Should I make the switch to LCD ?

[Saint]

Im considering getting a new monitor and I was wondering if I should make the switch to LCD or get another CRT. I am a big gamer so graphics, lighthing, response time ect will greatly effect my decision. I have always stayed away form LCDs because everyone said there terrible for gaming because of ghosting and other various issues. I have noticed that LCDs are falling in price and are almost the same price as most CRT monitors of the same size. So price doesnt seem to be an issue. If I get an LCD I will get one of those dell monitors. They look sweet and are fairly priced. Im not sure if I want to get a widscreen or just regular. I dont really understand the difference anyway. So what do you guys think can LCDs perform as well as a CRT in gaming and graphics or do they just have more clear text.

 

[FlatLine84]

I love my 2001fp, I don't think it was a complete replacement for my Trinitron 540 21", because of the native res of the CLD is 1600x1200, so I have to run everything in that. Other than that, it did completely replace it.

 

[kelbear]

I was afraid of LCDs not being good enough for gaming. I was afraid regular folks wouldn't mention ghosting whereas a gamer's tastes may not be satisfied. I didn't know if I could believe people that ghosting was gone.

I bought the dell 2005fpw. Ghosting is indeed gone. Some fuzziness when making long quick snap turns, but it doesn't affect gameplay. I can't comment on relative picture quality compared to a CRT because my CRT is 4 years old and not a good representative for a side-by-side comparison. However, there'a vast pool of commentary extolling the excellent picture quality of the dell 2005fpw.

 

[kelbear]

I didn't believe people at first, was afraid they might not be finicky gamer-types about ghosting and simply giving commentary oriented towards the average consumer.

I got the dell 2005fpw. Ghosting is indeed a thing of the past with this monitor. No trailing of images. Works great with gaming.

Widescreen only works at the maximum resolution. If your graphics card can't handle the maximum resolution smoothly, then just forego the widescreen and play at normal ratio resolutions. The monitor will just disable the sides by showing black bars so that it doesn't have to resize the image to make it fit.

There's nothing I miss about my CRT.

 

[xdkimx]

the first lcd i got had terrible ghosting so i felt the exact same way after that experience, but after i got this 2005fpw i was very satisfied. i recommend either the 2005 or 2405 based on ur budget cuz since widescreens can use aspect ratio if u want u can have the sides cut off instead of having the screen stretched for games (if the game doesnt support widescreen, like chaos theory's multiplayer -_-)

also lcds dont flicker ur eyes to death so even after long periods of using the monitor ur eyes wont feel tired and in my opinion lcds colors are much more vibrant than crts

oh yeah and also crts have geometric distortion while lcds fit perfectly on the screen

the only negative on lcds are dead pixels (and for some leaking backlights) x_x

 

[Greenwit]

I was afraid of LCDs not being good enough for gaming. I was afraid regular folks wouldn't mention ghosting whereas a gamer's tastes may not be satisfied. I didn't know if I could believe people that ghosting was gone.

I bought the dell 2005fpw. Ghosting is indeed gone. Some fuzziness when making long quick snap turns, but it doesn't affect gameplay. I can't comment on relative picture quality compared to a CRT because my CRT is 4 years old and not a good representative for a side-by-side comparison. However, there'a vast pool of commentary extolling the excellent picture quality of the dell 2005fpw.

Not to mention a vast pool of commentary describing a plethora of pixel failures and excessive backlighting specifically with the 2005fpw.

Get a CRT. It will be the last chance for you to own one and it outperforms LCDs in practically every area you would care to think of. LCDs are lighter, consume less power, and generate less heat. Those are the only advantages they have IMO. I returned two Dell LCDs.....pop culture kewl goes only so far. Bad blacks, one resolution (sorry, one size does *not* fit all), b0rked web pages because of small text, and couldn't keep up with fast games. And, of course, not to mention there is a very good chance (per a recent poll here) you'll get a LCD with bad pixels or bad backlighting.

 

[Jasonx82]

I made the switch to a 2405fpw UT2004, CS:S, Warcraft 3 all looks fine.. I play @ 1920x1200 except for war 3.. looks nice. no ghosting well i dont notice it maybe im blind or not looking hard enough...

 

[Aku12]

Not to mention a vast pool of commentary describing a plethora of pixel failures and excessive backlighting specifically with the 2005fpw.

