yhelothar
Lifer
I've been using a refurb P275, like most of you with 21" FD Trinitrons, for about 1/2 year from November. I then had it replaced to a brand new one because I was disappointed with the quality of the refurb. So I'll start off with a comparison between the refurb and new CRT for the large majority of you large CRT owners that have refurbs.
I've went through 4 refurbs before I finally replaced it with a new model, so the issues I'm talking about is not specific to my particular refurb. This issue is actually pretty common on CRTs, when I turn up the brightness and contrast, fine lines/text would become blurry on light colored backgrounds, horizontal lines would split to two distinct lines! I have to set it at 85/35 for contrast/brightness respectively, to get everything sharpened up. On my new P275, it would be sharp all the way up to 100/45, and even up to 100/55, it would just be marginally blurrier. So the comparison between the P275 and 2001FP will use the much more precise brand new P275.
I've never really thought about switching to LCD for serveral reasons. First, the prohibitive price they usually carry. Second, the fact that they are restricted to their native resolution, or else using a non native resolution would result in a blurry image, which is a huge detriment to games and videos.
Although the 2001FP have been offered now at great prices. I got mine for $640 brand new from a member on AT Classifieds after I sold my P275 for $600. My love for games has lusted off in the past few months, so the native resolution problem isnt such a big deal for me anymore.
I received my 2001FP on Wednesday. First thing I noticed after I hooked it up, DVI-D to my 5900 at 1024x768, the non native resolution was very blurry just as anticipated. I set it to the native resolution, 1600x1200, and everything turned razor pixel for pixel sharp. But you can almost say it was too sharp, there is a clear distinction between each pixel, due to the thick black border between each pixel, so it makes the picture very grainy. The colors seem a tad dithered, despite Dells claims that this is a true 24-bit LCD. This is definitely not a problem with LCDs in general, because I own two other 15" LCDs, a BenQ and a Sony, and both doesn't have this problem. So this is a design flaw on Dell's part(or LG Philips since they are the one that made the monitor). Its not noticeable when I sit 2ft away from the monitor, but when I want to get a close look at a few pictures(for photoshop, not pr0n you pervs:evil: ), it becomes a large nuisance.
The viewing angles on the 2001FP are excellent; I don't get the gradient effects I get on my two 15" LCDs. You can almost say it's as good as looking at a CRT. I didn't notice any streaking/ghosting in games, although if I moved a window around slowly, I can see everything blurring and trailing, especially in my pictures slideshow screensaver, when the picture slides onto the screen, the picture would be blurred as it was moving. Not really a big deal. The contrast is exceptional compared to my two other LCDs, the whites rivals the vibrance of my FD Trinitron, something the two LCDs couldn't touch. Although the blacks are a tad lacking, I don't get the deep black I get from the FD Trinitron.
The ability for the 2001FP to rotate to portrait mode is absolutely awesome. Webpages were definitely designed for portrait mode, as the width is usually restricted to or designed for 800 or 1024 pixels. The height of the 2001FP is 1200, so it could accommodate webpages with the height as the width in portrait mode. Web pages are usually also longer than they are wide, which is the prime reason why portrait mode is so great for web browsing. Browsing portrait pictures while the monitor is in portrait mode is a huge improvement from the traditional landscape view. Portrait pictures fill the entire screen now and the entire picture can be viewed at once at twice the size. Rotating the screen is as easy as pushing two keys with the hotkeys manager in nview(nvidia drivers r0x!). Screenshot of my portrait desktop
I deeply miss a very beneficial feature that the P275 was capable up paired up with my dual head nvidia card. I hooked the P275s dual inputs onto the 5900. I set one input as a fullscreen video device. What the fullscreen video device feature on nview does is that it automatically changes the resolution of the screen to the resolution of the video. Videos look much sharper and vibrant when they are using their native resolution; upscaling will never match true native resolutions. Using the full screen video color correction, I increased the contrast to 125%, gamma to 1.31, digital vibrance to a tad lower than the first notch, and I set the image sharpening to half. This made non HD videos look vibrant and much more lifelike, how they look on your standard TV screen. Upscaled videos in comparison are blurry and filled with artifacts. Regrettably, LCDs are limited to one native resolution, so watching non HD videos at their native resolution would be impossible on the 2001FP.
All in all, Ive been enjoying the vibrance of the P275 with the 2001FP, with pixel perfect sharpness that I was not able to get with the P275 at the high vibrance settings. And I was able to throw out those two shoddy red tables that took up a big part of my room with the extra space Ive gained with the LCD.
Pros and Cons of switching from high end CRT to LCD
PROS
Text and fine lines are razor sharp at any brightness level
Ability to rotate the screen to portrait mode
Small footprint
Save money on electricity bill ($10 a year! 😀)
CONS
Colors are dithered when looking at them at <1ft
Confined to one native resolution, detrimental to games and videos
Blacks arent the deep black you can get on the CRT
I hope my guide has helped any of you planning on changing your high end CRT to an LCD or deciding between a high end CRT and an LCD! Good luck on your purchases!
