Charles,

To the best of my knowledge, the only feature differences between a "TV" and an LCD monitor is that the former has a tuner (and a coax connection) and usually integrated (if poor) speakers.  Of course a lot of TVs are now "smart" too.  Internally, though, consider that consumer TVs typically have a duty cycle (i.e. expected usage) around 4/5 (i.e. 4 hours per day, 5 days per week) or less.  More use than that, and their lifespan shortens significantly.  Monitors that get used for at least an 8 hour work shift 5 days a week (and often more) wouldn't last through their warranty period if they were designed with a similar duty cycle.  Until you get into large (40+") display monitors (think: restaurant digital menus or wayfinding signage) don't typically advertise their duty cycles, but I would still aim for a monitor over a TV.  In particular (and only because I have experience with them), Dell monitors can be warrantied for up to 5 years.  Most TVs are out of warranty within 90 days.  Just FYI, digital signage is typically rated 16/5 or better and those arrival/departure monitors in airports (and elsewhere) are rated 24/7 with beefy heatsinks and even fans to prevent overheating from constant use.

Don't just consider screen size.  Resolution, footprint, adjustability, and use-case are all important too.  

Once you get over about 24" (in a standard 16:9 or 16:10 aspect ratio), you are probably going to want to get a 4k resolution monitor.  

The ability to raise/lower, tilt, rotate and swivel might all be useful features.

Multiple monitors are useful when you have a lot of applications open at once because you can stack/tile/arrange windows to maximize data display.  If the users have a tendency to maximize apps, a single, large monitor is less useful (unless they know how to use the built-in half/quartile window features) because most applications maximized on a large screen will have large, "empty" areas.  

A lot of it comes down to preferences though.  I despise "touch-sensitive" buttons, so I look for monitors with physical buttons.  I have two, 24" monitors at work, and they are fine; Any bigger and they wouldn't fit on the desk.  Even as an IT professional, when I first sat down to the 32", 2k screen I have at home, it was a bit overwhelming, so while I wish it were 4k, I imagine that patrons who aren't used to anything close to that size could easily get lost and not know what to do with a screen even bigger than that.

Just my $.02,
Erich



On Saturday, February 10, 2024 at 12:56, Charles Meyer eloquently inscribed:

> My esteemed listmates.
> 
> We're considering adding a bigger screen for our new Makerspcase editing
> PCs.
> 
> We have two 21" screen LED monitors that are over 10 years old.
> 
> We create in Tinkercad, meshmixer and Cricitur so a bigger screen would
> really help.
> 
> How big is big enough?  32 inch screen? 40 inch?
> 
> Did you get a TV instead of an LED screen computer monitor? Why or why
> not?
> 
> Did you do a deep dive into manufacturers?
> 
> Panasonic -vs- Sony -vs- Samsung -vs_ LG -vs- Dell?
> 
> Did you consider certain features more important? Which ones and why?
> 
> Thank you so much,
> 
> Charles.
> 
> Charlotte County Public Library