Have you run a 4k monitor at lower resolution?

Would like a huge monitor. For productivity. There are some Korean 4k monitors that are under 700$ I'm considering on amazon. The screen is going to be maybe 3-4 feet or more from my eyes and I'd like the objects on the screen to be bigger.

I'm worried about the below

1. Thinkpad yoga first generation won't be able to handle even a 4k monitor set at lower resolution?

2. Framerate won't be great? Just going to connect with an old mini HDMI to HDMI to the 4k monitor. Maybe I need a better connection? But then how do I check if my thinkpad yoga works with HDMI 2.0? It definitely doesn't have a display port.

3. Are there problems in general with running a monitor at a nonnative resolution?

4. Any other problems I haven't thought of?

5. What have your experiences been with 40 inch monitors in general?

Also considering this
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Perfect-Pix...tor-NEW-44K-/400953662024?hash=item5d5ab35a48

 

1) Correct. Your Yoga can't output 4K resolution at 60Hz. You might be able to get away with 4K @ 30Hz, but that's going to be a garbage experience.

2) For HDMI, you're going to be stuck at 4K @ 30Hz. You can check if your laptop has HDMI 2.0 by looking at the specs. But I can tell you that given the age of a Thinkpad Yoga 1, it doesn't have HDMI 2.0.

3) No problems running at non-native resolution. Except things are going to look bad, given the fact that you're going to have pixel interpolation (image scaling when running at non-native resolution). It will work, but things won't look great.

4) HDMI 1.x is only really great at running resolutions up to 1920x1200. To get above that, you really want DisplayPort so that you have enough bandwidth to run those high resolutions at 60Hz refresh rate.

5) 40" displays are gigantic, and aren't great for productivity use. They're decent for gaming or media consumption (movies). But if you're the kind of person that does 8 hours a day of work in front of a computer, you'll get eye strain pretty quickly on a giant monitor. On top of that, inexpensive TN-based monitors traditionally have poor color reproduction and viewing angles. So if you're going to be buying a monitor for desktop productivity use, it may not be the best choice. It's entirely personal preference here, but once you get an IPS panel, you never want to go back. Even for somethign as simple as typing a document in Microsoft Word, just because of the viewing angles.