses of course, and yet still slightly too close for my eyes to entirely focus unassisted, these days. Not sufficiently for such fine detail, anyway; it isn't something that arises in other situations, in fact I'd not even realised. Going a meter or two further away solves it, but then I'd need an enormous TV and a bigger room, which aren't really options.
So, I'll either need to factor in the cost of some additional glasses, before I'd otherwise need them, or change plans entirely. The joys of middle-age.
It is too far to use my reading glasses of course, and yet still slightly too close for my eyes to entirely focus unassisted, these days. Not sufficiently for such fine detail, anyway; it isn't something that arises in other situations, in fact I'd not even realised. Going a meter or two further away solves it, but then I'd need an enormous TV and a bigger room, which aren't really options.
So, I'll either need to factor in the cost of some additional glasses, before I'd otherwise need them, or change plans entirely. The joys of middle-age.
That might have been a nice answer, but unfortunately I don't have a big enough room to take good advantage of a projector. So I'd likely be better off just getting a pair of glasses to work at 10'/3m distance.
Though I am also thinking about concepts like this - but with better ergonomics. Including the use of a separate keyboard and monitor:
Or I might just rearrange the room to make a desk more pleasant; spending my evenings facing a wall with my back to the room is probably much of what I dislike, and could be changed.
Though I am also thinking about concepts like this - but with better ergonomics. Including the use of a separate keyboard and monitor:
Or I might just rearrange the room to make a desk more pleasant; spending my evenings facing a wall with my back to the room is probably much of what I dislike, and could be changed.
I use a 2560x1600 monitor more space. Works well for photography but not that well for multiple windows. I have wondered about changing to dual but with them set up vertically.
When HD TV prices reduced some people switched to them as a way of getting a cheaper larger monitor, Probably the same now with 4k but needs to be > ~55" to retain the dpi. If that is scaled 200% for distant viewing it's back to 27" but only to twice their comfortable longer viewing distance.
~18" for me these days on my current monitor. Without glasses.
I've used KDE for rather a long time. These days it does a number of "things" I don't need. 2 others that I haven't looked at yet are Budgie that is offered on several distro's and LxQT that is offered on a lot more.
When HD TV prices reduced some people switched to them as a way of getting a cheaper larger monitor, Probably the same now with 4k but needs to be > ~55" to retain the dpi. If that is scaled 200% for distant viewing it's back to 27" but only to twice their comfortable longer viewing distance.
~18" for me these days on my current monitor. Without glasses.I've used KDE for rather a long time. These days it does a number of "things" I don't need. 2 others that I haven't looked at yet are Budgie that is offered on several distro's and LxQT that is offered on a lot more.
Thanks. I have used a trackball in the past and (after practice) it worked okay, so that could be a good call. I'd probably have a stand or mini-table (mainly to position the keyboard ergonomically), but I've noticed that mice still have a tendency to roll off as such things get moved around.
Laughing at the dual 24's, thats what I had before there's no way I'd go back(on my old comp, with a decent GPU).
Mind you I use the 55 as a monitor(@4K) its on my desk on a raised stand it's about 3' viewing distance when upright and 5-6' with my chair reclined(Ergo human).
I have no trouble with any blur or washed out colours its rather crisp, eye's dont feel strained at all the only problem is older programs like Winisd that doesnt transpose to 4K well(text is super tiny).
I dont have no super dooper graphics card it just the normal HP brand office computer... in built graphics, the only fancy bit is the i9 CPU.
Its not capable of running GPU intensive games in 4k obviously, adding a decent card would be nice but it wont fit in an office style case, the screen has no problem with a PS5 running games at 4K.
Mind you I use the 55 as a monitor(@4K) its on my desk on a raised stand it's about 3' viewing distance when upright and 5-6' with my chair reclined(Ergo human).
I have no trouble with any blur or washed out colours its rather crisp, eye's dont feel strained at all the only problem is older programs like Winisd that doesnt transpose to 4K well(text is super tiny).
I dont have no super dooper graphics card it just the normal HP brand office computer... in built graphics, the only fancy bit is the i9 CPU.
Its not capable of running GPU intensive games in 4k obviously, adding a decent card would be nice but it wont fit in an office style case, the screen has no problem with a PS5 running games at 4K.
Just to finish this thread, I ended up getting a 65" 4k TV; a modest HISENSE model. First impressions are that it looks huge.. but also that it needs to be (at the new distance); when using it as a monitor the visual angles are roughly equivalent to using a smaller monitor close up.
The picture quality is not as good as a decent PC monitor but it isn't bad. The ergonomics aren't quite as good as a desk for working, either, but this is primarily a home/entertainment machine so it is rare that I do lots of typing etc. So I'm happy enough with that, as I have my living room back; I no longer need to sit at a desk all night, but can use my reclining chair.
There are some issues, which I may be able to resolve, mostly around scaling. The quality in the Linux distros that I've so far tried is slightly better if scaled by the operating system than if a lower monitor resolution is set (and in fact fractional scaling is fairly viable too in some desktops). However some programmes don't get on so well with the scaling, in particular my Virtual Machines. The window is the right size, but the guest OS will only occupy a small part of it, unless that is set to scale to the window, and then we have two lots of scaling going on. So some tinkering still needed, or it might be finally time to give upon using VMs.
The picture quality is not as good as a decent PC monitor but it isn't bad. The ergonomics aren't quite as good as a desk for working, either, but this is primarily a home/entertainment machine so it is rare that I do lots of typing etc. So I'm happy enough with that, as I have my living room back; I no longer need to sit at a desk all night, but can use my reclining chair.
There are some issues, which I may be able to resolve, mostly around scaling. The quality in the Linux distros that I've so far tried is slightly better if scaled by the operating system than if a lower monitor resolution is set (and in fact fractional scaling is fairly viable too in some desktops). However some programmes don't get on so well with the scaling, in particular my Virtual Machines. The window is the right size, but the guest OS will only occupy a small part of it, unless that is set to scale to the window, and then we have two lots of scaling going on. So some tinkering still needed, or it might be finally time to give upon using VMs.