Just go ahead and pick up a CRT?

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Anogar

Member
Aug 7, 2006
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I need to get a new monitor. I'm RMA'ing my current 20.1 inch 1600 x 1200 ViewSonic VP201B, but I think I'm going to pick up another one in the mean time and then run dual monitors.

I'm a career graphic designer, so color accuracy is important, but I have a full time corporate job that doesn't leave a ton of time for freelance work, so it isn't a huge deal - just a good thing. My home machine is often just used for gaming to relieve stress.

My understanding is that CRTs offer excellent color accuracy, absolutely no ghosting ever, and are generally quite good - but they are obviously bigger. What am I missing? Other than the style and size of LCDs, do they have anything at all going for them?

If CRTs are indeed a good idea, as I suspect, what would a good monitor for me be? I want it to run very well at 1600 x 1200, and be good for gaming and have good color accuracy for the random freelance jobs I accept.

Cheers.

-Ryan
 
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CP5670

Diamond Member
Jun 24, 2004
5,660
762
126
The main advantage LCDs have at this point is availability. The good CRTs are all long gone. You are stuck with used or refurb ones that vary a lot in quality, and the few that are still available new are pretty much all crap. If you're set on a CRT though, I think the SGI C220 (rebadged 2070SB) on http://www.accurateit.com/index.asp is your best bet. You may have to do one or two exchanges to get one that's not defective in some way though.
 
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xtknight

Elite Member
Oct 15, 2004
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They have advantages in color accuracy (delta E), focus, convergence, geometry, brightness, and pivot ability, but if you want one with CRT-matching saturation (color components split by pure white LED backlights) you'll have to pay. A good all-around one is the Samsung 215TW. It's the best one for photo editing that is affordable, and probably a step up from the VP201B. The NEC LCD2070NX is another one you should consider that may be better than the 215TW. Also, there are some LCDs arriving with a wider color gamut so you may want to wait until then to consider another LCD.
 
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ForumMaster

Diamond Member
Feb 24, 2005
7,792
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LCD's are sharper, have no refresh rate, use less power, waste less heat, and are smaller. the new LED back-lit ones are even better and now, LCD's are better then CRT's in everything. also, getting good CRT's today is hard cause they stopped making aperture grill ones which were the higher quailty CRT's.
 
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ojingoh

Member
Sep 22, 2004
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i got a really good crt -- fw-900 widescreen sony -- and i love it. but i'm realistic.
it's good for games, movies and photos -- no input lag, no ghosting, no fixed resolutions and the color fidelity is top notch-- seriously nothing touches it besides professional color-calibrated LCDs that start at $2000 and come with a freakin hood.
it sucks at text; well it's adequate for text but it's not as good as a lcd screen, not even close. lcds have huge advantages when it comes to text.

crts as cp above points out are a dying breed, the quality ones are pretty much gone or going to be on the used market. you can get a crt fixed pretty simply though, the technology has been around for 50 years, but it will be expensive.
also the largest crts are pretty big, the fw-900 is literally 100 pounds and the box it shipped in is 1 cubic YARD.



 
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ojingoh

Member
Sep 22, 2004
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hey xt, the one monitor that gets me excited these days in terms of raw pixels is the 30" dell panel, the one with 2560x1600 resolution. of course bieng a dell i have no way of examining it or testing it compared to the good old fw900.

have you been able to test this monitor? how would you describe its color fidelty and gamut?

sorry for the hijack!
 
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GreenMonkey

Member
Sep 22, 2004
106
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Originally posted by: ForumMaster
LCD's are better then CRT's in everything.
Click to expand...

That boldfaced, linked part implies that all LCDs are better than CRTs in everything. You link to a story about an LCD which certainly has potential, but will probably cost ungodly sums of money.

LCDs are better for text, consume less power, and have a smaller footprint, and have perfect geometry.

CRTs are better in blacks, contrast, color reproduction, dot pitch (no SDE) and almost everything else. Geometry can be tuned.

Love my FW900 :D

 
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Creig

Diamond Member
Oct 9, 1999
5,170
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81
Originally posted by: GreenMonkey
CRTs are better in blacks, contrast, color reproduction, dot pitch (no SDE) and almost everything else. Geometry can be tuned.
Click to expand...

And have no banding problems, no ghosting, no backlight bleeding, no dead/stuck pixels and can be set to ANY resolution without visual penalties unlike the LCD with its native resolution.
 
