Best for Text (clarity & eye-strain)

There are quite a few threads to read through to get to the bottom of this (in an up-to-date way) it seems...

1) What's the very best monitor to day (between 27 & 32 inches) for text clarity and lack-of-eye strain?

I think ideally it would be high refresh rate, but I'm not sure about that. I'm assuming the higher the resolution, the better - or specifically higher ppi, the better (so 27in > 32in, if identical resolution).

4k IPS using scaling through windows 10 .

I would say the biggest factor on eyestrain is the backlight. Finding a flicker free backlight is essential. Having a high Hz LCD display literally does nothing in terms of eyestrain. This is because LCD's work differently from CRT's. CRT's had to be redrawn constantly which is why high Hz had an affect. But LCD's don't redraw anything. Literally the image persists and then simply transitions to something else. However, LCD backlights that have PWM's often introduce flicker which does create eye strain. Finding a display without these types of backlights then is essential. Thankfully, in the days of the internet, finding this information is just a Google search away.

Order of priorities I would say specifically for eyestrain are:
backlight type (any flicker free variety)
Distance from Display
Display Size & Display Resolution (which is more important depends on viewing distance, I would say they are roughly of equal importance).

Whoops, I forgot to mention that you want a zero pwm monitor, too.

Things related to monitors

PWM
Flickering does not need to be that bad when monitor is used for gaming/multimedia but for text work or similar it should be generally avoided.
Flickering depending on implementation can improve motion clarity a lot and ability to quickly focus on image when it is moving and/or when eyes are moving. For most daily computer usage which especially include reading text any flickering should be avoided even if your eyes do not mind flickering.
These days it is easy to find PWM-free monitor so this should not be an issue. Just read reviews where they actually test this.
Important thing to do is when you work with computers at your workplace to check used monitors and have them replaced if they have PWM. This can be done either by moving window around or even just moving eyes. PWM-free monitors have one continuous smudge and PWM introduce breaks in it. Multimedia benefit I mentioned before is due to discrete flashes are visible as complete sharp image and this is sharper than one continuous smear eyes see in case of any movement of object on monitor or eyes themselves. Some gaming monitors use this to the fullest by flashing once per refresh and if content displayed is always refreshed per frame time then we get awesome motion clarity. All CRT monitors did that.

Panel type
Avoid TN, those are just bad for almost everything.
I would say IPS is the best and least irritating when it comes to off-angle distortions and I never had any eye strain from them.
Some people prefer VA for eye-strain and I suspect it is because of different pixel structure which is more in line with how they focus eyes.
Sight is not set in stone and there are different ways to use eyes and eyes themselves are different also. Best to check how different panel types look like to you and then choose.

Native gamut
Subpixel font rendering is calibrated for sRGB and work best on monitor with native sRGB gamut. Many monitors today have higher gamut and use sRGB emulation and while it can correct colors just fine it does screw up font rendering. Generally wide gamut monitors are always worse for font clarity.
Also try to avoid monitors with gamut with too much blue over-coverage which suggest LEDs used in it have poor design and produce peak with very strong blue light.

Native backlight white point/temperature
Backlight should have native temperature of 6500K (white) and avoid monitors with very high native backlight temperature (blueish).
Different backlight color will mean panel contrast ratio will be reduced to hit 6500K and also black temperature is the same as backlight temperature so monitor with LEDs that are way too blue will have blueish blacks. This is bad foe eye comfort but also rods in our eyes are very sensitive to blue light and perceived contrast ratio of such monitor will be poor.
High backlight temperature also suggest LEDs used are of poor quality.

Brightness and its range
Monitor should allow regulation in range at least 60-200cd/m2. Brightness used should be chosen depending on ambient light and should be high enough to not add strain when trying to see. Values of 100-120cd/m2 are recommended and if that seems too bright it means there is not enough ambient light in the room.
Some monitors are locked depending on used mode (eg. in sRGB emulation mode) to some ridiculous high values like 200cd/m2.

Coating type
Glare panels while loved by some people for supposedly better colors and contrast are harder for eyes, especially when used in not optimal places where there is something bright reflecting.
I prefer medium hardness matte coatings and am fine with any matte coating.
Today there should be no issues with coating being too hard like there were in the past with some monitors (Dell U2410/U2710 comes to mind... it was definitely screwed up...) and many monitors have matte coatings.

Ambient light
I would go as far as to say to never use monitor without ambient light. One exception would be multimedia/gaming if done for short time and if used for many hours then it means you play games all night long and you have deeper issues Just use some ambient light to not strain your eyes too much and ambient light if it is placed properly improves perceived contrast ratio so is preferred even for image quality.

PPI, viewing distance and size
High resolution monitor and scaling everything up improves text clarity a lot.
Watching monitor up close is not very good idea. It is better to get larger monitor and watch if from some distance.
Monitors like 4K at 27" might too much for average person to use without windows scaling from enough distance. 32" at 4K might be large enough if you have relatively good eyes.

Panel color depth
6-bit panels have more dithering noise so get yourself 8bit panel. Monitor can have 10bit inputs but be still 6bit+FCR so best to check actual panel specs.

Refresh rate and features such as Freesync/G-Sync
Do not make difference outside gaming.
Eye-strain while gaming should be reduced with high refresh rate monitor with VRR compared to low refresh rate monitor, especially when frame rates are uneven and there is stuttering.

