We would like to buy our son either a monitor or TV for his bedroom for his 15th birthday. He will mainly be using it for his XBox One.
Please could someone advise what features we need it to have and whether we are better getting a monitor or TV?
At the moment he doesn't watch much TV apart from football but I want whatever we get to last long term. So I understand we have the option of getting him a TV or a monitor with a separate box and speakers to enable him to watch TV on it. We have been advised he needs a refresh rate of 144hx and a response time of 1ms but this doesn't mean much to me and I wondered if this is something that is necessary or just a nice to have depending on budget. If we get a TV we feel we are better getting a Smart TV. Also, are particular brands better to buy?
Our budget is about £180 at the most.
I have no idea where to start and have been getting conflicting advice from shops so was looking for neutral options please.
@yss a TV with a HDMI port. For £180 you’re probably looking at 1080p 60 Hz. If you knew enough about monitors to make a monitor solution work you wouldn’t be asking this question.
A 144 Hz monitor would be good for a gaming PC but an Xbox One can only output up to 60 Hz.
@yss I'll leave the advice about specific brands to others, but if he's only ever going to be using an Xbox One on it, you don't need a refresh rate of 144Hz.
As @Ryall says, the max that system can do is 60Hz, and even the Xbox Series X/S (the new consoles that come out this November) can only reach up to 120Hz for select games.
144Hz is only for people that are playing very competitively on powerful gaming PCs.
@yss Does he use a PC with it? If not, a 144hz monitor is pointless as the XB1 is 60hz. Monitors don't generally come with audio speakers either so would need to buy speakers for it too and perhaps not the best option. Might be worth it if you plan to get a series S (although still only need 120hz). Pixel response time tends to be more important for PC's with scrolling dark text on light backgrounds and less so for gaming. Its the time it takes for a pixel to change from one colour to another and if text is scrolling by fast, it can smear if the response is slow and looks much worse with dark on light (like text). It makes text difficult to read if scrolling, so pixel response is often cited in monitors - but doesn't matter so much in gaming. I have seen PC gamers saying their monitors have basically no input lag because the response time is 2ms - but the input lag has been 16-20ms
A TV maybe better as a more versatile and all in one option. Cheap ones are maybe not the 'very best' for gaming but most do have game modes to reduce the input lag. It really depends on what's best for you and your son and whether or not he is a professional gamer playing competitive multi-player.
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Thank you so much for your replies, this is so helpful. I am sure if it wasn't a surprise for my son he'd be able to help me but as far as he is aware I have point blank said he is not getting a TV in his room so would like to try and keep the surprise.
From your responses, we have settled on getting a TV now rather than a monitor. Now, we just need to decide which TV will fit the bill. We are thinking 24" will probably be big enough for a bedroom.
Does anyone have any opinions please, positive or negative?
Are we losing out on anything major by sticking to this price bracket?
Are there any others that look more suitable?
We didn't really want to go up as much as £200 but I think we are going to have to but even going up to £200 I think we will need to trade off something. what is the most priority please and what can we afford to lose?
I have been advised that we must get LG and that no other makes will be as good but if we get LG, 32" with at least 1080 resolution is takes up to about £230.
Do you think it is worth paying the extra £30 as we shouldn't really scrimp on any of those things or is there anything we can lose on to keep it up to £200?
@yss I can't really recommend specific TVs but I would recommend at least 32 inch and 1080p which in marketing speak is "full HD". I wouldn't get anything that says "HD Ready" on it because that usually means it's 720p.
I say go for 32 inch if possible because I use a 32 inch monitor and sit around 4 foot away from it to play and I can barely read any of the text in the games. I used to have a 27inch monitor and I never used to read any text in games full stop because I just couldn't unless I sat right up close!
Sorry I can't be of any help with regards to brands! I use an Eizo monitor and I think my previous one was Acer. Our downstairs TVs have normally been Samsung's and they last about 5-7 years. I've never had an LG so I can't comment on it. I only get monitors because I use them with my Mac too, like everyone else I'd ideally like the biggest TV with the highest refresh rate and highest resolution with all the bells and whistles but we can't all get what we want can we? 😅
My bare minimum for playing modern consoles is 1080p and 32inch (at a 4 foot distance). I remember when I had a PS3 but didn't play it much because I always wanted to play on the big TV downstairs which was never free and I didn't really Wana experience my games on the diddly monitor I used in my room, though I did do it anyway sometimes.
Obviously a 4k TV with 120hz will be more future proof if your kid is planning to get a series X or PS5 but in any instance, check the reviews on TV your looking at, I normally filter the 1 star reviews and work my way up to the good reviews!
@yss for some reason some of the links are not working, might be worth it (if you feel safe enough, gloves and mask!) to ring up your local richer sounds and ask if they have that model in stock for you to come and have a look at. I had a look at the reviews for the Philips and it seemed to say the TV guide for Freeview didn't work properly and image quality was inferior to an older model.
Buying a TV online without checking it out first is always a punt so it's up to you!
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