Damn I forgot how good, good CRTs were.

[xanis]

My dad has a 32'' CRT HDTV and HD looks A LOT better than on pretty much every LCD/Plasma that I've ever seen.

I still wouldn't want a CRT for my computer though.

 

[secretanchitman]

had a dell trinitron 17" crt from the late 90s and that was easily my favorite crt display. now my favorite display is the one my macbook pro - 15" led backlit 1680x1050 matte/antiglare. it looks so damn good.

 

[0roo0roo]

Even though the monitor I had would do some nice refresh rates, e.g. 85 hz @ 1600 x 1200 resolution, it still did something to my eyes where I would start to get a headache and see spots. I learned later on that this was an onset of a migraine. So in essence for years I had been giving myself migraine headaches by using CRT's. When I used a lower end CRT at work it would be much worse sometimes. I would literally have to step outside and take a 15 minute break because I started to see dots all over my vision.

.

yup even at 120hz i could feel the difference, lcd is just much kinder on the eyes, i do not miss crt. many of the crts people are brining up are nostalgia i think, unless you had a super high end crt and it was new and not degraded, its not better than todays lcds. let alone smaller hdtv 34" types which were fake hdtv, dot pitch so lousy that they couldn'nt resolve jacksh*t for hd, they were edtvs. The only crt hdtv's worth noting were the sony fine pitch models, unless you have those, theres no point crowing about a crt.

 

[SparkyJJO]

CRTs were nice and crisp, but I'll take 10% of the weight and space of my LCD any day now

For the first few years anyway. They all got blurry after a while.

I don't miss the eyestrain, or the space, or the weight, or.... heck, I wouldn't go back to my old CRT, regardless of how good it was for its time. I love my Viewsonic VX2025wm, the only thing I wish about it was that it was 24"

 

[fatpat268]

I always had a crappy CRT in the past, and my first LCD monitor was a 20 in widescreen with a M-PVA panel (vx2025wm). I think I made a good upgrade at the time.

Too bad I downgraded to a TN panel, but everything else is crazy expensive nowadays.

 

[lxskllr]

I always had a crappy CRT in the past, and my first LCD monitor was a 20 in widescreen with a M-PVA panel (vx2025wm). I think I made a good upgrade at the time.

Too bad I downgraded to a TN panel, but everything else is crazy expensive nowadays.

There's nothing wrong with TN displays. They look nice as long as you're sitting right in front of it.

 

[ultimatebob]

There's not an LCD on the planet I'd take over a Diamontron CRT. I go on CraigsList every day looking for one for sale locally.

It's true... I have an old 17" model that's 10 years old, and looks as good now as when I bought it.

 

[BUTCH1]

I"m still using my trusty Samsung "19, no sighn of tube fade at all yet so why should I toss it?, we have brand new Dell LCD's at work and they are a little better for text but that's about it, black level on my Samsung is far better IMO..

 

[fatpat268]

There's nothing wrong with TN displays. They look nice as long as you're sitting right in front of it.

Yea, the problem though is that in my current setup, my 24 inch monitor is higher than I'd like (nothing I can do about that unless I buy a lower desk), and the upper portion of the screen is visibly darker.

That's just the nature of TN screens. I'm used to it, and it's fine, but I'd upgrade to IPS in a heartbeat if the panels were at a competitive price compared to TN.

 

[0roo0roo]

Yea, the problem though is that in my current setup, my 24 inch monitor is higher than I'd like (nothing I can do about that unless I buy a lower desk), and the upper portion of the screen is visibly darker.

That's just the nature of TN screens. I'm used to it, and it's fine, but I'd upgrade to IPS in a heartbeat if the panels were at a competitive price compared to TN.

 

[pyjujiop]

That's just it, you never had to spend a lot of money. There are TONS of used gov't/military issue wood desks, TONS, that all screw apart and are built to handle anything. I got my first one for $3.

People, and there are many, who have them know exactly the desk I'm talking about. They came in many slight variations including a lowerable mid-section for a secretary with a typewriter, but they are all instantly recognizable as being of the same family/design.

Last move, I foolishly gave mine to one of my friend helping me move.

Bad google picture of one:

I have one of those desks, with a date stamp underneath that says some day in August, 1987. Got it for $25 at a thrift store five years ago.

I also have a very heavy 19" CRT monitor on top of it. I got the monitor new three years ago on a closeout at the local Tiger Direct store. It hasn't hurt the desk a bit.

You will get my desk and my CRT (and my 19-year-old IBM Model M keyboard) when you pry them from my cold, dead hands.