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Other things related to monitors/computers

Software used and settings
In Windows 10 in Control Panel in "Fonts" there is ClearType tweaker. It can used to make font rendering more clear and easier to read.
Some programs have better font rendering than others and some settings could make a lot of difference, especially on low PPI monitors when zoom/scale is not used. One example would be web browsers Chrome for example tends to have less sharp/defined fonts than Firefox. Disabling hardware acceleration used to improve font rendering because with hardware acceleration fonts can be placed with subpixel accuracy and this screws up font hinting which is aligning them to pixel grid.

Screen position
Looking down at things does not seem to be very healthy for eyes.
Monitor should not be placed below and looked down at.

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Things related to sight itself (since you should not even get any eye-strain when eyes are used properly)

Eye strain itself
It might be silly to mention but biggest factor in general eye-strain is forcing eyes to see.
It should never be necessary to force eyes to see some hard to see detail and this habit should be completely eliminated. Keep eyes relaxed at all times and when things are unclear just keep eyes relaxed somewhere over target until you can discern what is being seen. Doing it like that helps brain to learn how to control eyes properly and convert impulses they generate actual image. Straining eyes by trying to focus them with force often helps to see something more clearly for a moment and this leads to habit of using this and this itself leads to eye-strain and over time leads to bad eyesight which leads to even more forcing eyes to see clearly. This needs to stop.

Relax eyes as much as possible while recognizing things
With text it is often not necessary to see it very clearly and still be able to read it. Many people have habit of straining eyes because they feel that if they relax them too much when reading easily readable text it will be bad for them and instead force eyes to see way too much details than necessary for the task at hand. This habit need to be eliminated.
Relaxation of the eyes is the most important thing to do. Even when dealing with small, far away, blurry, etc. text all that is important is recognizing what is written and when that is achieved (but never by forcing eyes to focus !!!) the job is being done and eyes need not be bothered with it any more. Same goes for recognizing anything else.

Train and calibrate eyes
All this relaxation might sound like something which will lead to eyes getting lazy. Nothing like that will ever happen when eyes are trained properly.
There is a great eyesight improving method: when you see something that you cannot recognize clearly eg. some small far away text (and/or with bad lighting) try to recognize it while keeping eyes relaxed (never try to strain them even if this helps with seeing details!) and when even this is impossible get closer to see how it should look like and then go where you were you were and try to see what you are supposed to see. This does many things in your brain and eyes:
- improve eye position control
- improve depth focus so that eye is focused exactly on surface it sees and not eg. behind it
- train visual cortex to convert impulses from eyes to usable image
- calibrate awareness so that its focal point is aligned with most sensitive part of your eye (it can be misaligned!)
- helps to improve internal structures of cones and rods - not really sure about that but I suspect is being the case

I spend a lot of time looking at text and thin lines.

I like a VA panel more than IPS as it appears sharper to my eyes. I sacrifice viewing angle for it.

Everyone is different.

Refresh rates don’t matter much except for games

I have an LG 32UK550 which I find great.

Seems like the consensus is that panel type (VA vs IPS) is still up to personal preference - or is somehow affected by their configuration/environment. I imagine glare might be a bit worse on VA and ghosting & contrast a bit worse on IPS.
So I'll have to try a top (PPI) VA & IPS panel.

I have two monitors. One is a 1440p IPS (27 inch) and the 32UK550 4k VA mentioned earlier.

I find that I am a lot more reluctant to read text on the 27 inch than the 32.

Prior to having the 32, I had a 24 inch TN panel as my secondary screen and I still favoured that for everything but gaming/videos. I really think it comes down to what you use a screen for. If it's mostly videos and gaming, I think IPS is marginally superior, If it's text, and lines and such, I think VA is superior.

When I say superior, I don't mean in a huge magnificent way, just a slight improvement.

It could just be my eyes, it could just be how I react to the screen. I certainly find the colour and backlighting to be more linear across the IPS.

Keljian said:

I have two monitors. One is a 1440p IPS (27 inch) and the 32UK550 4k VA mentioned earlier.

I find that I am a lot more reluctant to read text on the 27 inch than the 32.

Prior to having the 32, I had a 24 inch TN panel as my secondary screen and I still favoured that for everything but gaming/videos. I really think it comes down to what you use a screen for. If it's mostly videos and gaming, I think IPS is marginally superior, If it's text, and lines and such, I think VA is superior.

When I say superior, I don't mean in a huge magnificent way, just a slight improvement.

It could just be my eyes, it could just be how I react to the screen. I certainly find the colour and backlighting to be more linear across the IPS.

Click to expand...

If you use say 125% scaling on the 1440p display, do you feel it gets more pleasant to read compared to the 4K screen? I'm thinking maybe you don't like that the font size combined with the light font weights in Windows is not as pleasant to read as the larger 32" screen. I prefer scaling font sizes up a bit on my 1440p screen in Windows but don't feel the need for it in Mac OS because it renders fonts differently.

Nope tried that, still the VA wins. Colour accuracy/vibrance is literally the only thing I like about the ips

Necro'ing seems reasonable for long-term eye strain research... Current specific models best for reading/typing for hours? I realize it seems picky, but I want at least 144hz for better scrolling / UI perceptions.

These will always be personal preferences. I use a 5K IPS at work, used a 1440p TN as my main home monitor for years and now use a 5120x1440 VA panel. All perfectly fine to me. With my current home display I prefer 100% scaling because 125% is too large but I increase browser zoom to 110% for larger text as I find it sharper and easier to read.

To me the things you want are as high PPI as possible and use scaling (DPI scaling or per app font size) for sharper text and comfortable text size. Avoid non-RGB subpixel arrangements and displays with PWM backlights. Make sure the display brightness goes low enough for you without issues.