Need Guidance To Choose Right Monitor [Good For Eyes]

shedlight

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Hi,

I have to work for almost 9 hrs and my current 17" monitor (LG L177wsb) is causing strain in my eyes, a technical geek told me that it doesn't have Anti Glare and Anti Static features that's why it causes strain and it's my cumpulsion to buy a new monitor because a good monitor is must for me to continue working :-

I researched and gained a lot of information and on that basis I shortlisted 3 monitors. First is normal LCD monitor and second & third are IPS monitor, I need your advise to choose best monitor out of it :-

Note: For your convenience, I'm short listing few major points :-


First monitor is :

HP Monitor Model No:- HP LE1901w -- http://www8.hp.com/in/en/products/monitors/product-detail.html?oid=3975010

19-inch Widescreen LCD Monitor (NK570AA)

Display size (diagonal): 19 in

Aspect ratio Widescreen (16:10)

Resolution: 1440 x 900

Pixel pitch: 0.284 mm

Brightness: 250 cd/m²

Contrast ratio: 1000:1 static

View angle: 160° horizontal 160° vertical

Response time: 5 ms

Product color: Black

Tilt and swivel angle: Tilt: - 5° to + 25°

Display features:- anti-glare and anti-static
Plug and play
Language selection
Physical security: Security Lock-Ready

Input signal
VGA

Power consumption: 23 W maximum; 20 W typical, < 2 W
Energy efficiency: ENERGY STAR® qualified, EPEAT®Silver




Second monitor is :

HP Monitor Model No:- HP ZR2040w (IPS) -- http://www8.hp.com/in/en/products/monitors/product-detail.html?oid=5177072

20-inch LED Backlit IPS Monitor (LM975A4)

Aspect ratioWidescreen (16:9)

Resolution 1600 x 900

Pixel pitch 0.277 mm

Brightness 250 cd/m²

Contrast ratio 1000:1 static

View angle 178° horizontal 178° vertical

Response time 7 ms gray to gray

Product color: Black and brushed aluminum

Tilt and swivel angle Tilt: -5 to +30°

Display features :- Plug and Play, Anti-glare, User programmable, Language selection

Physical security: Security Lock-Ready

Input signal
1 DisplayPort in
1 DVI-D
1 VGA

Power consumption: 33W (maximum), 27W (typical), <0.3W (standby)
Energy efficiency: ENERGY STAR® qualified, EPEAT® Silver




Third monitor is :

DELL Monitor Model No:- Dell UltraSharp U2211H -- http://www1.ap.dell.com/content/topics/global.aspx/snp/topics/en/ap/in/dhs/monitor-dell-u2211h?c=in&cs=indhs1&l=en&s=dhs&redirect=1

Dell UltraSharp U2211H 54.6cm (21.5)

Diagonal Viewable Size: 54.6cm (21.5)

Aspect Ratio: Widescreen (16:9)

Panel Type, Surface: IPS (In-Plane Switching), anti glare with hard coat 3H

Optimal Resolution: 1920 x 1080 at 60 Hz

Contrast Ratio: 1000 to 1 (typical), 10,000:1 (dynamic)

Brightness: 250 cd/m2 (typical)

Response Time: 8ms (gray to gray)

Viewing Angle (178° vertical / 178° horizontal)

Color Gamut: 82%2

Color Depth: 16.7 million colors

Pixel Pitch: 0.247 mm

Display Type Flat Panel Display


Connectivity
1 Digital Visual Interface connectors (DVI-D) with HDCP
DisplayPort (DP)
Video Graphics Array (VGA)
1 USB 2.0 upstream port
4 USB 2.0 downstream ports
DC power connector for Dell Soundbar

Power Consumption (Typical): 22W (without audio and USB connection)

ENERGY STAR 5.0 EPEAT Silver



Hope I'll get the true advice from the most knowledgeable guys
 

MagicPants

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There are several reasons for eyestrain:

1) The monitor is too bright. Most calibrators set it at 120cd/m2.
2) The monitor is set to a cool color temperature. A slightly warm (or amber) temp reduces eye strain.
3) The monitor has pixel inversion (pixel walk) issues. TN panels are much worse for this than IPS panels. Test it here:
http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/inversion.php
4) The pixel pitch isn't right for you. In most cases a larger pixel pitch reduces eyestrain, though try not to go over .29
5) The backlight is bad and flickers.

