Depends entirely on how he plays and how much he's spending. I've seen some TN PC monitors that are atrocious, the quality varies a lot depending on how much one spends. I'd say if he's just gaming, a TV will be just fine although this depends a lot on viewing distance - if he's gaming from a couch I think a 1080p HDTV will be preferable and cheap, input lag should not be an issue. OTOH, if he's sitting up close and using a keyboard/mouse then I would certainly prefer a dedicated monitor - but, many people (including myself, for console gaming) find a bigger screen to be more immersive.
If he's the type of person that likes to sit back and relax on the couch with gaming, HDTV is the way to go for sure. But if he's the nerdy type of PC gamer who scoffs at xbox 360 controller gaming, he may like an up-close PC monitor which can potentially be better.
Does he have the HDTV already? I'd say let him try both usage scenarios out and see what he prefers.
This. I game on my laptop which does 1080p. I sit really close, almost on top of my laptop. I tried gaming on larger monitors but I really just like having a smaller monitor 1080p as I sit. Either way though, I use this, and I use my 1080p 70 inch Sharp. It really is dependent on how you game.
I'll knock settings out the way first. Almost ANY decent TV will achieve relatively similar colors/contrast given the right settings. If he doesn't have a TV, he should head over to avsforum.com and have them help him. If he does have a TV, he should STILL head over to there and input their settings into his TV to see a massive quality improvement. I gamed on my Sharp for almost a year before inputting their settings (even though I knew about the settings when I bought the TV) and noticed a massive improvement. Other than that, I rarely if ever have noticed input lag or whatever.
Now it comes to preference. I prefer to sit back and game on my couch for single player. I like the surround sound experience from my couch while lounging back and gaming. For Multiplayer though, I have to be ontop of the screen almost. I'm serious, I hate to lose. I would almost say when I play multiplayer games I don't even play for fun, I play solely to win so for me at that point I like to be close just personal preference. Either way though, having used both, I wouldn't say there is a huge difference. It's personal preference on how you like to game. I don't think I could say one experience is better than the other having both at my disposal and regularly switching between both, sometimes mid game even. Just because you're gaming on a HDTV doesn't exclude using a keyboard/mouse setup either. I've done that as well for playing games like league of legends.
Since you asked though just about picture quality, no there shouldn't be any significant difference. After calibration, which you should do on ANY device you get, you shouldn't notice. I wouldn't buy an HDTV unless I found calibration settings as the tools are expensive. I also wouldn't get a monitor unless it had calibration settings and a number of them, although your nvidia settings should allow for decent calibration anyway (dunno about AMD I don't own such a card). I'd say no matter what you get, you have a way to calibrate everything.
So I wouldn't be too worried, just tell him to purchase it based on what he likes better, HDTV vs Monitor, and once he makes his choice, head over to the correct forum to get the best device whether it's an HDTV or a Monitor.
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