Get a CRT. It will be the last chance for you to own one and it outperforms LCDs in practically every area you would care to think of. LCDs are lighter, consume less power, and generate less heat. Those are the only advantages they have IMO. I returned two Dell LCDs.....pop culture kewl goes only so far. Bad blacks, one resolution (sorry, one size does *not* fit all), b0rked web pages because of small text, and couldn't keep up with fast games. And, of course, not to mention there is a very good chance (per a recent poll here) you'll get a LCD with bad pixels or bad backlighting.

dont forget it takes up less space. Going from a 17inch CRT to a 17inch LCD, and now i have a desk. the CRT was so big before that it took up my entire desk. I bought a budget 12ms 17inch Acer for $210 and i couldnt be happier, games are smooth and even though they are both 17inches the LCD's screen is quite a bit larger than my CRT was.

 

[FlatLine84]

dont forget it takes up less space. Going from a 17inch CRT to a 17inch LCD, and now i have a desk. the CRT was so big before that it took up my entire desk. I bought a budget 12ms 17inch Acer for $210 and i couldnt be happier, games are smooth and even though they are both 17inches the LCD's screen is quite a bit larger than my CRT was.

Yes, because CRT's are measured diagonally at the tube, that's why viewable, and actual size differ. LCD's are measured at the panel, which almost always viewable.

 

[theseeker]

I was a big CRT fan until I bought an Apple Cinema 23" display. I would proably recommend the Dell as it has the same performance for lower $. The current issue of Maximum PC magazine has a review of 19" screens, and the article is well written.

 

[mathesar]

Im considering getting a new monitor and I was wondering if I should make the switch to LCD or get another CRT. I am a big gamer so graphics, lighthing, response time ect will greatly effect my decision. I have always stayed away form LCDs because everyone said there terrible for gaming because of ghosting and other various issues. I have noticed that LCDs are falling in price and are almost the same price as most CRT monitors of the same size. So price doesnt seem to be an issue. If I get an LCD I will get one of those dell monitors. They look sweet and are fairly priced. Im not sure if I want to get a widscreen or just regular. I dont really understand the difference anyway. So what do you guys think can LCDs perform as well as a CRT in gaming and graphics or do they just have more clear text.

From my experiance of having a 2001FP sitting next to my 21" Sony CRT for 3 weeks I'd say CRT is still the way to go if your doing a lot of gaming, I had the monitors running in Clone mode so I could easily compare and to be honest the CRT looked better with everything except for Text.So browsing web pages / forums etc. looked superb on the LCD but gaming & especially movies looked nicer on the CRT, my main gripe with the 2001FP was the poor black levels , especialy noticable with the CRT being next to it. for example with Doom 3 I was able to run the CRT in "Dynamic mode" (a feature on the monitor itself) wich boosts overall gamma ,contrast & color ,it basicly gives it a more vibrant look yet its still able to maintain pitch black levels , on the 2001FP Doom3 was a washed out mess no matter how I set the brightness / gamma and it also lost texture details in darkness because of the weak black levels.

Doom 3 is only one example ..the same problems occured with basicly any movies and a lot of games.

Motion blur was actualy not bad on the 2001fp as long as you kept it in its native 1600x1200 res, although you could still tell the CRT was able to output a smoother framerate overall. I ended up returning the 2001FP, Dell was really nice about it they even paid for the return shipping ,so you could always give one of the dell models a try and send it back if you dont like it.

Keep in mind my digicam over exposed this shot, you can tell by looking at the 97 in the bottom left corner (Health readout) , in person the lcd was very sharp and clear, but you can still get an idea of the black level differances between the monitors.

 

[Greenwit]

LOL, great pic Math. Yeah, it's a bit overexposed but it shows that this Dell doesn't come close to black. I owned the 2001fp for awhile too and it is pretty much outmatched by a good CRT for games, especially those with alot of black content. I'll add that I thought text was easier to read on the LCD at very high resolutions....like 1600X1200. Personally, I don't use that resolution and I thought that at lower resolutions my NEC 2111fe compared very favorably to the 2001fp with regard to text readability. BTW, that box you have on your Sony (HL2).....that game also has alot of dark content and the Dell doesn't do it justice.

 

[Obi_Kwiet]

Man, you have serious issues with your LCD! I'd send it back. Mine looks 10x better!

 

[mathesar]

Man, you have serious issues with your LCD! I'd send it back. Mine looks 10x better!