The best monitor I've personally used as far as eyestrain goes is a dell u2410. I tend to think ccfl lit monitors cause less strain than LED, but only because LED is cooler and brighter, and this is easily adjusted.

Of the monitors you listed the best is u2221, but I wouldn't recommend it to you because of the small pixel pitch.

Another big issue can simply be how far you are sitting from it. You should be 20" to 24" away with your eye-level sitting 2/3s of the way up the screen. If you look at your keyboard while you type, it should only be a few inches closer to you than the screen (to keep your eyes from refocusing too often.)
 

shedlight

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I'm thankful to MagicPants for shedding light on this matter. Whatever you said, that makes sense to me and triggers that right information is very important, just changing monitor is not the only solution unless we educate ourselves. Though I'm from technical stream (a web developer) but never got a chance to know anything about in this stream and companies kept making us fool. I went after brand name (bought LG PC) and later found it was too expensive and above all they didn't give me the good configuration (motherboard, ram etc...). If I assembled the PC, it would have cost me too less but I was just blinded after brand name.

I'm going to answer you and asking few things in the same context. After going through your response, it seems you're very knowledgeable and I think I'm making some technical mistakes in context of setting right resolution, setting right brightness and contrast lever etc... that cause problem :-

As I mentioned my current monitor is 17" LG L177wsb and it's native Resolution is :- 1440x990
but I use 1024x768 so that I can see bigger text because my main work is programming (typing) and reading a lot of text on web. I've been using this resolution for almost last 2 years.


>1) The monitor is too bright. Most calibrators set it at 120cd/m2.
Yeah you're right but I set it to minimum, I have to change the brightness and contrast after every 3-4 months (it's my compulsion) whenever I get eye strain and after changing these setting it goes for 3-4 months and afterwards the same eyes strain occurs and I have change the settings :). Now I need permanent solution that's why I started finding the real cause of strain. I got my eyes tested and they are perfect. BTW:- I don't know how to set calibrator


>2) The monitor is set to a cool color temperature. A slightly warm (or amber) temp reduces eye strain.
I'm taking your every point very seriously. I'm afraid I don't know how to set monitor to warm temp, I googled but did get any appropriate info except calibrating for photography printouts which is not my concern, my concern is text reading and coding.


>3) The monitor has pixel inversion (pixel walk) issues. TN panels are much worse for this than IPS panels. Test it here: http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/inversion.php
I did that test but didn't notice anything that flickers. There were 11 black boxes on that webpage and few had lighter horizontal lines and few had bit dark lines but none of them were flickering. When I tried it in full-screen http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/inversion.php#invpattern
I found when I clicked on next button, screen flicked for a nano second and changed the box color and I clicked again and happened the same, and so on...... I don't know what does it mean so I'm reporting you, so that you can tell me what do I do next?


>4) The pixel pitch isn't right for you. In most cases a larger pixel pitch reduces eyestrain, though try not to go over .29
I think pixel pitch is something which we can't change. My current monitor's (current monitor is 17" LG L177wsb) Pixel Pitch is 0.255mm and monitor which I listed above for buying :-

Dell UltraSharp (IPS) U2211H has 0.247 mm Pixel Pitch
HP ZR2040w (IPS) has 0.277 mm Pixel pitch
And HP LE1901w has Pixel pitch: 0.284 mm

unless you recommend me I'd not buy it because money means a lot to me, I'm a salaried employee.


>5) The backlight is bad and flickers.
I'm afraid, I can't check that.

For your convenience, here are the screenshots of my monitor settings so that you can suggest me more accurately :-

01displaysettings.jpg

02colorcorrection.jpg


03monitorinfo.jpg



Below is monitor's default resolution (which I changed it) :-
04monitordefaultcolorco.jpg




FYI: I'd like to tell you, till yesterday my current monitor's (17" LG L177wsb) Refresh Rate was :- 60 Hertz but in tomshardware I went through that increasing it to 75 Hertz reduces eyes strain etc.. so I did that I can clearly see the difference, it's better now. But still I'm looking for perfect monitor and appropriate knowledge (which I'm already getting) to get permanent relief.


