Samsung TV as a secondary display

[NYRob94]

I have a late 2009 27inch iMac and I would like to use my Samsung TV (Model #UN32EH5000 32-Inch 1080p 60Hz LED TV) as a second display. The resolution on the Samsung TV is set to 1080p yet the picture is not as crisp as on my iMac Display. Any idea on how to fix this so that both screens are identical in image quality? There doesn't seem to be a "PC input" on the Samsung TV, just 2 HDMI ports.

 

[mfram]

By "crisp", do you mean text? TVs aren't designed to display crisp text. They are designed to play video. I suspect if you play a high-def video you will see it looks better on the TV than your monitor.

Remember the TV is larger than your monitor but has a lower resolution. You just aren't going to get crisp text from a TV. That's what computer monitors are for.

 

[Chippy99]

By "crisp", do you mean text? TVs aren't designed to display crisp text. They are designed to play video. I suspect if you play a high-def video you will see it looks better on the TV than your monitor.

Remember the TV is larger than your monitor but has a lower resolution. You just aren't going to get crisp text from a TV. That's what computer monitors are for.

Whereas what you say is largely true, it's not completely true.

TV's with PC input (I don't know how common they are, but my old Panasonic had it, as did another Sony I no longer use) have different filtering settings on for the computer input and very much are intented to display crisp text.

There's a 40" Samsung 4K TV and I'd be very interested to know how that might fare as a secondary monitor! It's only about £600 which is ridiculously cheap for what it is.

 

[Eduardot]

iMac late 2013 27 with two 27 inch Samsung monitors

I have a late 2013 iMac 27 connected via the HDMI TV port to the thunderbolt port of the iMac, and being though both Samsung's resolution is 1920x1080 and my iMac's is 2560x1440, they function very well extending my working desktop very nice and giving me a lot more room to work with.
Personally to use a TV monitor larger than 28 inches as a computer monitor due to the nearness and the size it will be uncomfortable to the eyes. I tried it and decided to stay on the Samsung. I have not tried yet a 4K TV as a monitor.
But my setup works ok.