HP LP2475w From a Gamer's Perspective

The CRT LCD 'debate' to me is like the digital music vs analog music debate (ie LP's vs CD's/Mp3's)... some people are just going to prefer the older stuff....

Personally? I used exclusively the Sony Trinitron professional line of monitors (G420 and 520... and they were beautiful) all through the mid 90's until they were discontinued in the early 2000's. That said I would never ever want to go back to tube monitors.... IPS for life....
 
Amen. The LCD fanboys are either too stupid or young to remember quality CRTs. They are better than the LCDs in every aspect. The only reason why they caught on was size, that's it.
 
Size, aesthetics, heat, power...it's personal preference. Personally, I would laugh hysterically at a 3x21" CRT eyefinity setup. Can you imagine the bezels on those things?

I loved my CRT's back in the day...but they will forever be a "back in the day" tech to me from here on out.
 
Skakruk, I'm with you 100%. I feel your pain. Always good to know I'm not the only one. If only I could have a new 16:10 with all the CRT qualities, without forking over so much for decade old FW900's on their way to extinction. So sad and disappointing. It's bullshit, really.
 
Gaming on an LCD will never beat gaming on a CRT, period. Why? 0.23mm dot pitch. If it wasn't due to space, I'd still be using an FW900. Not to mention Sony stopped producing monitors. Sigh.
 
Space is my issue with CRTs also. I'd still be using one for my newest system if my computer room wasn't so small..........one of those Sony's would have been sweet and I may have actually tried to get one. Even though it has an area of stuck pixels (possibly 4-8, not really sure) that goes away with intense gaming, I'm still glad I got the 24" BenQ. The LCDs still have some issues they need to iron out to make a lot of serious tech people happy. Excellent post and great perspective!
 
I have a 50" Pioneer Kuro plasma and a Sony FW900 CRT right next to each other and the CRT's picture quality still impresses me lol. (CRT build date = May 2002, Still going strong!).
 
It wasn't difficult for the manufacturers to wow the majority of mindless consumers with shiny new low profile displays and marketing hype about energy efficiency etc. - never mind image quality... And now monitors can be produced at a fraction of the cost of manufacturing CRT's, but still sell to the half-witted masses for the same high price. Jeez, who's really winning here? It sure isn't the consumer.
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so are you suggesting the global consumer population should boycott purchase of future displays until manufacturers are forced to lower their prices?
 
Modern IPS black levels are on par with decent TN panels, which are still only average and require a light behind the monitor to be good, but if truly deep blacks and high contrast ratio is what you want, you should have gone *VA based panels in the first place. They have they own faults like mediocre horizontal viewing angles and black crush on center, but black depth and contrast ratio are really good. Unless the monitor model doesnt have proper backlight controlling (there were those too, practically killing *VA's best side).

If you have seen those new Samsung LCD-TVs (S-PVA panel IIRC) with led backlights, their blacks and contrast is amazing even in dark rooms. My friend has one and I was genuinely surprised how deep the picture looked when we watched movies at night. (First time I saw Iron Man on HD too)

About motion blur, this is not caused by response time alone but also because the screen doesnt flicker. Screen is constant and is updated 60 times per second and your eyes see this as motion blur. 120Hz monitors should have much less of this because the screen is redrawn twice more often.
Another solution to this was gimmicky techology that made backlight of LCD monitor to flicker, simulating CRTs picture. This did eliminate motion blur slightly, but also caused headaches because the flicker rate was too low (much like CRT monitors setted to low refresh rate)

But yes, all modern LCD technologies cannot compete with CRT. IPS has black glow and average contrast ratio, *VA has black crush, TN has averate contrast ratio and absolutely abysmal vertical gamma shift... CRT has none of those and image and contrast is always perfect from all angles. Well, its heavy as hell and eats power like mad but thats not the point of this thread. None of the current flat monitor technologies are sufficient to replace CRT fully, we need something completely new.

Still, I am incredibly happy with my LP2475w. With the help of lamp behind the monitor, its blacks and contrast are quite good and viewing angles are very good too, personally I only notice the glow when I am too close to the monitor, or I play Mass Effect with its ANNOYING vignette effect on corners which actually seems to amplify black glow somehow, dunno why...
 
