I had a really good experience using full-screen zoom and inverted colors on MacOS during my process of going blind. I also tried Windows back then and didn't like using the magnifier that came with it as it lacked an option to keep the mouse centered on the screen and the smooth zooming that was possible to do with Apple's peripherals, though considering that this was all before Windows 10 things might have changed.

As for screen-readers, between NVDA on Windows, VoiceOver on MacOS, and Orca on Linux, I prefer NVDA followed by Orca and lastly VoiceOver. NVDA and Orca are very similar in the way that they operate, as they rely a lot on the ability to navigate with the keyboard that is native to Windows and Gnome, while VoiceOver implements its own keyboard navigation strategy that in my opinion is superior to the other two in theory but in practice isn't properly supported by many applications including Apple's own software. NVDA is also highly customizable and scriptable, VoiceOver can run AppleScript or JavaScript but has lots of limitations, and I don't have enough experience with Orca to talk about its customization options yet.

Anyway if you're planning on buying old or cheap hardware, Windows 10 is probably your best choice at least until 2025, which is when Microsoft projects its end of life. While it might not provide the best experience to people with some vision, you are highly unlikely to find even a second hand Mac providing security updates until 2025 selling for as low as a new low-end PC.

Depends. If your workflow does not rely on Windows-specific tools or heavy use of MS Office, I would say MacOS - it is the easiest to use (free, comes with MacOS).

ChromeOS screeenreader (ChromeVox) comes with ChromeOS and works well enough, but it is jittery and in practice needs to be enabled/disabled often.

Screenreader on Linux uses the free ORCA screenreader; some distros are specialized for low-vision/blind. It works with some/most applications. I haven't been impressed so far.

If you are doing a lot of things on Windows using MS Office, then get JAWS. More complicated, more expensive, but has a lot of shortcuts built in for Word and Excel. Otherwise if using Windows, NVDA is really good (free /donation). The Narrator built-in to Windows has gotten better but is still not very useable.

Its very user dependent really. Honestly.

Another vote for mac here but it’s really up to the user.

Chromebooks are cheap, and for browsing the web I found ChromeVox is adequate enough. Ubuntu will probably be the best bet for old hardware and it should come with orca and magnifier already included.

I personally like using macOS for my workflows. My vision problem is tunnel vision, so I would imagine it might be different for you if you're doing more straight up magnification.

Thanks so much. I'm very interested in Mac OS' Hover zoom features, so you can easily zoom in and out whatever you want. That's the kind of convinience u like. And some of the ways thru use the hardware to control said features seem interesting too.