I've went through 4 refurbs before I finally replaced it with a new model, so the issues I'm talking about is not specific to my particular refurb. This issue is actually pretty common on CRTs, when I turn up the brightness and contrast, fine lines/text would become blurry on light colored backgrounds, horizontal lines would split to two distinct lines! I have to set it at 85/35 for contrast/brightness respectively, to get everything sharpened up. On my new P275, it would be sharp all the way up to 100/45, and even up to 100/55, it would just be marginally blurrier. So the comparison between the P275 and 2001FP will use the much more precise brand new P275.
I've never really thought about switching to LCD for serveral reasons. First, the prohibitive price they usually carry. Second, the fact that they are restricted to their native resolution, or else using a non native resolution would result in a blurry image, which is a huge detriment to games and videos.
Although the 2001FP have been offered now at great prices. I got mine for $640 brand new from a member on AT Classifieds after I sold my P275 for $600. My love for games has lusted off in the past few months, so the native resolution problem isnt such a big deal for me anymore.
I received my 2001FP on Wednesday. First thing I noticed after I hooked it up, DVI-D to my 5900 at 1024x768, the non native resolution was very blurry just as anticipated. I set it to the native resolution, 1600x1200, and everything turned razor pixel for pixel sharp. But you can almost say it was too sharp, there is a clear distinction between each pixel, due to the thick black border between each pixel, so it makes the picture very grainy. The colors seem a tad dithered, despite Dells claims that this is a true 24-bit LCD. This is definitely not a problem with LCDs in general, because I own two other 15" LCDs, a BenQ and a Sony, and both doesn't have this problem. So this is a design flaw on Dell's part(or LG Philips since they are the one that made the monitor). Its not noticeable when I sit 2ft away from the monitor, but when I want to get a close look at a few pictures(for photoshop, not pr0n you pervs:evil: ), it becomes a large nuisance.
The viewing angles on the 2001FP are excellent; I don't get the gradient effects I get on my two 15" LCDs. You can almost say it's as good as looking at a CRT. I didn't notice any streaking/ghosting in games, although if I moved a window around slowly, I can see everything blurring and trailing, especially in my pictures slideshow screensaver, when the picture slides onto the screen, the picture would be blurred as it was moving. Not really a big deal. The contrast is exceptional compared to my two other LCDs, the whites rivals the vibrance of my FD Trinitron, something the two LCDs couldn't touch. Although the blacks are a tad lacking, I don't get the deep black I get from the FD Trinitron.
The ability for the 2001FP to rotate to portrait mode is absolutely awesome. Webpages were definitely designed for portrait mode, as the width is usually restricted to or designed for 800 or 1024 pixels. The height of the 2001FP is 1200, so it could accommodate webpages with the height as the width in portrait mode. Web pages are usually also longer than they are wide, which is the prime reason why portrait mode is so great for web browsing. Browsing portrait pictures while the monitor is in portrait mode is a huge improvement from the traditional landscape view. Portrait pictures fill the entire screen now and the entire picture can be viewed at once at twice the size. Rotating the screen is as easy as pushing two keys with the hotkeys manager in nview(nvidia drivers r0x!). Screenshot of my portrait desktop
I deeply miss a very beneficial feature that the P275 was capable up paired up with my dual head nvidia card. I hooked the P275s dual inputs onto the 5900. I set one input as a fullscreen video device. What the fullscreen video device feature on nview does is that it automatically changes the resolution of the screen to the resolution of the video. Videos look much sharper and vibrant when they are using their native resolution; upscaling will never match true native resolutions. Using the full screen video color correction, I increased the contrast to 125%, gamma to 1.31, digital vibrance to a tad lower than the first notch, and I set the image sharpening to half. This made non HD videos look vibrant and much more lifelike, how they look on your standard TV screen. Upscaled videos in comparison are blurry and filled with artifacts. Regrettably, LCDs are limited to one native resolution, so watching non HD videos at their native resolution would be impossible on the 2001FP.
All in all, Ive been enjoying the vibrance of the P275 with the 2001FP, with pixel perfect sharpness that I was not able to get with the P275 at the high vibrance settings. And I was able to throw out those two shoddy red tables that took up a big part of my room with the extra space Ive gained with the LCD.
Pros and Cons of switching from high end CRT to LCD
PROS
Text and fine lines are razor sharp at any brightness level
Ability to rotate the screen to portrait mode
Small footprint
Save money on electricity bill ($10 a year! 😀)
CONS
Colors are dithered when looking at them at <1ft
Confined to one native resolution, detrimental to games and videos
Blacks arent the deep black you can get on the CRT
I hope my guide has helped any of you planning on changing your high end CRT to an LCD or deciding between a high end CRT and an LCD! Good luck on your purchases!
