Best monitor for text based work

As per title I'm looking for the best monitor for text based work.
As I spend some day up to 12-14 hours on the pc, eyestrain is a problem sometimes.
I read between on last 2 days thousand of review on monitor, but the more I read the more I'm confused. I read a thread (from last year) on this forum, where a user stated that pva are worse than ips and tn for text reading, then on another forum another user wrote the opposite.
The same is for specific reviews: for the same monitor you can find different opinion and comments. So i'm asking for you help to choose the best monitor for text with 1920x1080 or 1920x1200 resolution, under 400$.

With text you're dealing with two issues. I'm excluding dot pitch because while its a huge issue, I find that it varies from monitor to monitor, even if they have the same specs.

So - Black levels, and contrast. You want good blacks, which, PVA's tend to do the best job there. Contrast is the other issue. In all honesty, modern IPS and PVA's do a great job with text - just don't get a TN due to the viewing angle issues. My advice? Buy a variety of different monitors from a vendor with a great return policy, take care with unpacking them and keeping the packaging together, play with them, and keep the one you like best while sending the rest back.

Dell 2209WA, Dell U2410, Samsung F2080, Dell 3008, I mean - Basically, go with IPS or PVA and I'm willing to bet you're going to be happy.

Being a UNIX/FreeBSD/Linux sysadmin myself, I spend a good deal of time working with text. I've got a Dell 2707WFP at work which is perfect. The large dot pitch gives text an eye relaxing size, and allows a good deal of information to be on-screen at once. The decent black level the PVA panel provides gives text a reasonable but not eye-straining contrast.

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I'm a writer, so dealing with text is of prime importance to me as well. For your budget, I'd look for any of the popular 24" LCDs from HP, Dell or Samsung. For text-based work, there are some minor differences between IPS and PVA panels, but nothing earth-shattering. The real difference in terms of eyestrain is between LCD and CRT. For text: LCD = good, CRT = bad.

A user on this forum wrote 4 principle to follow choosing a monitor for text reading:

"1) Brightness: Most big screens have over bright back lights. When they do have powerful back lights, turning them down often still results in poor color rendition and the contrast looks hideous if you are further forced to use the LCD itself to limit the light coming through even more. Solution: Avoid anything with a back light rated over 300cd/m2.

2) PVA panel angular gamma shift. Most people aren't bothered by this, but this affects me quite a bit. The gamma shift with small viewing angle changes is strongest with *VA screens. This can cause each eye to see a slightly different image which can be perceived as 3D cues, your eyes tend to work harder trying to pull out the 3D object (like a magic 3d picture) and hence eyestrain. I stress this is rare. Solution: Get and TN or IPS screen.

3) Neon Colors. I have a Dell 3007-HC in front of me right now. HC stands for Hi-Color or some such nonsense. Basically it is in the trend of "wide Gamut" monitors which will tend to give you neon Reds and Greens. These colors can actually hurt to look at and represent significant problems trying to correct. Solution: Get a non-neon standard gamut panel

4) Excess strong AG (Anti-glare) treatment that looks like dust on your screen. Mainly noticeably as a blotchy/sparkly looking dust over white text. Annoying and probably increases eyestrain. Solution: Looks for smoother AG coatings."


These principles were written 1 year & half ago. Are still principle still valid? Many of you are suggesting PVA panel, while on the point 2 the guy said that pva are to be avoided for text reading.
Following the suggestions above which monitor today suit best teh description? (I guess it would imply to not consider monitor as F2380 or monitor with neon color or high brightness and very strong AG)

You're making this much more complicated than necessary. I work with hundreds of pages of text every day. My previous LCD was a Dell 2407WFP, a PVA panel. Text on it was easy to read, text on my 3008 IPS panel is easy to read.

Vertical standing monitor helps plenty for text based work. Size is important also. The bigger the text the less eye strain. Dell 24" has ability to rotate to portrait mode. Panel technology doesn't matter much for text based work. Another good solution is 28" Hanns-g monitor from costco and buy a separate tilt swivel stand. If having landscape orientation is sometimes important consider having two monitors, one landscaped and one in portrait mode.

http://www.ergotron.com/Products/tabid/65/PRDID/242/language/en-US/default.aspx
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0012LIQB6...e=380333&creativeASIN=B0012LIQB6&linkCode=asn

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Elipsn said:

My advice? Buy a variety of different monitors from a vendor with a great return policy, take care with unpacking them and keeping the packaging together, play with them, and keep the one you like best while sending the rest back.

Click to expand...

say goodbye to liberal return policies soon.

Costco used to have a great plan that got raped.

The idea isn't to just buy up items so you can shop at home, it's to cover the research you should have spent and got a bad egg.