A year ago, when we started with the home office, I had to buy a monitor because I didn’t have one, and using only the notebook screen is not productive for me. As a programmer I need to have at least two high quality monitors that I need to be able to use for 8 hours a day, every day. The last monitor I bought was many years ago, and the quality was good, so I figured any current monitor would suffice. I was wrong. Unfortunately, due to high demand, when I went to the store, few models were available for the price I wanted to spend, and I didn’t know how long I should use it (I thought a few months).
I also bought a VESA joint, to be able to position the monitor in the best way on the small desk. The VESA joint is perfect.
HP 24y Monitor – 24″ Full HD 1920×1080
The monitor I bought was a 23.8″ HP 24y, IPS panel, Full HD 1920×1080, 60 Hz, 1000:1 contrast, 8 ms refresh, 250 cd/m2 brightness.
Unfortunately to my surprise the monitor was not good, the pixels were too large, and therefore annoying to use for a long time. The letters are basically all pixelated.
So what have I learned from this experience:
– if you use the video game monitor or as a TV, the resolution is fine, as you look at it from a distance, and therefore you don’t see the pixel
In the case of video games, however, a refresh of less than 4ms would be needed (but I’m not an expert, I don’t use modern consoles or video games).
Monitor LENOVO Q24H-10 – 24″ QHD 2560×1440
We needed another monitor, and given my experience, I recommended a higher resolution. Unfortunately, to date 4k monitors – which I’ve been looking for for a year to replace mine – are nowhere to be found!
So we took a 23.8″ LENOVO Q24H-10, IPS panel, QHD 2560 x 1440, 75 Hz, 1000:1 contrast, 4 ms refresh, 300 cd/m² brightness.
We then connected them to the same computer (mine) in order to make a real comparison, with the same position, light, etc. etc.
The difference is remarkable, we are not yet at the levels of 4k, but this from close distances can be used without discomfort to the eyes.
The screen size
Another thing to pay attention to is the screen size. For close use (about 50cm from the desk) a 24″ monitor is very big, bordering on annoying. If you have deep desks, as we often have in the office, then even larger sizes are fine (27″, 32″). Always pay attention to the resolution, for such large screens I recommend 4k, so that the pixel size is not too large. I remind you that, with the same resolution, a 27″ screen has a pixel larger than the 24″ monitor. This is because the number of pixels is always the same (eg 2560 in width and 1440 in height), but since the surface is greater, the pixel will be larger. In practice it is like eating a slice of cake: it depends how big the cake is!
For example the notebook screen I use as my main screen (sigh) is 4k by 15″, and the quality is fantastic, it doesn’t even feel like looking at a monitor and your eyes don’t get tired.
Summary
The conclusion of this experience is that for office use I do not recommend resolutions below 2560×1440 for a 24″ monitor.
I wish I had this information a year ago, so I hope this article is useful to you!
