Working at Home, I need a Big Monitor

43 inches with 4k resolution and 120Hz refresh for under $230.

Please forgive my terrible photography but at least you know it is real. The can of Coke Zero is for scale plus I was thirsty.

Update
    Updating the driver and a power down seemed to have resolved the audio issue. I found that annoying at best since I did a reboot and that did not resolve the issue. 

What I do for a living.

   It sure isn't blogging since I do not put enough effort into my blog and no one ever comments on my posts. So what do I do? I write software. To be specific, I am an embedded software engineer at L3Harris in Palm Bay, Florida. Like many companies, they are having people that can work from home. In fact, the current rule is if you can work from home you must work from home. At my office, I have two 1080p 27-inch monitors plus my laptop screen. I often wish for more screen space. When I started working from home, I just had my laptop screen. It just was not going to work for long.  Between my software development environment, Outlook, Skype, and Chrome that tiny laptop screen just was not going to cut it. So I started to shop for monitors.

That is no monitor, it is a TV.

   Back on Black Friday my wife and I got a great deal on a TCL 55-inch 4k TV.  We hooked up our XBox One to it and were really impressed with the picture. I also liked that it supported up to 120Hz refresh rate and after reading some reviews found it had a low latency for gaming. I started to think that it would make a good monitor for gaming on a PC. Sure it would not be as good as a high end 4k monitor but the cost was so low that it might be worth a shot. Then came the work at home order and I needed a monitor or two to make working more productive.

But 55 inches is just too big.

   Yes, I had no room for a 55-inch monitor but TCL made a 43-inch monitor that had the same specs and cost about $100 less. In fact, it was only $218 at Walmart. It is also available at Best Buy, Target, BJs, and Amazon. These are not affiliate links and I make nothing from them. I put them in as a way to make your life easier. 

So how does it work as a monitor for you?

   It is pretty dang good in my humble opinion. For work it is great. I have no serious problems with it. I have not done any advanced testing or used a color spider to calibrate it but I have tried moving windows around and I see no ghosting and the text is very clear. The size is large but not too large. I may make a shelf to raise the monitor up about four inches to improve my line of sight and sitting position. I used to joke that no matter how big the monitor is a software engineer will find a way to use all the space and want more.  I may have been wrong because I think this monitor is about as big as I would ever want. Think of it as four 1080p monitors and it makes a lot of sense.  No, I would not say it is too big but just about right.

Not without some problems.

   The first problem is that you have to use a remote to turn it on and switch it to the computer. It is a TV after all. The second issue has to do with audio. I do not know if this is an issue with my personal notebook or with the TV but sometimes I do not get audio. I cannot get any audio with Chrome playing YouTube video but it seems to work fine with Microsoft Edge. Another issue is that it keeps switching in and out of game mode when I am playing Flight Simulator while in Automatic mode. If you just set it to Game Mode and leave it set when playing games, it is not an issue. The final issue is without a doubt, not the monitor's fault. My laptop is not powerful enough to drive it well at 4k. To really use this TV at the full performance you will need a monster graphics card like a member of the Nvidia 2080 family. 

Is it worth it?

  I have to say yes. If you can get it at $229 and you need a big monitor for working on your computer, I think it is great. If you need a good TV and want to play console games I would also say it is a good choice.  If you want both in your office, then heck yes. The Smart TV software is from Roku which provides a really good interface and it even will do a limited version of Chromecast. 

   How does it work for writing software? I honestly really like it. Some people like to rotate their monitor into portrait mode to get more code on the screen so it is taller than wide. With this monitor, you can have a 1920x2016 window on one side and then have room for two 1920x1080 windows on the other.  I often run my development environment on half the screen and then divide the other half between Outlook, Skype, and a browser.  Hope this helps someone. 

Logitech K400 Keyboard

Working From Home Keyboard review.
Logitech K400.

It is wireless, has a touchpad, and is 10 Keyless but it is just not for me.

    I, like a lot of people, am now working from home. I really did not have a great setup to work from home so I spent some money and created a workspace for myself. Unlike normal times, I cannot just go to Ikea and get a desk. I also did not want to wait for deliveries from Amazon, so I stuck with local stores that offer pickup to minimize my and others exposure. I picked this up at Walmart along with the next two items that I plan on reviewing.

So why did I buy this keyboard?

Honestly, I picked this keyboard for three reasons.

1. It was at the store.
2. It was cheap.
3. When I left my office with my laptop I did not know that I was not coming back for awhile and left two good keyboards on my desk and with the external monitor, it is hard to use the laptop.

As I said, I do not really like this keyboard but that does not mean that it is a terrible keyboard for the right use case. It does have some nice features that may make it a good choice for some.

Features

1. Wireless. The K400 uses a wireless dongle to connect to your target device.
2. Small. 
3. It does not feel too flimsy or cheap.
4. It has an integrated touchpad, so you do not need a mouse in addition to the keyboard.
5. Multi-media keys.
6. Inexpensive, as low as $19.95.

So why don't I like the K400? It all comes down to how I need to use it and personal preferences. If you want this to connect to a Rasberry Pi hooked to your TV or a Media PC, it is a good choice. You can put it next to the couch and control the device. Others may like it because they can put it in their laptop case and have an external keyboard and touchpad to use. 

What I need it for is to write code. I am a software engineer and currently writing Linux device drivers.  I am also a big guy, at almost 2 meters tall. I will be using this at a desk hooked to my work laptop or my personal laptop. So, a lot of the features of this keyboard require trade-offs that I just do not like. 

So what is it that I do not like.

The small size.

The trade-offs to get a small size are just too great for me and the small size offers me no benefit. It is too small and feels cramped to me. Many of the keys are not are full-sized. For example, the enter key and the right shift keys. Also, the home, end, page up, and page down keys require the use of an fn key as well as the function keys. Another trade-off is that it has a very short keystroke and a mushy feel. The height of the keyboard is also not adjustable. 

The integrated touchpad. 

I find it terrible to use. It may be a setting I need to change but it is useless to me. I admit that it has a lot of potentials, if I can get it working well but right now it just does not work for me. It takes forever to move the pointer. Because it is so slow, I have plugged in an external mouse. I do like that it is located to the right, so you are less likely to brush or hit it by mistake which I feel is a real plus.

Not a Bluetooth device.

For many, this is not a problem but a feature. It is simpler to just plug in a USB dongle and not worry about pairing a Bluetooth device. Also, if you are going to use it for gaming, in theory, the property wireless connection offers lower latency than Bluetooth. For me, it is not a benefit. Both my laptops have Bluetooth and I do not find pairing them an issue. So to switch between computers, I have to swap the USB dongle and mouse when I switch between laptops. It would be much simpler if whichever laptop was on would just grab the keyboard and mouse. I could get a KVM switch to handle all this but that is an added expense. 

So should you buy it?

That really depends. If you do not mind the small keys and the feel of the keyboard, it is not a bad choice. If you are going to be writing a lot of code with it, I just think you can find better options.

If it sounds like a good fit, you can buy from Walmart for only $19.95

Other options?

Tom's guide has a review of cheap keyboards that may offer you some better choices if you can get them or have time to have them delivered. 

Stay safe and have a good week.

If you are working from home and have a secure job like I do, please consider donating to your local food bank, homeless shelter, animal Shelter or charity of your choice.