There was nothing wrong with the LCD , as I said before (in my previous post) the camera made the LCD look worse than it does in person.

 

[Spank]

get another crt.

i got my 2405 a few days ago, and i aint to happy about it. There are 2 things that i dont like with this lcd, it's to brigth and black aint black.

The only thing this lcd beats my old crt in is size.

 

[Maad]

(disclaimer: i own a 2005FPW and love it)

In response to the tone of the original poster:

I really think you should stick to CRTs or non-LCD technology (ie. what you trust and know already and can easily afford) until you SEE, in PERSON, an LCD display that you are REALLY impressed with.... in PERSON. Only then will you be able to justify what you are buying. Only then will you know you're making the right decision and won't have a bad feeling in your stomach.

If you are a hardcore gamer and especially if you are really picky about this stuff, please for the love of god don't listen to our mangled and biased opinions, as you have only your own eyes to trust. We're all quite picky in here but our pickiness ranges from concerns about sharpness/geometry/shape to black levels / high refresh rates for games, etc. It's a wide area of interest.

In other words, kick the freakin tires before buying !! (if it ain't in the FAQ it should be)

Seriously folks, if I had a penny for every post I've seen in this forum about some particular detail someone didn't expect about LCD monitors (example: the one guy that was suprised to see that his 19 inch LCD couldn't go higher than 1280x1024) whether it be refresh / resolution / scaling / etc.. or a penny for every poor sap that ordered from Dell during a rev00 phase, knowing full well they were risking backlight issues or whatever... well I'd be rich

 

[Saint]

Thanks for the feedback everyone. Im still not sure what I want to do. I will have to think it over some more and read some reviews.

 

[shadylx]

From my experiance of having a 2001FP sitting next to my 21" Sony CRT for 3 weeks I'd say CRT is still the way to go if your doing a lot of gaming, I had the monitors running in Clone mode so I could easily compare and to be honest the CRT looked better with everything except for Text.So browsing web pages / forums etc. looked superb on the LCD but gaming & especially movies looked nicer on the CRT, my main gripe with the 2001FP was the poor black levels , especialy noticable with the CRT being next to it. for example with Doom 3 I was able to run the CRT in "Dynamic mode" (a feature on the monitor itself) wich boosts overall gamma ,contrast & color ,it basicly gives it a more vibrant look yet its still able to maintain pitch black levels , on the 2001FP Doom3 was a washed out mess no matter how I set the brightness / gamma and it also lost texture details in darkness because of the weak black levels.

Doom 3 is only one example ..the same problems occured with basicly any movies and a lot of games.

Motion blur was actualy not bad on the 2001fp as long as you kept it in its native 1600x1200 res, although you could still tell the CRT was able to output a smoother framerate overall. I ended up returning the 2001FP, Dell was really nice about it they even paid for the return shipping ,so you could always give one of the dell models a try and send it back if you dont like it.

Keep in mind my digicam over exposed this shot, you can tell by looking at the 97 in the bottom left corner (Health readout) , in person the lcd was very sharp and clear, but you can still get an idea of the black level differances between the monitors.
http://img346.imageshack.us/img346/3232/g520p2001fp7tu.jpg/IMG][/QUOTE]

How bouut turning down the brightness on your lcd? my 2405 is great, blacks look black and in a dark room you cant even see the point in which the black screen reaches the bezel

 

[brom42]

I have a pair of Dell 2001FPs. The only problem I have with them is the black level when you are playing in a dark room. I don't notice it at all when I have my room light, or the shades up. The black level only looks bad when the light is off and its night outside. I haven't had any problems with HL2 looking bad, the only game that suffered was Doom3. So for me it was either give up my LCD and go back to a CRT to make one crappy game look better, or keep my LCD and all its other benefits and not play Doom 3 too much.

Just one thing, if you get a LCD make sure you have a GPU that is strong enough to be able to play games at the native resolution. When I play games at 1600x1200, everything in modern game looks much crisper than on a CRT. The landscape, your weapon, everything. I think CRTs look fuzzy all the time now, but that may just be a personal problem.

 

[mathesar]

How bouut turning down the brightness on your lcd? my 2405 is great, blacks look black and in a dark room you cant even see the point in which the black screen reaches the bezel

Actualy the monitor brightness was at 0 on the LCD in that screenshot. when looking at pure black screen at night you couldnt even tell the CRT was powered on,the LCD had a dark grey look to it..im pretty sure the back light itself would prevent an LCD from displaying pitch black anyhow.

