So I spent a decent amount of time over the last couple of weeks looking for a display for my bedroom. Not looking for anything fancy or huge, something in the 26"-32" range with HDMI. My wife said that she would like to be able to hang it on a wall so I was focusing on trying to find a LCD that was decent to take care of what I'm looking for. I almost never watch cable, I only worry about movies and games, but my wife does.
So I start doing research and visiting every B&M I can find that has a selection of displays to check out focusing on those that don't mind me fixing their setup issues(shocking how poorly they set displays up at most stores- Discovery HD running in glorious 480i.... heh). The main theme that I noticed is almost every display available today is grossly inferior to those made a few years ago- LCD, Plasma, DLP and CRT. They only displays I saw that I found remotely decent were Sony's LCoS SXRD offerings, but they start at 50".
On the LCD side the only displays that had what I would consider tollerable quality(not good mind you) started at $2K and went up from there($2K was for a 26" display). Even those suffered from horrific black levels, slow response time, screen door issues and sluggish response time- but not nearly as badly as the lesser models. On the up side there has been a large improvement on that front it seems, either that or the Aquos line has tanked as comparing several models from that line to the competition the Aquos looked down right horrible.
The CRT front has certainly declined too. It looks like Matsushita and Mitsubishi have left the quality CRT market altogether. I found a couple of Taus on display, but they were clearly inferior to older models(which I already have one of in the house) although they are very cheap now. Sony seems to still be playing, but they haven't had a CRT comparable to Mitsu or Panasonics older models for a very long time and that doesn't appeared to have changed. I also checked out Samsungs new line of thin CRTs- they suffered from uneven pixel sizes across the screen and had considerably lower top level resolution then the better LCDs but they looked to be the best out of what was out there(comparing HD feeds- SD was eye gouging on the LCDs), they were also quite cheap.
So after going over everything and doing all the research I did what any married man knows he has to do in these situations- I brought the boss with me to make the final decision to a few different B&Ms. After going over all the selections she decided to give up on her hopes to get something to hang on the wall. She was impressed with the SXRDs, but they are far too large for our uses for this display(one of those will likely end up as the main A/V display later this year) and after that it was down to the lesser of evils. She ended up picking out the Samsung TXR3079WH- a widescreen 30" thin CRT that ran us $849 at Circuit City- a lot less then what we had planned(enough so I got to give the aging sound system in our bed room a needed replacement) to spend but it was the only display she found satisfying- particularly considering the price(if the price was the same there was an LCD she was fond of, but it was $2.7K- and she said that she liked it about the same).
Why have consumer displays gotten so poor? I realize the industry is in a transition now- but why isn't anyone offering any decent displays in the smaller sizes? For that matter, the only display I would say was really good out of everything I saw was the Sony SXRD line- and for the record I loathe Sony's consumer electronics(poorly made shite that breaks far too often). Perhaps I am missed out on some of the better options available, but I was rather let down at the poor state of displays in general. Overall the tube we went with isn't bad by any means, but it has issues with uniformity and its contrast(it is a CRT) can't touch my older Tau- not even close. Given the price we paid I don't have any major qualms, but I was more then willing to spend more for a higher quality offering- I simply couldn't find one in the range we were looking at.
I'm hoping that the upcoming OLED and SED displays will make some major improvements with IQ over the next couple of years, either that or someone will make some decent smaller sized and faster LCoS displays(a bit more contrast would be nice also).
So I start doing research and visiting every B&M I can find that has a selection of displays to check out focusing on those that don't mind me fixing their setup issues(shocking how poorly they set displays up at most stores- Discovery HD running in glorious 480i.... heh). The main theme that I noticed is almost every display available today is grossly inferior to those made a few years ago- LCD, Plasma, DLP and CRT. They only displays I saw that I found remotely decent were Sony's LCoS SXRD offerings, but they start at 50".
On the LCD side the only displays that had what I would consider tollerable quality(not good mind you) started at $2K and went up from there($2K was for a 26" display). Even those suffered from horrific black levels, slow response time, screen door issues and sluggish response time- but not nearly as badly as the lesser models. On the up side there has been a large improvement on that front it seems, either that or the Aquos line has tanked as comparing several models from that line to the competition the Aquos looked down right horrible.
The CRT front has certainly declined too. It looks like Matsushita and Mitsubishi have left the quality CRT market altogether. I found a couple of Taus on display, but they were clearly inferior to older models(which I already have one of in the house) although they are very cheap now. Sony seems to still be playing, but they haven't had a CRT comparable to Mitsu or Panasonics older models for a very long time and that doesn't appeared to have changed. I also checked out Samsungs new line of thin CRTs- they suffered from uneven pixel sizes across the screen and had considerably lower top level resolution then the better LCDs but they looked to be the best out of what was out there(comparing HD feeds- SD was eye gouging on the LCDs), they were also quite cheap.
So after going over everything and doing all the research I did what any married man knows he has to do in these situations- I brought the boss with me to make the final decision to a few different B&Ms. After going over all the selections she decided to give up on her hopes to get something to hang on the wall. She was impressed with the SXRDs, but they are far too large for our uses for this display(one of those will likely end up as the main A/V display later this year) and after that it was down to the lesser of evils. She ended up picking out the Samsung TXR3079WH- a widescreen 30" thin CRT that ran us $849 at Circuit City- a lot less then what we had planned(enough so I got to give the aging sound system in our bed room a needed replacement) to spend but it was the only display she found satisfying- particularly considering the price(if the price was the same there was an LCD she was fond of, but it was $2.7K- and she said that she liked it about the same).
Why have consumer displays gotten so poor? I realize the industry is in a transition now- but why isn't anyone offering any decent displays in the smaller sizes? For that matter, the only display I would say was really good out of everything I saw was the Sony SXRD line- and for the record I loathe Sony's consumer electronics(poorly made shite that breaks far too often). Perhaps I am missed out on some of the better options available, but I was rather let down at the poor state of displays in general. Overall the tube we went with isn't bad by any means, but it has issues with uniformity and its contrast(it is a CRT) can't touch my older Tau- not even close. Given the price we paid I don't have any major qualms, but I was more then willing to spend more for a higher quality offering- I simply couldn't find one in the range we were looking at.
I'm hoping that the upcoming OLED and SED displays will make some major improvements with IQ over the next couple of years, either that or someone will make some decent smaller sized and faster LCoS displays(a bit more contrast would be nice also).
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