Recommendations for new monitor

My previous monitors were 360Hz; those were the ones that caused an extreme burning sensation, but it wasn't because of 360Hz because I tested them at all refresh rates. My eyes are fine with any refresh rate. Having more space behind the monitor to look at farther away objects is what I did when I moved my desk out, because I believe having far away objects to focus on periodically can help. The eye strain I get from many monitors feels like normal muscle strain, like the muscles that control contraction which is considered the "typical" eye strain. Some specific monitors give me a BURNING sensation that is totally different than normal strain. But I think it's possible my eyes no longer like either the diagonal polarization and/or the PWM of the Samsung 2494HM even though I didn't really have problems with it before (or it's different from the SW version). I think a part of this is just my eyes got weaker over the years and are now less resilient to stress, and now I really have to be careful in which displays I choose. Some PWM implementations there's no problem, like my laptop monitor BOE NV156FHM-NY1.

I went back to testing the Acer KG241Y VA and like I remember, it creates the least amount of strain out of all the VA monitors, even less than the Samsung 2494HM. The LED temperature is SLIGHTLY blue in tint but it's not extreme like the LG UltraGear TN and a little less than the Samsung G32A. The Asus VG247Q1A has pretty much the EXACT same LED temperature as the Samsung 2494HM CCFL temperature, but I think the Asus is slightly straining similar to the Samsung G32A 24". The Acer has nearly zero strain over long sessions. The other issue with the Asus is it has the worst ghosting of the VA panels. The Samsung G32A has the clearest VA motion and the Acer more like in the middle but closer to the Samsung G32A in clearness, so not awful but visible.

The Acer KG241Y is definitely not the best monitor ever but I guess something about it just produces less eye strain for me so I'm pretty much deciding to keep it, but I will try the Asus VG247Q1A VA one more time before I fully decide. I promised myself I'd keep at least one of these VA displays I bought in order to not fully troll the store I bought them from. But I think it was important to do this because I learned a lot about monitors and what to look for. Definitely if I ever do another round it will be for IPS, OLEDs or microLEDs and not VAs or TNs, but its unfortunate that it requires testing so many monitors over long periods to figure out which ones do and don't produce strain.

Believe it or not, the position I put each monitor has an affect on the amount of eye strain. There's a slight bias, for whatever reason, that makes the monitor in the left/primary position give me more eye strain, and the one on the right less eye strain.

The only real differences I can imagine here are distance, angle and background colors. The monitor on the left is closer to a wall to the left, while the monitor on the right has open space up to the doorway. The right monitor also sits farther away from me and will be viewed at a slight angle while I am head-on to the left monitor.

I don't really know what to make of this. I've gone back and forth to 100% confirm there is a slight bias in eye strain just based on left or right position regardless of which monitor is used. I guess it's probably the distance to the monitor that is mainly causing it but I don't know. Maybe it is the fact that when looking at the right position monitor at an angle, I see a lot more of the room which has a lot of far distance objects, while looking at the left basically all I see is up close or within like 4 feet.

hayder1983

That's what I had tried earlier but it didn't help much.

sss21344 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B6DFG1FQ/

Basically it seemed like I get the least amount of eye strain out of the few VAs I tried with this one but what I'm discovering is that I still get eye strain with any monitor eventually, at least in the primary in front of me position. That didn't really used to be a thing before this year so I assume my eyes are less resilient now.

I did solve the burning sensation from my 360Hz panels that I think was either the LED temperature or the horizontal polarization, but now I am discovering another type of eye strain that seems to only really happen at my desk with computer monitors, but not with my TV, laptop or phone.

hayder1983

sss21344

EyeDiscomfortCertificate

Maxx

I may be figuring out what it actually is. There are two factors: my eye prescription and the amount of contrast directly around the outline of the display, and it's easy to be fooled that a small room light is enough. I can explain.

The first issue is I definitely notice more eye strain if I use my long range glasses vs short range. But strangely, no glasses is still better than my long range glasses, which makes it clear that OVER-CORRECTION IS WORSE FOR STRAIN THAN NO CORRECTION.

The second issue is lighting immediately around the display. With my laptop, the light from the screen reflects off the keyboard (and remember when I said my new laptop monitor is easier on the eyes? well it's probably because my new laptop is SILVER (brighter) and my last laptop was RED (darker), it increases outline brightness!). My TV is so large it produces enough light to thoroughly light everything around it. But my monitor is both free-floating, small, and not flush to the curtains, meaning it can't really produce enough light to light the surrounding outline.

I was actually going back and forth pointing my phone light at the point below my monitor. The eye strain lessens soon after I point the light so the area underneath the monitor is lit.

Now what's interesting is that area isn't really super dark when I have one of my smaller lamps on, but it's still too dark anyway. The only way to really get it "bright" is with the room light on, which is way too bright. So the only reasonable way to fix this is to buy a standalone light that goes behind the monitor or on the desk under the monitor. I would want something that can light the area all around the monitor like what I see with my TV.

I DO NOT think overall lighting in the room matters that much. It is moreso the sharp contrast from the outline of the monitor to the surrounding. You only need like 1-2 feet of the area around the monitor to be lit somewhat to create more of an equalization.

One of the problems for the monitor in relation to like a phone used in darkness, is that even though both are being in used in darkness, the monitor will be far worse if there's no edge lighting since it tends to fill more of your FOV. The only way to really change monitor FOV at least in my case is to get a deeper desk which after searching online, is prohibitively expensive if i want to be picky with dimensions. Nothing really cuts it.

So what I'm going to do is find the best way to get good lighting all around the monitor. Probably a light that goes behind and maybe one below so the bottom bezel is also lit somewhat. I have some paper taped to the bottom bezel while I look for lights. These are what I'm going to test first: 1, 2, 3. There are some other cool RGB lights that are just too expensive. I will also get a new pair of glasses even better for the exact distance I use my desktop monitor at.

And that's pretty much it. I believe when it comes to preventing my eye muscle strain, it is a combination of not overcorrecting with my prescription and making sure the area immediately around the monitor bezel is well lit. As I explained, these areas are better lit for both my TV and laptop in pure darkness due to the reasons I explained above. The desktop monitor is the worst case; large FOV, lamps have trouble lighting the surrounding area. PWM is also an issue but not all PWM is created equal, as I have no issue with the PWM frequency of my laptop panel. I have also tried to disable GPU enforced dithering with the program Calibration Tools but I have yet to confirm if this makes a difference.

When it comes to the burning sensation from my 360Hz monitors, again I still think it's either the blue LED temperature or the polarization, which for those panels was horizontal. I have a post in this thread with my polarization findings for all types of displays I've tested TrantaLocked . MOST monitors seem to have vertical polarization, with some rare exceptions having horizontal or diagonal polarization.

It is still weird because I never experienced issues with surrounding contrast causing eye strain. I don't know why it's suddenly an issue.