Monitor Advice for Severe Visual Impairment

Hi, I am going to need to replace an old Dell P1110 soon that is in the process of dying.  Comments and advice would be most appreciated.  I am legally blind and have a number of major difficulties when using any monitor, as follows:

 

1) No matter what I purchase, my nose will have to be very close to the screen.

 

2) I must use an inverse image: black background, but with a colored font... a lot of white, or any bright color blinds me completely.  I have usually used a setting of 100% contrast, 0% brightness.

 

3) I cannot run at native resolution.  I must use significant magnification, both at the initial setting, and then within whatever program I am attempting to use.

 

The main difficulties with most LCD's I have attempted to test are 1) black is not always black, and 2) display at non-native resolution is most often not very good.  With either problem, what residual vision I have fatigues out very quickly.

 

How would the Dell 24" perform under these limitations?  Another concern is heat... since my nose will have to be up against the screen, a lot of heat coming off the panel would be disconcerting (though probably less damaging than all the radiation off the CRT...).

 

Thanks for your comments.  If you have other specific monitor recommendations as well, those would also be appreciated.

 

Jim