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MaZa said:
*VA has black crush...
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And typically, high input lag and slow grey to black/black to grey transitions. In darker and/or gloomier games nothing beats a good *VA panel though. After using a PVA for a couple days, I never realized how much blacks on TN and IPS truly look like ass in comparison.
 
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I have to congratulate you Skakruk. You have written one of the most thorough, unbiased, educated reviews I have ever read.

It is no wonder there aren't any LCD fanboys spewing ad hominem and exaggerating LCD functionality in this thread.

I would gladly buy a CRT (had one all my life) if they still made them, nor did I have to gamble on a 10 year old one that is at its end. Recently I've been looking for a good gaming LCD and the LP2475w was being considered. Thank you, keep 'em coming.
 
I'll just say that I've been quite happy with my LP2475w. Did a lot of thorough research prior to buying and it seemed like the best deal (~$600 at the time) in terms of the performance (H-IPS) for that price. I have since played many games and have not noticed any input lag and am very satisfied with the black levels, but perhaps my eyes are not as sensitive as others'.

Fortunately, my first replacement panel from HP (good service on their part) was free of the pink/green tint issue and any other major defects.
 
Someone definitely needs to invest in a good FW900.

I wish they made plasmas smaller than 37". :D

Still rockin the FW900 here. When I bought it about 3.5 years ago, a comparable LCD would have cost me big $.

I'm not as picky as some of the folks around here - I calibrated my FW900 with Digital Video Essentials when I got it, spent about 2 hours playing with the geometry and convergence, and I've basically left it alone since then.

I keep thinking the image looks a little yellow but I think that's just compared to the Viewsonic TN panel LCD sitting next to it, which I think is pushing too much blue (despite it being set to "6500K"). I should really dig up my DVE disc and calibrate again.
 
Mr. Bluntman said:
And typically, high input lag and slow grey to black/black to grey transitions. In darker and/or gloomier games nothing beats a good *VA panel though. After using a PVA for a couple days, I never realized how much blacks on TN and IPS truly look like ass in comparison.
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Those have been improved a lot too. Input lag isnt really panel dependant, as there are 0ms *VA panel monitors too, like those cheapo MB24W (from various makers) monitors. They had no input lag, basically because there was no overdrive or buffers and such that add lag. But response times are quite nice on modern *VAs, about same as IPS I think?
 
You make some very good points. It annoys me that the technology is there to make better displays than they are now (A-TW polarizer etc) and yet the manufacturers don't use it because the average user simply doesn't care. The whole market is flooded with cheap TN panels that are clearly inferior in quite a few ways compared to a 10 or even 15 years old CRT when it comes to picture quality. I remember a few years ago all the bigger screens were either VA or IPS and they are mostly TNs now. So overall you could say the PQ is getting worse :rolleyes:

I do like a good LCD though and actually prefer one over a CRT. I was a CRT fanatic, used to own quite a few quality CRTs with Trinitron and Diamondtron tubes but wouldn't go back to one now. I do miss the natural colors, zero gamma shift and deep blacks of my CRT but I also don't miss the convergence, geometry and focus issues, I don't miss blurry text at high refresh rate or washed out blacks in anything but a dark room. The way I see it, a good LCD is not worse than a good CRT, they are just very different. If I were a gamer, I would probably think the same as you and go with a CRT.

Recently I saw my friend's NEC 2490 and it's a wonderful display. I'd easily chose it over any CRT. If only more people were interested in better PQ we would probably have displays like those for less money but what can you do.
 
I'm going to have to say that I'm now interested in buying an HP monitor. You presented an unbiased review with all the facts, presented your own opinion, but allowed for the reader to draw their own conclusions, and I give you serious props for that.

For most people I know, the biggest detractor of CRTs is the fact they stick out the back, making them very difficult to place on a desk and pushing the screen closer to the user's face. I need at least 2 feet between my face and the screens, and that would impossible with CRTs without the use of an abnormally sized desk.
 
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