Best LCD display (Apple or otherwise) for reading lots of text/documents?

[DazedNConfusedX]

Ok - so after taking a look (online) at a general sampling of LCD monitors, I get the impression that certain brands/models are really popular with specific types of professions - for example, a monitor that shows "true" colors for press pre-production, a monitor that's really sharp for medical imaging use, etc.

Does anyone know which are really popular makes/models amongst any professional who has to read like most of the day off her monitor? The reading would likely comprise mostly of documents (pages from a word processor, Adobe .pdf files, etc.) and of text from text-heavy websites.

I want to get the Apple 20" Cinema Display, but I don't know if there is another brand/make of display out there that's MUCH better suited for the mentioned uses.

One good thing, for reading, that the Apple CD's (and other widescreens, I guess) have is that you likely display two whole 8.5x11 pages (or typically-sized web pages) at a big enough size to be legible. Sometimes, this helps you minimize breaking up your concentration to scroll down.

 

[Makosuke]

I don't expect that any LCD displays are going to be drastically better than the newest Apple monitors--Apple uses very high quality panels, LCDs don't suffer from flicker by nature of their design, and the resolution on Apple's LCDs is going to be high enough to be comfortable.

There could be special-purpose LCDs that might do a little better, but any LCD with reasonable resolution, contrast, and brightness (though the latter isn't that important for text) should do the job, and Apple's fit the bill pretty well.

I can say at the very least that the much older 17" Apple LCD I'm using right now provides VERY easy to read text--much clearer and easier on the eyes than my three-year-old Trinitron-based CRT.

 

[Sun Baked]

Ok - so after taking a look (online) at a general sampling of LCD monitors, I get the impression that certain brands/models are really popular with specific types of professions - for example, a monitor that shows "true" colors for press pre-production, a monitor that's really sharp for medical imaging use, etc.

Speaking of medical imaging displays...

You almost have to wonder how good one of the Barco 2048 x 2560 dual DVI grayscale portrait displays would be for text reading.

But alas Apple sort of has given up on gray scale displays, and the P/L rotation feature of the Barco Coronis 5MP isn't supported by many Apple video cards either.

 

[Makosuke]

I doubt those ultra-high-resolution displays would actually do much good for simple text reading; assuming you're sitting at about arms' length from the display, a single pixel is barely visible at the ~100 DPI of an apple LCD, and the blurred edges of text aren't really noticable (particularly if you don't have great eyes).

So although higher resolution would make for somewhat sharper text, I have my doubts it'd be all that much better. Seems like squinting at ultra-sharp medical images is what those monitors are designed for, not crisp text.