>The best monitor I've personally used as far as eyestrain goes is a dell u2410.
I'm afraid it's 3x costlier in my country than the monitors which I listed, and also it is 24" takes much space and consumes more electricity (unlike US we have to pay for everything). I'm grateful to you for suggestion, hmm I use 17" and I do agree with it that bigger size is better for me so I decided to choose either 19" or 20" or 21.5" (DELL or HP) but I can't go beyond that.


>Of the monitors you listed the best is u2221, but I wouldn't recommend it to you because of the small pixel pitch
What about HP ZR2040w (IPS) it has 0.277 mm Pixel pitch, is there any pitfall, you found in this monitor. You can recommend me any HP or DELL monitor from below links (only these are available in my country)

HP Site: http://h20426.www2.hp.com/product/monitors/in/en/monitors_performance.asp
DELL site http://accessories.ap.dell.com/sna/category.aspx?c=in&category_id=4009&cs=ingen1&l=en&s=dhs&~ck=mn


I'm sitting almost 30" away from monitor, I was told by someone it should be 28" so I made it 30". Is that cool? And my eyes look at the monitor (somewhat not too much) in a downward slanting way.


I'm looking for your honest reply.
 

MagicPants

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Sorry to correct you, but 60hz only causes flicker in CRTs where the scanning electron gun both illuminates the screen and draws the information. In an LCD, the backlight provides illumination while the lcd filter draws the information. If you run an LCD monitor at 75hz, it simply drops the extra 15 frames. However if you are running it over vga, it will causes additional screen blurring.

It also sounds to me like you are running your monitor out of it's native resolution 1024x768 instead of 1440x990, which is a big no no. You are far better off increasing your font size or using a webpage resolution checker:

http://www.yournew.com/resolution_test.cfm

Here's the manuel for your monitor:

http://www.manualowl.com/m/LG/L177WSB-PF/Manual/136877

Notice under the color menu there are presets for sRGB, 6500K and 9300k. Try the 6500k setting. Though if you are a web developer understand that it may mess with how you choose colors.

However, I think your problem is that you have a small monitor with a high resolution that you are sitting fairly far away from. If I were you, I'd look into getting a 27" panel that's 1920x1080.
 
as magic suggested... NEVER...use a resolution other than the native resolution on an lcd monitor. it simply isn't meant to display at this resolution and you will see distortion of some type.

if text is too small then either get a bigger monitor, sit closer ( i sit 28" from 19" or 20" monitors), or enlarge using windows/program settings. personally i'd suggest a normal 20" or 22" 1920x1080p monitor. if text is small just enlarge it via the above.

brightness should be low but not so low that you have to overstrain your eyes to read text. too bright or too dark are both bad. also remember to have ambient light around you.

color temperature is adjusted with the buttons on your monitor. i'm using sRGB currently but a slightly warm color scheme (like lit by firelight or sunlight) is better. whites will appear very slightly tan-offwhite. in comparison a cool color scheme (think ice or cold) the whites will appear very slightly blue-offwhite. a good analogy is like working in natural sunlight versus working under flourescent lighting.

led models will save more power than ccfl models. however, cheap led models tend to be more"cool" oriented with the colors until you adjust it out of them.

we pay for electricity just like you do. however, a monitor (even a 22 or 24) is not going to break the bank. i'm willing to bet that your tower uses at least double the power that your screen does.

your pictures state: analog (vga) connection and 75hz on a crt monitor. you are using a crt screen? crt screens have very noticible flicker and are best ran at 75hz+ (even 85 flickers). just moving to an lcd would help quite a bit.

if you are using an lcd screen then something isnt right as it should display the correct information there.

---

short version:

get a

20" or 22" screen
1920x1080
preferably ccfl but led can work if power concious.

then...

if text is too small adjust using your web browser, program you are using (scroll wheel) or with general windows settings. DO NOT CHANGE THE RESOLUTION FROM default (1920x1080 in this recommendation's case).

adjust the backlight settings to be low but not too dark and use a slightly warm color temperature if default is too bright.