Which eye-friendly monitor should I buy ?

Fhyryy · Jul 14, 2014

Hello,

I have a lot of work in front of pc monitor. I have old Acer (17) AL1716 monitor at 85 Hz (bought it 2006) and 15,6 LED notebook monitor at 60 Hz (e-machines E642) (2011). Both of these are causing me eye fatigue and headache. Especially my notebook display is really horrible and that is weird because I though that modern (2011) LED should be better than old 2006 LCD.

I have made some research for a decent eye friendly monitor. As far as I know, eye fatigue is determined by this factors:

Matte display is better than Glossy
120 or 144 Hz refresh rate is better than 60 Hz. 60 Hz is causing the huge eye fatigue and headache.
Flicker free, low blue light technology are better.
Reduced Brightness is better.
Pixel pitch should be at least 0.28 mm.

Am I right ?

I´m currently considering these monitors:

Benq GL2460HM (very cheap, flicker free, low blue light, reading mode, matte display but only 60 Hz)
Benq XL2411Z (the same as above, but 144 Hz refresh rate, matte ?)
LG Flatron 23MD53D (cheap 120 Hz)

I think Benq GL2460HM should be fine. It has all eye friendly technologies BUT it is only 60 Hz. I think it´s impossible to call any 60 Hz monitor ,,eye friendly,, Or am I wrong ?

Which monitor do you recommend to reduce eye fatigue and headache (not only the listed ones) ? Is 144 Hz really that improvement to spend about 2x more (Benq GL2460HM vs Benq XL2411Z) ? I also remind you that I do not care about image quality. The price should be less than 350 $.

Thank you.

ssddx · Jul 14, 2014

matte is definitely more friendly on the eyes then glossy (too much glare) or anti-glare (sand texture can make things hard to read which causes eye fatigue)

you are also correct that monitor brightness is important as well. you do not want it so bright that it makes you squint however you do not want it so dim that you have to strain to read anything.

another thing to keep in mind is color temperature. generally warmer tones are easier on the eyes than cooler tones.

monitor size is also important. you want to have the screen big enough that you can read text without straining however not so large that its overpowering.

i'm not sure if refresh rate is really going to help you. some people notice smoother video but i've not heard of it being linked to eye fatigue on lcd monitors. on crt yes but not lcd. you can read this http://blog.gnu-designs.com/the-myth-about-monitor-refresh-rates-and-fatigue/ for more info. however, i suppose there may be a few people whom may find 120/144hz less fatiguing but i'm not aware of any such thing.

what has been linked to eye fatigue is strobing backlights. this is called PWM (pulse width modulation) and is used to control the intensity of the backlight. some individuals (though not a huge number i believe) are rather severely affected by this and cannot sit in front of the monitor for more than a few minutes without getting headaches. there are flicker-free monitors which apparently do not use pwm.. you can check out a list here but i'm not sure if its updated or not http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/articles/flicker_free_database.htm

what do i personally find that works for me?

-warm tones
-moderate level backlight
-having text at a size that is easy to read
-matte screen

i'm not really affected by PWM or CCFL flicker, 60hz refresh doesnt bother me at all.

Traciatim · Jul 14, 2014

60Hz isn't as much of a problem on LCD screens because of the way back-lights work. In the old CRT days it actually fired a beam that made a chemical light up and fade over time, so the time in between during the fade would cause slight flicker, especially in your periphery. This made it very hard for many people to stare at screens for a ling time.

On an LCD, generally the LCD back-light will be either LED's that don't flicker (well, technically to control brightness they do... but meh), or a CCFL which has a really high flicker rate so you won't notice and that fires light through the LCD panel. Only the panel changes 60 times a second.

What is the monitor for? If it's a gaming rig I would recommend the higher refresh rate one, or waiting for a G-Sync or otherwise variable refresh monitor. If it's for general purpose, image editing, office work, media (movies etc) primarily then you might look at the BenQ MVA line. They have much higher static contrast ratios which make things really nice to see and they have really nice angle of view range which makes less colour shift happen when you aren't looking at it directly. They are also pretty cheap, which makes it a pretty good choice for a general purpose monitor, but for twitch gaming they have been known for having some higher input lag than TN panels. Though, I really don't notice it all that much on the one I own.

ssddx · Jul 14, 2014

@traciatim

LEDS do flicker if they use PWM for dimming.

Traciatim · Jul 14, 2014

ssddx :

Yeah, I fixed it because I figured someone would mention it. It's usually much higher than 60hz, and I've personally never had an issue with any LED monitor I've used but always had to go out of my way to get to at least 85hz on CRTs before I couldn't pick up corner flicker (like looking at something in the bottom right, you'd detect flicker in the top left kind of thing).

ssddx · Jul 14, 2014

agreed.. i also do not notice CCFL/LED flicker however i've run into a few individuals here on TH which had severe reactions to it. As i stated earlier it really doesnt affect a large amount of the population and typically those people who are affected generally know something is up.

Fhyryy · Jul 14, 2014

So, if 60 Hz does not matter, I will probably choose Benq GL2460HM. It is the new model with good senseye technologies. It is still only TN but I also play games and TN panels have better response time. I just want something better than I currently have.

Just one reminder. I have heard about E-ink based displays that do not use backlight and therefore behaves like regular paper. here is a quote (http://www.infobyte.hr/blog/134/ccfl-vs-led-screen-backlight-is-led-really-better/):

„ And one more thing – if you plan on reading eBooks – you should prefer eBook reader like Kindle over the iPad because the former has E-Ink based display and the latter has LCD screen. It is still better to look at reflected light (like from a paper or eBook reader based on E-Ink) than directly from a light source (like from a screen) – the eyes are more used to watching reflected light than a light source directly which all monitor or TV screens are. Not to mention that E-Ink reader doesn’t flicker at all and displays images/text continuously. Of course iPad is more versatile for various other tasks like games, web etc. (not to mention eBook readers may not have color support) so this applies only for reading text and looking at static pictures. ”

Are there such monitors (without backlight) ? And if so, is it worth it ? It surely has its side effect like you need other source of light.

ssddx · Jul 14, 2014

e-ink is only black and white afaik.

there are huge differences between the displays on the b&w kindle and the color kindle. the first uses e-ink and is very easy on the eyes (its just like reading a book... very impressive) while the color version looks like an lcd screen to me (and it most likely is)

oh... and LCD technology requires a backlight to work.

without a backlight of some sort you would see no image.

OLED displays and plasma televisions work on a different principle so do not need backlights.

Fhyryy · Jul 15, 2014

Thank you for your answers. It seems I did not miss something important. It will take a few years when OLED will come at reasonable price. So no reason to wait.

Search

Which eye-friendly monitor should I buy ?

Fhyryy

Reputable

ssddx

ssddx

Titan

Traciatim

Distinguished

ssddx

Titan

Traciatim

Distinguished

ssddx

Titan

Fhyryy

Reputable

ssddx

Titan

Fhyryy

Reputable

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page