Seiki SE42UMS 42-Inch 4K Ultra HD LED TV (2015 Model)

I purchased this TV as a monitor for my computer. Being a software developer, it seemed like an inexpensive way to get the real estate of 3 or 4 monitors while only worrying about one. This it accomplishes adequately.If you want to use it as a monitor, there are a few things to bear in mind, though.As others have pointed out, it needs the software upgrade from the Seiki web site AND your computer needs to drive it at 60 Hz (rather than 30 Hz) otherwise the lag between when you move your mouse and when the cursor responds is truly unusable. At 60 Hz, the lag is not even noticeable. For those who are considering this, make sure that you have a graphics card that is capable of driving a 4K monitor - most of them can't handle it. If the video graphics card can't drive a 4K monitor, it will drive the Seiki as if it were a normal HD (rather than Ultra HD) display and you will not get the amazing resolution you had hoped for.When it comes to computer settings (under Windows) when using such a high-density monitor, Windows will assume that the monitor is tiny and will default to a setting that makes all of the icons and fonts HUGE. That rather defeats the purpose though; since if everything is huge, you can't fit as much stuff onto the display. You will need to go into your display settings and reduce the size of the fonts and icons.Another thing to watch out for is the cable. It needs to be an HDMI 2 cable rather than just a simple HDMI cable. An HDMI 2 cable looks just like a regular HDMI cable, but it is capable of handling the higher frequencies needed by the 4K monitor.The major downside of the Seiki is that it is a TN (twisted nematic) display (an older, cheaper technology). Although it has all the pixel resolution you could want, its color resolution is really quite dreadful. What I mean by this is that it doesn't distinguish between similar colors and paints them as the same color. As a result, the display is pretty much unusable for photography. Photos have a "paint by numbers" or blotchy appearance because subtle differences in color are missing. This means that a lot of detail is lost despite the high pixel density. This is especially obvious for skin tones.This also means that it is a bit marginal as a monitor as well; because "TrueType" fonts (pretty much all writing on computer monitors) rely on a wide range of colors (grays mostly) to "round" the jagged edges of letters. If the monitor uses the closest color it can display instead of the precise color requested by the computer, then writing doesn't look right. It not only has jagged edges, but the thickness of letters often vary randomly and letters will often be blotched with colors that shouldn't be there (because it has chosen a dark red, for instance, instead of a dark gray). It is usable, but kind of cheap looking and a bit less legible.For movies and general television, this lack of a full color palette is less noticeable because the bad colors are fleeting with moving content.Another downside is that the Seiki doesn't manage power like a monitor. After a certain amount of time with no signal, it will turn itself off in order to save power. That's a good thing. The bad part is that it won't automatically turn itself back on once a signal is present again - and it takes several seconds for it to perform its power on sequence.

I was on the fence about returning this TV until I updated the firmware. Then magic happened.What I like about this TV:1) The picture looks amazing.2) Netflix and Amazon Prime look even more amazing. 3840 x 2160 24Hz according to display.3) 3 HDMI ports4) Advanced color controls to fine tune individual colors.5) Responsiveness of channel and show changes. I've had other TVs which seemed to lag a few seconds too many6) Not a smart TV. I prefer to keep things simple and not have potential software hangups or issues.7) Sports also like great with no noticeable motion blur issues.What could be better:1) The sound is average at best. A non-issue for me since I use a separate soundbar.2) Sound at times stops until TV restart. Also a non-issue for me.3) Contrast could be better. See below.4) MEMC setting turns itself back on each time TV is restarted. You manually have to turn it off in the settings to not get that soap opera look.5) Individual color settings reset each time TV is turned on. Can be annoying to reset if you choose not to use factory presets which are also available. Hopefully this will be fixed with the next firmware release.6) Unwieldy large remote control. Great for seniors though.I use THX optimizer to tweak color and display settings. You can find this on many DVDs. The one disappointment being, the contrast isn't as good as it should be. The optimizer displays 4 different shades of white bars. Three can be differentiated. The 4th bar blended into the third. I personally haven't noticed any washed out effect when watching TV.The firmware update was very easy to do by following instructions through the company website.This for me fixed three issues. The most important of which was the jittery movement with too much motion on the screen. The workaround for this previously was to turn on MEMC in the settings. The downside in doing so is it gives it a soap opera like feel. Highly undesirable for some.The second was adding individual color settings for red, green, blue, cyan, magenta and yellow. Each having a hue, saturation and brightness setting. Also included are white balance settings for red, green and blue individual gains and offsets.Thirdly, I no longer have that laggy feeling when using it as a monitor for my laptop. I can't be sure if it's good enough for gaming yet, but definitely a huge improvement.The images were taken from my Tivo and Netflix. No Blu Ray was used. A Seiki SU4KC1 U-Vision Up Converting Cable was used to run the signal from my Tivo Premier and it seems to make a noticeable improvement. There was no upconverting improvement with my Oppo DVD player which already upconverts to better HDish quality.With the improvements I find the low price for a 4K Ultra HD TV to be an amazing value and couldn't be more pleased.