Monitors That Are Easier On the Eyes

[Mullet Death]

I'm in the market for another monitor/TV to both increase my studying productivity and to lessen the strain on my eyes. My current monitor was rather cheap at the time of purchase and doesn't have very good reviews on Amazon. http://www.amazon.com/Sansui-SLED2280-2 ... B003ICXEXC

Using it for even short periods of time, much less all day studying, taking a break with anime, or writing a research paper is rather painful-- giving me a headache, blurred or double vision and the like. Text and objects are frequently blurry, especially while scrolling. To be sure, eye strain from computer usage is a common problem, and the poor lighting of my room could be a large contributor to this. That being said, I know for a fact this TV is far from the best I could possibly have for my vision.

I don't know much about shopping for monitors wisely, however. Comparing specifications to find a quality TV for a relatively reasonable price is incredibly difficult. So does anyone have any advice for this? What specifications or types of monitors would be most important for my purposes-- for studying, browsing, streaming video or playing a Blu-ray with as little strain on my eyes as possible? IPS panels? Refresh rates higher than 60hz and/or with lower response times? Lowering the brightness and adjusting to "warmer" colors and displaying only in native resolution (even if the results might be uglier) no matter what TV I settle on?

There a lot of variables to consider, especially if you're a tough customer like me who wants the best of all worlds whenever possible with a piece of tech, so it's confusing. My upper price range would be about $400-600. I want to ask around as much as I can before I just dive in with a purchase like that. This is, after all, something I'm going to be staring at for hours and days at a time (yeah yeah, take breaks, I know.)

[drill]

Yeah, I know what you mean about monitors. Since you have the money, you should go for an IPS monitor, as brand doesn't really matter here. Just doing a quick google search, i found this one that would probably work pretty well.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... -_-Product

[Masaru]

So, I don't directly have an answer to your monitor question.. I don't know a whole lot about them.
However, there's a program out there that could help your eyestrain no matter what sort of monitor you end up with: it's called f.lux: https://justgetflux.com/

Basically, it can filter out the blue-spectrum light that your monitor gives off (one of the bigger contributors to eye strain). You can do stuff like set how intense you want the filtering to be and have different settings for day/night. As an added bonus, reducing the blue light at night helps you fall asleep sooner if you're on the computer late. =P

[FourFourSeven]

Very few monitors, *especially* LCD and LED types, won't change a thing unless you make sure of two things: have its contrast and brightness adjusted properly, and making sure you have the proper lighting in the room. I've learned a general rule of thumb to use:

With a bright room, adjust for a (slightly) dimmer screen
With a dark room, adjust for a brighter screen.

Try googling for brightness and contrast calibration images for your LCD/LED monitor, and see if this works for your eyes.

[Xeno]

So, I don't directly have an answer to your monitor question.. I don't know a whole lot about them.
However, there's a program out there that could help your eyestrain no matter what sort of monitor you end up with: it's called f.lux: https://justgetflux.com/

Basically, it can filter out the blue-spectrum light that your monitor gives off (one of the bigger contributors to eye strain). You can do stuff like set how intense you want the filtering to be and have different settings for day/night. As an added bonus, reducing the blue light at night helps you fall asleep sooner if you're on the computer late. =P

Seconding this. It changes the screen calibration over the course of the day. Only thing it's bad for is if you're doing graphic work, because then the color pallets look wrong. Besides that, f.lux is a pro tier application.

[MomentOfInertia]

That's "Palettes" color palettes.

[Xeno]

Six in one, half dozen in the other. Made a typo.

OS X seemed pretty set on making me use the wrong form of the word either way.