Input on a new (old) 21" crt welcome

[308nato]

LINKY

This site has good reseller ratings. Is there a couple of the 21" crt refurbs the knowledgable types could steer me toward (it won't let me link right to the 21" models, sorry).

My Hitachi 811 is finally about to die. Gaming is the main usage. I do appreciate the advice as always.

 

[Hadsus]

Mitsu Diamond I think is a good safe choice. I have a Mitsu NEC Diamondtron myself.

 

[CP5670]

This would easily be my choice, a 2070SB rebadge:
http://www.accurateit.com/details.asp?iid=189

 

[BFG10K]

These look good and you can buy them new.

 

[brikis98]

in the 21" range, viewsonic and mitsubishi diamondtron tend to be very solid. just make sure they support the resolution you want, have solid colors and, most importantly, have as small of a dot pitch (< .25) as possible.

if you wanna go a bit bigger, the sony gdm-fw900 is a 24" flat, widescreen CRT... i just picked one up from ebay for $250 and love it. it's roughly the same dimensions as a 21" CRT, except the actual screen is a lot wider and it weighs a TON. however, the huge screen is amazing, the colors are fantastic, and the dot pitch is .23 (center) to .27 (corners). it's amazing how much sharper, brighter and cleaner the image is on the fw900 than on my 21" sony trinitron (i have these two beasts side by side). the dot pitch also allows the text sharpness to rival (though not beat) an LCD. and, of course, games, browsing and movies all look kickass on widescreen at 1920x1200.

edit: if you do buy a CRT off ebay, i highly recommend you buy it from some place local and avoid shipping for the following 3 reasons:

1. shipping 70lbs - 90lbs CRT's is VERY expensive ($100+)
2. if you go to a warehouse to pick them up, you can typically get them to show you the screen, hook it up to a computer and make sure it works. the original one that i "won" in the auction had a scratch in the glare filter, so i had them show me a few others and picked one out with a perfect screen.
3. if anything does go wrong, even if the monitor is under warranty, shipping it back would be an incredible hassle. driving, on the other hand, not as big of a deal.