Hey,
I’m getting settled into an apartment in Taipei, and I’m tired of computing on my 15.6" laptop’s display and I’m also tired of watching shows in bed on my ~12" Chromebook. I’m in a studio apartment, and so the way things are laid out, I can basically use a (suitable) ~43" TV as a computer monitor, and also use it for watching media/playing games from my bed (which will double as my “couch.”
Thing is, there’s lots of cheaper local brands that I could opt for, but it’s hard to get proper information on them since pretty much everything about them is in Chinese. Today I went to a fairly foreigner-friendly supermarket called Carrefour (French chain) and noted all the potential candidates’ model numbers and prices. I’m going to try doing some online shopping tonight, but here’s where I’m at so far:
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I noticed Carrefour carrying the following TV brands: BenQ, Chimei, Philips, Ranso, Sharp, Tatung, TCL. But none of those brands had ~40" to ~50" TVs on display that were 4K
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The brands that did have 4K TVs in the size range I’m looking at were: Heran, LG, Samsung, Sansui, Teco.
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My attempt at due diligence and educated shopping has currently gotten this far, “Value” is price (NTD) divided by the TV’s rating (RTINGS’ score, their gaming score, and their PC monitor score all averaged), so a lower score is technically better. In case you were wondering, NTD is almost exactly $30-to-$1 compared to USD, which I’m from the US.
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I can’t find any good information on the Heran, Sansui, or Teco TVs.
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I don’t see any good information on the exact LG TVs that I’ve seen listed, by their model numbers. The 43UK6320 seems related to the 6300 family, but RTINGS doesn’t mention it. No leads on the 49UJ656T.
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With the information I have, UA43NU7100 from Samsung is probably the best buy, but supposedly I could end up with an IPS panel instead of a VA panel and RTINGS doesn’t do a good job of explaining how different that is from the unit they reviewed. I also don’t like that RTINGS typically only looks at one model for their review. (In this case 55", I think?)
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49NU7100 from Samsung might be a safer bet, since RTINGS hasn’t had anyone mention varied panels for that model? I didn’t see a price listed for that unit, though.
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UA50NU7099 is a weird model number for Samsung, and I’m concerned it’s a lower-spec version of the 7100.
There are a few other chain stores I can check for their selection and pricing, and I’m going to take a gander at Guanghua Digital Plaza and its surrounding areas. Last time I was there, things seemed generally more expensive than in the States, though.
As far as online shopping, Amazon technically does ship certain items here, and I do have a month left of Amazon Prime. I’m not sure how ebay works here, and I would definitely consider opting for something like Wasabi Mango/Crossover “Korean Knockoff” monitors.
The real goal is to get a comfortably usable ~40-50" monitor that can double as a TV for my bed that’s across the room in my studio apartment. I want 4K since the pixel density on such a large screen will be low, and I want a low input latency, less than 20ms. Preferably 10ms or below (but I know that’s rare in TVs). Good performance as a computer monitor is most important, comfortable gaming experience is second, and good for watching movies/TV comes last. I’d say my budget tops out around $600 USD, so $20,000 NTD.
Freesync/GSync support would be nice, but given that my laptop has an NVIDIA card, it can only do adaptive Sync over DisplayPort, and most TVs don’t have a DisplayPort in.
Any advice or input? Any ideas for getting better info about the local brands and their options?
Cheers
