They seem to have been trying hard to open a market for this brand. They dropped at least one name brand in favour of it. Gordon On Fri, 2014-10-10 at 15:04 -0400, D. Hugh Redelmeier wrote:
A month or so ago I could not resist a 4k monitor for $300. So I bought a Seiki SE39UY04 39-Inch TV from Tiger Direct.
Bad:
This is not a great monitor: not IPS, refresh rate of only 30Hz at 3840x2160 resolution, no exciting "smart" features, not a name brand.
And the $300 is not 100% accurate: there was a considerable ewaste fee, and the price was really $350 + taxes - $50 rebate.
Soon HDMI 2.0 will be here, allowing 60Hz refresh in future 4k monitors (not this one).
This thing thinks it is a TV. Too bad. No Display Port; that would have allowed 60Hz at full resolution.
A lot of computer video outputs do not support 4k even at 30Hz. I tried Zotac Zbox ID-81 Intel HD, AMD E350, AMD C50, ThinkPad W520. Luckily my MSI GFX650 seems to work (with nVidia proprietary driver).
Nobody but Tiger Direct has them: I think that this model has been replaced or will soon be.
Good:
It seems quite neat to have all these pixels on my desk. For now, it has replaced my long-serving 30" 2560x1600 monitor.
This is less expensive than almost any 2460x1440 monitor and it has more pixels. It seemed like a no-brainer.
39 inches seems reasonable for a desktop. The larger Seiki 4k models seem less so.
30 Hz is fine for static displays. Mouse tracking seems more, uh, etherial, for lack of a better term. Scrolling is a little less smooth. Quite liveable for a programmer like me.
TD has it on various sales at various times. Now it is $380 before $30 rebate. Oh, it is the last day of that rebate. <http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=8430969&CatId=7395>
There seems to be an enthusiastic user base. Even custom firmware!
Hint:
For monitor use, turn noise reduction off and sharpening to 0. Otherwise there are unpleasant effects on text displayed in a browser or terminal
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