This was exactly my experience on the TV end. Prior to getting my LG OLED I had just experienced my family members bargain price 4k panels and did not think 4k was worth it. Then at my work we upgraded all of our QC tvs to LG OLEDs and the lead of team gave us a demo. The contrast and color difference in HDR on the top of the line OLED panel was amazing. Bought one a couple months later. My wife indulged me, but didn’t really care. Once it arrived and we watched a movie on it she was 100% sold. We both consider it one of our best big ticket purchases. Also told my coworkers about it and a few purchased some in the years following. They all love them as well.

The only complaint I have about mine is how fire appears in HDR. The color is washed out and has some ghosting in dark scenes where it is the brightest object. Not a huge issue most of the time though.

Also for OP, IMO high quality 4k OLED panel is only worth it if you watch a lot of cinematic content in that is produced in SDR or HDR. if you are just watching sports, news, or sitcoms most of the time I would not consider it worth it. I have advised my father against getting one for this exact reason.

Thank you admins for being so transparent with the users and putting in the hard work! The energy and thought you put into this community is outstanding and I really appreciate it!

Money/demand. Streaming platforms were not really pushing to license UHD content for anything other than their original productions prior to around 2019. That means that if what you want to watch was originally released prior to 2019 it is likely the series/feature would need to be remastered in UHD now. If the studios don’t see demand for a product in UHD they are not going to spend the money to remaster.

Definitely go with pocket holes over dowels. Speaking from personal experience dowels are very hard to line up especially with a hand drill instead of a drill press.

I don’t know what your expectations for the desktop are, but with the tools you have at hand right now a rustic or farmhouse style desk would be the most reasonable expectation. Prepare to put in a lot of work and have small gaps between each board and a non-flat face.

To create a top that is perfectly flat and has no gaps is virtually impossible with the tools at your disposal.

If you truly want to build the desk yourself with the tools you have AND you need it to be perfectly flat you could do your absolute best to build it flat and tight and then place a glass top over the wood. Then you can admire working over something you built yourself and if you acquire the tools and skill in the future to make the top flat and fill the gaps you can refinish the wood and ditch the glass.

You may want to look into community woodshops or tool shares in your area. If available they will usually require you take a couple safety classes with their teachers so you know how to use all of the equipment and then a monthly fee for access to the tools and bench time.

In a couple other responses you mentioned not having the tools for joinery. I think it may be beneficial if you tell us what tools you do have access to.

PVA is going to be one of the strongest wood adhesives you can find aside from construction adhesive and I wouldn’t trust any furniture only held together with glue.

Typically you are going to use the glue in conjunction with either joinery or metal fasteners.