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Hadsus

Golden Member
Aug 14, 2003
1,135
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I tried a couple of Dell LCDs last year but there were too many imaging flaws. Too much backlight bleeding (obvious with dark games) and I really missed the flexibility of setting your own resolution. If you don't like reading small text you're outta luck.....I don't like reading small text. I thought you really needed to keep brightness up at a high level to have good color fidelity but if you did that many things just became too bright to look at.....like white text on black. And, the thing couldn't keep up with Unreal T. All that other stuff about size and space I couldn't care less. But I too am ready to give LCDs another look but I'm glad I've held off from jumping off the ledge with all the other LCD early adopter lemmings. It just hasn't been ready for prime time.
 
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Dethfrumbelo

Golden Member
Nov 16, 2004
1,499
0
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The NEC 20WMGX2 is the only LCD I'd consider buying at this point. Advanced DV mode achieves the same effect as Superbright on the Diamondtrons, which I'm sorely missing right now. The glossy screen is also a plus. The downside is the price.

So I guess it's either $600 for the NEC or $200 for a refurbished/overstock CRT, which has risks.

 
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CP5670

Diamond Member
Jun 24, 2004
5,660
762
126
Originally posted by: Anogar
I think that Samsung 997MB looks fairly nice. Quite tempting.
Click to expand...

It's a decent one and probably one of the better options out of the brand new ones, but it's not comparable to the old high end AGs. Try to snag a used or refurb FW900 or 2070SB instead. AccurateIT seems to be a pretty safe bet going by the Reseller Ratings reviews. You can often get much better prices on ebay so that's also worth a look, although you usually won't be able to return or replace it (or will have to pay hefty return shipping costs) if it turns out to be bad.
 
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brikis98

Diamond Member
Jul 5, 2005
7,253
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Originally posted by: Creig
Originally posted by: GreenMonkey
CRTs are better in blacks, contrast, color reproduction, dot pitch (no SDE) and almost everything else. Geometry can be tuned.
Click to expand...

And have no banding problems, no ghosting, no backlight bleeding, no dead/stuck pixels and can be set to ANY resolution without visual penalties unlike the LCD with its native resolution.
Click to expand...

this just about sums it up. for photo editing, gaming and movies, a high quality CRT is hard to beat. btw, viewsonic makes some very nice 21" and 22" CRT's for ~$400...
 
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jiffylube1024

Diamond Member
Feb 17, 2002
7,430
0
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There's CRT diehards who stick to it for the colour reproduction or (the more obstinate ones) the ghosting issue (which is all but nonexistent on new panels).

For 99% of people, LCD is a better fit. They're cheaper, more abundant in large sizes (24", 30", etc), clearer w/ DVI, have much higher brightness and consume less power and FAR less space. Unless you *need* the colour accuracy, CRT is all but dead.
 
JRW

JRW

Senior member
Jun 29, 2005
569
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Love my FW900 CRT ,When it comes to gaming nothing comes close to one of these especially when you have a properly working one ,mine has amazing convergence / geometry / focus and all of the advantages of a CRT ,better black levels , viewing angles, lack of dithering , no input lag or ghosting issues , various resolutions available , higher refresh rates (for higher max framerates while gaming) oh and the 24" size & 16:10 aspect doesnt hurt either ;)
 
Sonikku

Sonikku

Lifer
Jun 23, 2005
15,864
4,838
136
I second that. I got a refurb FW900 on ebay from a high rated seller for about $400 in good condition. What I don't get about all the fanatical LCD lovers out there is how they label it as some be all end all solution to everything in gaming. But being limited to one resolution with your alternative being medicore scaling? I mean my system would be fine with a 1920x1200 on a Dell 2405 if all I played was World of Warcraft. But what happens when I get in the mood for some other demanding game? Half Life 2 I have to resort to 1280x800. The scaling at that res would not be great on a LCD, but it may yet be passable. But then comes Oblivion. I can get it running well in 1024x768, but that's a lot to blow up on such a high res display. There's no way in hell I'm going to be able to play THAT in such high resolutions. Not on a X800 card. And don't even get me started playing 480i DVD's.

Granted, a high end 24" Dell 2405 with a set res of 1920x1200 or something similar might be possible if I could afford to have some crazy tricked out machine at all times. But my 24" FW900 allows me some lee way in terms what PC hardware I can use with the display while still being able to enjoy the latest in gaming. Anything from 800x600 to 2304x1440 is a piece of cake to change to on a whim with excellent gaming PQ. I figure by the time my FW900 dies either scaling in LCD will be better or far more content will be available in the 1920x1200 range. Until then, I'm happy.
 
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