 

[Cheesetogo]

CRTs suck ass. On my Dell 3007, I can't tell the difference in image quality or color. The black look damn black to me, and not grey at all. Anyone who prefers a CRT is crazy.

lol. I like my 3007WFP, but saying that the black levels are good is laughable. Have you ever used it with the lights turned off?

 

[Geekbabe]

I loved my old CRT's for gaming, fondly remembering my 21 inch Hitachi but now that most of my day is spent staring at text I prefer my LCD's.

 

[Locut0s]

I loved my old CRT's for gaming, fondly remembering my 21 inch Hitachi but now that most of my day is spent staring at text I prefer my LCD's.

Locut0s must know what games Geekbabe likes.

 

[IcePickFreak]

I was one of the CRT hold outs. I had a somewhat cheap 19" Acer for quite awhile, and in that time I ended up moving to a glass topped desk. A few months later and I found a killer deal on a 21" Dell CRT. I ended up running some reinforcements under the glass between the two frame rails as the thing weighs nearly 100 lbs. I held out until black friday of 2006 and picked up my current 22" Samsung LCD.

My desk rejoiced, not to mention I gained back a ton of space on it. It took me all of a day to get accustomed to the LCD, and now personally I don't think I could go back. The Dell CRT is actually still in action, I "lent" it to a longtime friend who I also sold my old PC to. When I'm over at his place and get to use it a bit, I just don't think I would want to return to it. I've become one of those whom I despised.

 

[yhelothar]

lol I remember one of the advantages of LCDs people mentioned was that they don't get burn ins. But image persistence with LCDs is far worse than CRTs with burn in.

I used my CRT for a while until I got my MVA panel that finally looked better than the CRT in contrast and vibrance.

 

[PingSpike]

I don't think image burn in has been a problem on CRTs since what...the late 80s? I know I've only seen it on one monitor my entire life, and that monitor was a monochrome server screen.

 

[Anubis]

I don't think image burn in has been a problem on CRTs since what...the late 80s? I know I've only seen it on one monitor my entire life, and that monitor was a monochrome server screen.

no image burn in on CRTs (at least cheap ones) lasted into the late 90s/2000s

a lot of the older monitors my college used in the Lib and comp labs had the windows logon box burned into the screen. as well as a lot of the multy colored apple G series monitors that we used on both PCs and Macs

 

[alkemyst]

lol I remember one of the advantages of LCDs people mentioned was that they don't get burn ins. But image persistence with LCDs is far worse than CRTs with burn in.

I used my CRT for a while until I got my MVA panel that finally looked better than the CRT in contrast and vibrance.

QFT...I have worked on a lot of PCs with LCDs that have login screens in the background.

 

[Geekbabe]

Locut0s must know what games Geekbabe likes.

lol, back in the day all flavors of Quake, Unreal & of course Counterstrike

 

[BoomerD]

no image burn in on CRTs (at least cheap ones) lasted into the late 90s/2000s

a lot of the older monitors my college used in the Lib and comp labs had the windows logon box burned into the screen. as well as a lot of the multy colored apple G series monitors that we used on both PCs and Macs

Many of the CRT screens in the H&R Block office had severe burn-in of the log-in screens.

 

[dualsmp]

What is a LCD?

 

[disappoint]

What is a LCD?

It's that ancient technology that shoots electrons at phosphors to emit photons.

 

[jiffylube1024]

I'm so happy CRT is passé. They were bulky, heavy as anything, desk-eating heat machines. The radiation coming off the backs of the case wasn't trivial either. When I got my first LCD, I was blown away at how sharp the image was, and how uniform the geometry was. They were brutal for university students or people who move a lot, and just a massive massive waste of space in general.

Yes high-end CRT's produced good image quality, but at what price? You're talking 75-150 lbs for a top of the line 24"+ CRT. Meanwhile, my 27" Dell 2709WFP comfortably sits on my ikea desk and I still have room for tons of papers and stuff on the desk beside the monitor.

Does everyone forget that, at the prices we're enjoying now for 20-24" LCD's back in the day you got a 19" - 21" CRT?

Sheesh - I just recently unloaded our last CRT in the house - a Panasonic 47" front-projection HDTV. The thing produced a pretty solid image, but the freaking thing had one HDCP-equipped DVI port only (had to use a DVI-to-HDMI adapter and an HDMI switch) and weighed 175 lbs and was about 4 ft in depth. Again, my new 46" LCD is 40 lbs, a few inches thick, and produces an image that blows away the Panasonic.

 

[bfdd]

The old Sony tubes were fucking AWESOME. I used to have a 21" Sun I got used for like 60 bucks, amazing fucking screen. I wouldn't go back to a CRT though. I like having the desk space and the power savings.