CRT vs modern LCD: Taking a look back

[WhoBeDaPlaya]

Still have two working FW900s running in dual display config.
Needs one hell of sturdy desk to support them though :O

 

[sandorski]

Replacing my Mitsubishi Diamondtron with my current TN Monitor was quite the shock, mostly due to the decline in colour accuracy. Didn't take long to adjust though and I wouldn't go back despite the flaws. Size and weight is just much better and the price difference is a no-brainer.

 

[zinfamous]

Budget crt's were god awful. As a kid i couldn't afford high end ones so often had budget crt's and they would give you headaches, whine, flicker, and god knows what else they did. Probably irradiated your testicles.

dude, you're not supposed to sit on them.

 

[bigboxes]

Replacing my Mitsubishi Diamondtron with my current TN Monitor was quite the shock, mostly due to the decline in colour accuracy. Didn't take long to adjust though and I wouldn't go back despite the flaws. Size and weight is just much better and the price difference is a no-brainer.

Yeah, I loved my Mitsubishi monitor. I went to an NEC IPS monitor. I can't imagine moving from a flat aperture grill CRT to a TN LCD picture quality wise. My Mitsubishi monitor was so good. I used to hate to work on the cheap monitors at work. I would get headaches and bloodshot eyes. I could stare at my Diamondtron all day and not feel fatigue. Also, where's your dolphin(?) avatar?

 

[sandorski]

Yeah, I loved my Mitsubishi monitor. I went to an NEC IPS monitor. I can't imagine moving from a flat aperture grill CRT to a TN LCD picture quality wise. My Mitsubishi monitor was so good. I used to hate to work on the cheap monitors at work. I would get headaches and bloodshot eyes. I could stare at my Diamondtron all day and not feel fatigue. Also, where's your dolphin(?) avatar?

The Canucks Orca disappeared after the recent forum Hacking. Need to update.

 

[Valantar]

For me, the biggest drawback of CRTs were their massive depth. I had to get an oversized desk just to fit my 17" LG Flatron (which had a very shallow housing for a CRT), and I still sat at a god-awful 45-degree angle to my desk. I don't think I ever really noticed the lack of colour in my next monitor (probably due to being pissed off at the lowly 1024x768 resolution of the Flatron), especially given the jump to 24". Then again, my U2711 gave me goosebumps the first time I turned it on. Never, ever going back to a narrow-gamut panel. No way.

 

[byteman99]

If you can deal with their physical drawbacks, crt still wins in responsiveness and they are still up there in image quality. At least the ones that I have the Sony GDM FW900. I'm keeping mines until we get some nice affordable OLEDS.

 

[PrincessFrosty]

Good CRTs had some benefits, they tended to have much better black levels, there was no real ghosting and very little input latency, they also had a very good colour reproduction and brightness/contrast levels. You could also get very high refresh rates with good CRTs above 200hz.

However they had many drawbacks. They were obviously very large and heavy which stopped them from ever getting very big and made positioning difficult, many had curved screens and the flat screen models based on Sonys Trinitron tech had aperture grills which left faint horizontal lines across the screen. The often had bad geometry and struggled to get perfect square 90 degree corners and alignment, they were susceptible to electromagnetic interference which caused mis-alignment over time and permanent discoloration if a strong source was put near the screen. The brightness and contrast would suffer over time and would drop as much as 25% a year with moderate to heavy use. Discoloration in the corners of the screen over time was also an issues, as well as more aggressive burn in should screensavers not be used. Flicker was also an issue at low refresh rates like 60hz, this could cause eyestrain and didn't look good when recorded on camera.

LCDs of today have overcome many of the drawbacks they had over CRTs initially, it used to be that CRTs despite being on the decline were still better in many important ways, but LCDs have really closed the gap, although they tend to be very specialist still. There's no 1 really good LCD panel it tends to be a trade off between different technologies, so a good IPS will have colours comparable to a CRT and can be used at very large sizes, a TN won't but a TN will handle 144hz easily and low ghosting...so it's kind of pick your trade off at the moment, but overall LCDs have come a long way in every category. I couldn't imagine what a 32" 4k CRT would look like, or weigh.

 

[PingSpike]

Really, really miss the no native resolution thing. Another guy alluded to it as well, I much prefer to drop resolution and keep graphical effects on if my graphics card is struggling. The better blacks was certainly a thing.

They were hot power sucking beasts though. If you wanted a really big one you needed a desk upgrade and they'd eat up the whole surface. They were clearly inferior for your average office worker.

 

[bigboxes]

Really, really miss the no native resolution thing. Another guy alluded to it as well, I much prefer to drop resolution and keep graphical effects on if my graphics card is struggling. The better blacks was certainly a thing.

They were hot power sucking beasts though. If you wanted a really big one you needed a desk upgrade and they'd eat up the whole surface. They were clearly inferior for your average office worker.

I had my 19" on a monitor arm. Most put 17" on their monitor arm, but mine would support the weight. I bought an office quality desk that had no problem supporting the clamp. I always liked having my monitor at eye level and within arms reach. Nothing like having that space under your monitor!