[SOLVED] Eye strain reasons

[pmz94]

I currently have an Asus VX228H 21.5" FullHD (1080p) 60Hz monitor and for some reason I feel eye strain when using it after about 20 minutes.
Don't know the main reason but I guess many of these should be:

• View distance, (30 inches from eyes to monitor) sometimes I must get closer to see small text or just to get comfortable.
• Small text is sharp
• Too much brightness, even lowering it and playing with contrast and other monitor configurations
• Bad contrast, white and light gray scales are poorly noticeable
• Monitor specs says it has flicker free and low blue light, but I dont know how to tell
• TN panel
• HDMI but I don't think so
• Maybe not the monitor but desktop ergonomics

Mainly use it for gaming but I'm starting to using it for coding too, I mean a lot of text typing work.
So I'm getting a new monitor, (I'm at this close to get the Asus VG259Q) but my fear is still feeling this eye strain after upgrading.

Basically I wanna know what do I must check before this purchase?

 

[Eximo]

Make sure the monitor is at eye level, so a good stand is a must. Constantly looking up or down with your eyes can lead to muscle strain and eyeball deformation (like pushing too long on them will cause blurriness, which leads to more squinting to correct, etc)

TN is to be avoided, but if you are suffering from problems related to brightness, the other monitors will be worse. VA and IPS displays tend to be brighter. But contrast should also be better, so you may be able to achieve a better low brightness viewing result.

Flicker free mostly refers to the backlight being out of sync with the refresh rate, I believe. This has been less of an issue since LEDs were adopted for backlights. So I think they are basically just advertising that it isn't an old CCFL backlight.

Low blue light, only real way to test that is a colorimeter. White LEDs tend to carry a lot of blue, and you can only filter out so much before you aren't displaying blue anymore.

1080p 21.5" is quite dense in terms of pixels.
When selecting a new monitor, if you want to maintain that level of density:
1080p max 24"
27-32" 1440p
32-39" 4K

Eye strain while coding, you can dry dark mode in your IDE and lower brightness. Frequent breaks is really the best policy there. There is software out there for built-in reminders. And tools like f.lux for automatically reducing brightness at nighttime.

Most modern monitors come with HDMI and Display Port. Either is good for most things, digital, so won't change the result on the monitor. Display Port for gaming is preferred for the most compatibility for variable refresh rate, but AMD supports it on HDMI with some monitors.

VG259Q is pushing the pixel density a little bit, but should be okay. Really a 24.5" so not really straying far from the rule of thumb.

 

[pmz94]

TN is to be avoided, but if you are suffering from problems related to brightness, the other monitors will be worse. VA and IPS displays tend to be brighter. But contrast should also be better, so you may be able to achieve a better low brightness viewing result.

I read about that, they say IPS has better image quality and colors (not sure after looking its greyish blacks) but VA has better contrast. Most IPS contrast ratios are 1000:1 and VA are 3000:1.
What' the difference between IPS colors and VA contrast?

Another point I saw is all VA monitors have curved screen, for a 24 inch screen, that's meaningless and sometimes causes more eye strain, that's why I'm still a little bit more on the side of IPS.

 

[cryoburner]

What sort of lighting do you have in the room? A completely dark room with a bright screen will tend to be bad for eye strain. Having bright lights reflecting off the screen can potentially be problematic too though. One option is to light the wall behind the monitor, such as with a lamp or some other light source positioned behind it projecting onto the wall to provide nice diffuse lighting around your screen.

 

[Eximo]

There isn't really a standard measurement system for contrast or response time. Take any numbers posted by the vendor with a huge grain of salt. Almost always performed under laboratory conditions with the monitor tuned for the best results in a specific metric.

That said, IPS is generally the recommendation when it fits in budget. Gone are the days of really slow IPS displays on the average. Even the color accurate calibrated panels are starting to get pretty good at response times.

Yeah, VA monitors tend to be curved. Though it is fairly common to see VA TVs that aren't. Imagine it is the viewing distance reducing the angles to the point it doesn't matter too much.