Nah there's still quite a few areas that CRTs are better than LCDs at:
CRT:
Better response time (no ghosting, i.e. moving images leaving a trail behind them)
Better color reproduction
No dead pixels (generally speaking)
Full viewing angle (LCDs suck at viewing angle; don't believe the manufacturers' specs)
Handles all resolutions well (LCDs handle only their native (maximum) resolution well, all others tend to be blurry)
LCD:
Much sleeker and lighter -- more portable
Uses less power and space
No flicker (won't tire out your eyes...at least, not supposed to)
Clearer picture (especially if using the digital DVI connection)
No geometric distortion
It depends on what you're looking for in a monitor. If you're someone who does a lot of graphics-heavy work (i.e. photography, photoshop, etc.), then CRTs are generally recommended for their better color reproduction. If you're doing regular gaming and movie-watching, might as well as go with LCD. People's opinions on this vary though, some gamers prefer CRTs due to the quicker response time.
Shopping for an LCD carries with it some risks (the biggest currently being dead pixels), since there's a lot of crap out there that manufacturers say to make their product sound better. In which case, there's plenty of things to know before buying an LCD monitor -- but that's best saved for another post. If you're looking for an LCD though, the things to look for generally are:
Price: How much are you willing to pay? Use this to determine what quality monitor you want. 17-inch LCD monitors can be had for a tad above $200 nowadays, at least, that's how much my company's monitors sell for (I'm looking at the Polyview V17D on Newegg).
Brightness: How bright the monitor is. Duh.
Contrast ratio: Difference between whitest white and blackest black.
Response time: This is somewhat difficult if you haven't used LCDs before. CRT's basically strobe images at you -- it flashes images very quickly, with the screen spending most of the time being black. Hence a CRT's refresh rate is important. LCD screens are basically electronic shutters, with the light always staying on (technically it flickers at 40kHz or something like that, but that's unimportant) until the image changes. For an LCD then, the refresh rate isn't important (60 Hz is fine), but the response time -- how long it takes for the shutter to switch between open and close -- is very important. If the response time is too long, then the shutter can't switch to the new image fast enough, so moving objects look blurry or look like they're trailing lines behind them. So the lower the response time, the better. Unfortunately, there's a lot of crap from manufacturers in this area (as well as several other areas, like viewing angle and contrast ratio). I use a 25 ms LCD monitor, and for some reason, ghosting completely disappears when I'm playing games, but show up only when I'm using office applications (MS Word, Internet Explorer, etc.). I don't play first-person shooters though, where ghosting is very important. Generally I'd say 16 ms is adequate for most average folks, but I'm sure plenty of people will disagree with me on that.
Viewing angle: If you go for an LCD, you'll have to get used to the image looking different when you look at it from different angles. Unfortunately, this stat is all but useless now because manufacturers set the bar so low that they can claim viewing angles of 160 or 170 degrees, when the image really, really sucks by then.
DVI connection: Get an LCD monitor with one. Image quality is better with it. How much is a matter of opinion, but the price difference isn't much anyway. Just make note first of whether or not it comes with a DVI cable included, or if you're expected to find one on your own. (I don't know why that review on Newegg said he didn't get a DVI-D cable with his V17D, since we always include DVI-D cables with all our DVI-capable monitors. I may have to go slap around some guys in quality control).
That's what to look for off the top of my head, for LCD monitors.
Chuck Hsiao
Amptron
