I finally just decided to replace the old 20” 720p TV I’ve been using as a second display across quite a few Macs for the last 11 years (21.5 iMac, 11” Air, 13” Air, and 3 different 13” MBP). I feel like I have a pretty good “I know what I know” understanding of how this should work, but am not as into tech or savvy as I was maybe 10 years back…so I come to you, MacRumors community, with some questions:
Quick background: For my use case, a 24” Full HD monitor seemed perfect. I’m currently using a 2020 Intel 13” for personal and a butterfly 13” for work. I work a corporate job and basically live in MS Office, and personal use is pretty basic-moderate photo editing is about as heavy as I get. Screen real estate is big, but has to be balanced with my apartment/home office size.
First, I honestly don’t see much of a quality bump from the old TV. Text and images definitely look a bit more crisp by comparison, but big-picture it just doesn’t seem that much clearer. I’ve read a few takes that Mac OS is optimized for higher quality displays and anything less than 4K just looks bad by design and/or that it’s just because I’m looking at a Retina display on the other side. Is this actually the case with current Macs? My last machine was a 2015 MBP and obviously all the others I mentioned above were older, so maybe not as noticeable? The 720p TV has been serviceable with my current machines for a few years, but I’m replacing for a reason.
Second: Is there a reason the new monitor wouldn’t fill edge to edge? There’s a thick ~half inch black “frame” that runs around the edge of the monitor (see pic) which makes the size increase from my old display kind of negligible. Is it just a weird aspect ratio thing even though this is a standard 16x9 display? I know you can adjust the overscan when using a TV as a monitor to fix this, but didn’t expect to have any problems with a true monitor.
Last, I initially grabbed a 24” full HD TV, but doubled back to a true monitor after reading a bit about why they were better. I did not open it or compare yet. But, if the HD monitor quality isn’t going to be great anyway, should I just try the TV for the edge to edge/overscan benefit and added bonus of device flexibility? My priority is the best quality display possible for work, but would occasionally stream video on the display either via browser or native TV apps.
Thanks in advance for any thoughts and input.
Quick background: For my use case, a 24” Full HD monitor seemed perfect. I’m currently using a 2020 Intel 13” for personal and a butterfly 13” for work. I work a corporate job and basically live in MS Office, and personal use is pretty basic-moderate photo editing is about as heavy as I get. Screen real estate is big, but has to be balanced with my apartment/home office size.
First, I honestly don’t see much of a quality bump from the old TV. Text and images definitely look a bit more crisp by comparison, but big-picture it just doesn’t seem that much clearer. I’ve read a few takes that Mac OS is optimized for higher quality displays and anything less than 4K just looks bad by design and/or that it’s just because I’m looking at a Retina display on the other side. Is this actually the case with current Macs? My last machine was a 2015 MBP and obviously all the others I mentioned above were older, so maybe not as noticeable? The 720p TV has been serviceable with my current machines for a few years, but I’m replacing for a reason.
Second: Is there a reason the new monitor wouldn’t fill edge to edge? There’s a thick ~half inch black “frame” that runs around the edge of the monitor (see pic) which makes the size increase from my old display kind of negligible. Is it just a weird aspect ratio thing even though this is a standard 16x9 display? I know you can adjust the overscan when using a TV as a monitor to fix this, but didn’t expect to have any problems with a true monitor.
Last, I initially grabbed a 24” full HD TV, but doubled back to a true monitor after reading a bit about why they were better. I did not open it or compare yet. But, if the HD monitor quality isn’t going to be great anyway, should I just try the TV for the edge to edge/overscan benefit and added bonus of device flexibility? My priority is the best quality display possible for work, but would occasionally stream video on the display either via browser or native TV apps.
Thanks in advance for any thoughts and input.
