First of all, it is great to find such place like this forum, for people with such a rare (?) problem, where you can share your thoughts and grievances.
I have always been somewhat sensitive to the quality of monitors, but if in the office I would just go through the availible ones and find the first that felt right (often very sad looking worn TN or IPS from 2012), and at home I had a plenty of different devices IPS, TN or OLED and all of them were okay to me. In fact as a daily driver I used an ancient LG 22MK430H, with absolutely trashy accuracy and gamut. It did give me some strain, but within tolerable level, but there is nothing to like about it. In the office I used HP 24f (2016 model; the current one is different and much nicer) and ancient rundown samsung CCFL TN, which were not good but ok, Samsung being nicer, despite age. Now fast forward to 2021. Lockdowns, quaranteens and new job place. At this new job I was given HP Elitebook 840, 14 Full HD (PPI euqal to 28 4k) screen and boy it was (still is) good - warm nice high res picture, no haze, no glare, a picture that wants to hug you . And I thought "I have to get 28 or 27 4k".
I was so naive. May 2022, I went and bought LG27UL500 and it was not good. The moment I turned it on, it felt wrong. (The sad thing, I live in on of the poorest ex-USSR countries, and there is such a thing as return policy. You bought it - screw you.)
I figured - ok, I need to get adjusted then, within week or 2 it will go away. Me of these days, a bit wiser and knowing things about monitors I wish I did not know, I know that the main problem with that one was bad Vcom tuning, feels like dithering and lack of shrapness, solid colors are noisy and breathing, tiny bit. And this will not go away. And there is no way to get adjusted to that. The sad thing, the picture otherwise is nice. But due to bad panel tuning, you look at the text and cannot comprehend it, although it is sharp enough. Is like looking into the void. Very odd feeling.
I still needed external monitor for the HP, because 14 inch, no matter how nice is not big enough for a software developer. So I thought: fine, I'll absorb losses with LG and buy something expensive - expnsive is good, right? I went and bought Benq PD2700u - $700, 2/3 of my salary. It turned to be bad, in entirely different way - Vcom is okay, but color uniformity bad and OH MY the antiglare film is the weirdest one I've seen ever, it is very glittery, grainy and feels like thick white plastic bag, and not suitable for 160+ ppi the screen has. Not only that, the whites are bloomy it feels like white intrudes the black area of the letters, like halo.
Now I am here, with 1000 USD worth of monitors I can barely use and cannot return. I have to go through hassle of selling the screens at huge 50% loss.
I frankly do not know what to do know. Should I just stop buying new 4k monitors and just take my old trusty LG 22MK430 and use it or try one more, now 32 inch (it seems there VA 27 inch), probably VA now?
It is actually so weird how obviously defective (27UL500) or overpriced inferior devices (like PD2700u) receive praises in the reviews. Are these reviews all paid for? Or people have Stockholm syndrome after bying an expesnive item? How can obvously good devices (like HP) coexist with terrible ones? Why people so obsessed with nits and Hz and do not seem to care about picture, yet buy expensive devices, supposedly for higher quality? It is almost philosophical - am I wrong or everyone else is?
I will probably go and buy some cheap 32 VA (LS32A700) or IPS lenovo L32-p30 (obviously no return policy and without seeing it, the poor country way) and if it fails I'll go and buy 2 used 24" CCFL IPS from 2012.