To the average person the monitor or a TV is just a screen, and nothing more. However, there is much that goes into a TV and monitor, especially gaming monitors.
Is a monitor better for gaming? This question has many factors and cannot be answered in a yes or no form. The answer depends on many different things such as refresh rate and screen panel types.
Refresh Rate
The refresh rate, also known as hertz or the abbreviation “Hz”, is the amount that the screen is refreshed per second, giving faster response times and making things look a lot smoother.
An example of a way that refresh-rate can impact gaming is that if someone has a refresh rate of 75 and someone else has 60 in a shooter game then the one with 75 will see the player with 60 first and has an advantage in the gunfight.
However, the higher the refresh rate you have you must have the same frames per second as refresh rate to be able to see the other player in the scenario above, so if someone has a 144hz refresh rate then they need to have 144fps in the game they are playing as well.
So, to decide if a monitor is better than a TV then refresh rate must be a factor however, most TVs only come with a 60Hz refresh rate. Monitors are more diverse in this aspect, with many different choices at a reasonable price with most monitors being at 144Hz in the gaming field.
Screen panels
The most common gaming monitor screen type is the TN monitor, This is because of the good 16:9 aspect ratio of the monitor, they are most common in the 19-28 inch screen spectrum.
The panel is cheap and gives a good refresh rate for gaming, however, it doesn’t have that good viewing angles or color depth, this is a good panel for the price and performs well while gaming.
The second most popular panel is the VA panel which is a slightly more expensive panel than the TN, it gives good viewing angles and a good color depth, this is the best medium between the TN and IPS panels, the refresh rate of this panel is most commonly between 60hz and 120hz but it can be higher.
The IPS panel is the best panel for gaming right now and gives the best quality color depth and gives the best viewing angles out of the three, however, It has a lower refresh rate than most. The IPS panel is very expensive and is usually only a 75hz monitor however now the IPS panel has a 144hz variant.
Most TVs nowadays have IPS or VA panels because TVs are usually much more expensive than monitors.
Conclusion
Are Monitors better than TVs for gaming? Yes and No. Monitors and TVs can both be good for gaming if they have good specifications.
If we were to compare a TV with an IPS panel and a monitor with an IPS panel and they both had the same refresh rate I would choose the monitor. I would choose the monitor over the TV because of the price, monitors are much less expensive than TVs, mostly because of the TV’s aspect ratio.
The TV usually is large and the pixels of a TV may stretch because of the larger aspect ratio. This is not to say that there can’t be a good TV for gaming, Just that for the price difference a monitor is much better.
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