@jmtd I find the sans option easier to read (but it also looks darker/thicker, which helps).

@neil @jmtd Funny, I find serif fonts easier to read because I find words to be more distinct that way and I can read faster.

@jmtd Serif for print, sans-serif for screen.

(although in your example I prefer the sans-serif font as I find LaTeX's rendering of Times New Roman to be incredibly ugly and I much prefer Palatino)

@jmtd Also I was reminded of the Manchester LaTeX thesis class, the comments at the top may amuse you (Graham Gough has a very dry sense of humour):

https://studentnet.cs.manchester.ac.uk/resources/latex/MUThesis/muthesis.cls

@jmtd I slightly prefer serif fonts for longer-form text, mainly out of personal taste rather than any particular reason, with the specific exception of CMU Serif which is small and spindly and hard to read.

Even Knuth's sans-serif font is a bit meh, so I habitually break out the fontspec package to replace the lot with something nicer. Palatino's not the worst choice if you need to stick to standard PostScript fonts.