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Comment by marcyb5st | Hacker News Reader

For me the revolution was to get a rather expensive monitor [1] with a great reader mode that lessen the flicker considerably. When I game with it and I turn off reader mode my eyes really feel the difference even though I spend way less time gaming than working.

I wonder if OLEDs will be even better since they shouldn't flicker during productivity (from what I read at least).

[1] was one of the LG ultrawide 34" but it was a few years ago and can't find it anymore.

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There shouldn't be any flicker in any mode if you avoid monitors that use PWM for backlight control (which anyone who's sensitive to flicker probably should do). I was stupid enough to buy one with low frequency PWM (didn't have money for anything else at that moment) and "solved" the problem by setting brightness to 100% (which sets duty cycle to 100%), but it destroyed image quality.

It might be time for me to upgrade my monitors (they are very old). I never thought too much about flicker, etc. Does anyone have any good recommendations for just decent 24" monitors for coding?

If you've got the budget for it, e-ink monitors are becoming more available recently, and I've heard that they make a huge difference for eye strain. There are still only a few companies manufacturing panels that large, and I think the framerate can be pretty jarring for anything other than text, but I have been keeping an eye out for when the prices drop.

For most people, using e-ink for general-purpose computing tasks is going to be so jarring and unpleasant that it's extremely difficult to recommend to anyone who doesn't have severe eyestrain issues and has tried and failed more typical accommodations. I adore e-ink for reading, and own several e-ink readers in various form factors, but the tradeoffs just don't make sense for a desktop computer for most people unless staring at your monitor for eight hours a day is causing you physical harm.

Maybe ask on Monitors Reddit [1], people there are usually helpful (although often very gaming-oriented, so you should make it very clear it is for coding/office work).

[1] https://old.reddit.com/r/Monitors/

I've been considering the "programmer" monitors from BenQ, but I don't know if they truly help.

[0]: https://www.benq.com/en-us/monitor/programming/rd280u.html

One regret I have is buying a monitor that lacks a very high brightness setting. Not good if you have a sun-lit room.

Not me, sorry. At the time I did watch a bunch of reviews on YouTube, but since the purchase I haven't kept up

Lots of OLEDs use PWM, some at high frequencies and some not.

What is reader mode and how do I activate it? Is reader mode a low refresh rate?

Might just be normal mode? I know that some gaming monitors strobe the backlight in order to reduce motion blur, maybe reader mode just turns that off.

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