Monitor Advice?

[nickpeterson]

Primary Goal: Text Clarity, able to be used for long periods without strain.
Secondary Goal: Pixel Density to get work done.
Pixels Per Inch: 100-150
Color Accurate: No
Blue Light Reduction: Would be very nice
Price Range: $0 - $1000 USD

I'm a database administrator, I spend probably 50-70 hours a week in front of this screen. My goal is something reasonably dense, that I can look at for long periods.

I work from home, and have no weight/ergonomic requirements.

I currently use an ancient Samsung 204T that I bought 11 years ago hooked to a MacBook Pro. I've never owned an IPS monitor but have noticed most TN panels seem to bother my eyes. My current one is Super PVA(?) and I really like it (aside from the blur). It's a 4:3 which I also love but acknowledge that the industry has ruled against me. I value height on the desktop (think large Excel documents and SQL Result sets).

I've spend a few days searching but it seems like my choices are 'Gaming Monitor we herd u lik refresh ratez' and 'Aspiring Pixar Employee'. Surely there has to be higher-end, "I use my monitor for office stuff" monitors? Or am I really underestimating the current quality of a regular $100-200 monitor?

 

[sanderm]

From my personal experience, I can recommend Dell's U3415W and U2715H. Both fit into given constraints. As you mention having MBP, I don't know if it will be able to run U3415W, but it should be able to run the other display. Just browse around here, there are enough advice for choosing the most suitable display for your needs.

Text Clarity, able to be used for long periods without strain.

My experience is to turn down brightness, no matter which display you have. As much as I have used other people's displays, my eyes start hurting pretty soon because of brightness levels compared to my display settings.

 

[nickpeterson]

From my personal experience, I can recommend Dell's U3415W and U2715H. Both fit into given constraints. As you mention having MBP, I don't know if it will be able to run U3415W, but it should be able to run the other display. Just browse around here, there are enough advice for choosing the most suitable display for your needs.


My experience is to turn down brightness, no matter which display you have. As much as I have used other people's displays, my eyes start hurting pretty soon because of brightness levels compared to my display settings.

Would contrast matter in this case? Should I be looking at VA panels over IPS? I tend to use dark themes in most of my ide's with bright text, mostly so I don't get blasted with a wall of white light at night.

 

[leadays]

In my experience the most important things are room lighting and display brightness.
Use a warm light for your room (5500k or lower) and don't keep the monitor too bright.
Make sure to get a no pwm monitor with low blue light function.

VA ips and tn i think it's personal preference (va and tn have gamma shift that could bother some people).

You don't need an expensive monitor to be satisfied, also you need to run the display to the native resolution so careful buying 4k resolution at 24" because you will need scaling.

I tend to use dark themes in most of my ide's with bright text, mostly so I don't get blasted with a wall of white light at night.

I used dark themes too but i had to choose "non bright" colours for text because otherwise i would burn the text into my retina.

 

[Dizon248]

Have you considered rotating 16:9 monitors 90 degrees to give you that cherished vertical space?

 

[nickpeterson]

I've considered it but would probably have to find 2 16:10 monitors since otherwise they feel very narrow.

I'm actually considering buying two of the Eizo 2730Q monitors that are 1920x1920 resolution (perfect squares). Unfortunately they're priced at $1400 dollars nearly everywhere I find them, so I feel like I'd be better off just buying one large 4K screen instead of those. But if they were available at less than a $1000 I would strongly consider it. I think square proportions are just plain better (I used to use two 1280x1024 19" monitors and enjoyed it).