And to the poster above .. Doom 3 was not the only game I noticed this problem with .. Riddick / Thief / Splinter Cell / HL2 / and most other games and basicly All movies looked much better on the CRT. Then again I paid $620 for the CRT last year on newegg.com (retail $799) so its a higher end model (also supports the SRGB standard) maybe Im expecting to much from an LCD..

 

[pincho]

Apple Cinema 20"! Apple Cinema 20"! Apple Cinema 20"!

awesome for gaming, looks sweet, crisp picture no ghosting i recomend it any day, although if u want to save some go for the Dell 2005FPW, i went for this cause i was scared about a faulty Monitor..

 

[Greenwit]

LCD guys are still in denial in regards to black performance. Can't blame 'em as they bought it, what else they gonna do, LOL! From someone who tried two Dells for about four weeks in total, I can tell you unequivicallly, black performance flat out sucks and if it doesn't bother you in Doom3 or HL2 or Thief, then you are most definitely in denial. Turn off your lights and turn on your 'blank' screen saver. What you are seeing through all that nasty backlighting is as black as your LCDs can get. Which, in other words, ain't much and it ain't even close to black. It is in fact closer to true gray than true black.

 

[Obi_Kwiet]

Well, what ever it is, it 10x better than my last CRT. It didn't even try to look black.

 

[Keetha]

Biggest reason I avoid LCDs... Native reolution. I can only afford to upgrade my video card once every couple of years. Interpolation = bad.

 

[brom42]

LCD guys are still in denial in regards to black performance. Can't blame 'em as they bought it, what else they gonna do, LOL! From someone who tried two Dells for about four weeks in total, I can tell you unequivicallly, black performance flat out sucks and if it doesn't bother you in Doom3 or HL2 or Thief, then you are most definitely in denial. Turn off your lights and turn on your 'blank' screen saver. What you are seeing through all that nasty backlighting is as black as your LCDs can get. Which, in other words, ain't much and it ain't even close to black. It is in fact closer to true gray than true black.

Just look at what you said. Turn off the lights and look at the blank screen saver. I agree with you 100% that the black looks gray. Now go and turn the lights back on. Guess what, black looks black again. Wow, that was a hard problem to fix. I don't know a single person who plays in a pitch black room. LCD or CRT most people get eye strain from them without lights on.

Further, most people don't have a problem with their black not being perfectly black. I am not in denial, I know my black isn't black in HL2; but I don't care!! It has absolutely no impact on gameplay.

Both LCDs and CRTs have their problems. You prefer CRTs, good for you. I prefer LCDs. You can't stand the black problem. It doesn't bother me at all, just accept that. You are in denial that people might actually like using LCDs to game.

 

[texuspete00]

Everyone who acts like there is one clear choice is in denial. CRTs burn eyes, even just the glass is a downfall. Reflections make looking at a photo remind you of real life.... through a freaking window anyway! Often the edges show some distortion to the hard to please eye, I don't care if the "window" into your virual world is completely flat, the image is often not. AG is better for this... too bad there are fucking lines on your screen!

My 2405FPW, non-black colors blows away any CRT I've seen, nice and crisp too without the damn glass distraction. I can stare at it for hours and it won't hurt my eyes. Does the motion blur? Absofuckinglutely. Perfect? No... not exactly.

Anyone with a good set of eyes who has tried both knows you need to take the best from each and meld them together to make Jessica Simpson.

It sucks that !!!!!!s have to come on here and claim imperfect blacks jstifies there old-school CRT's. I'm also burned by not the LCD lovers that say they can never go back, but instead those that live in some kind of fantasy world where current LCD's are perfect. I've gotten used to over optimistic claims of viewing angles and blacks just because they are better than before. Fast moving Images don't blur, they're CRT-esque? That I can't figure out. This is a sore spot with me right now, excuse my ranting. Probably the best for me from an image stand point would be a super fast LCD, but pessimism returns, those are too small, imperfect anyways, but small for sure. *Cries* So for me I'll probably have to get another display when the big sizes catch-up. Yall can clamor on about your perfect blacks and whatever makes you feel better. Your eye doctor will be glad, I'm sure.

Out!: Owner of one of the last Shadow Mask Flat NEC Multisync models, the Sony 21" trinitron, and the Dell 2405FPW. Different strokes for different folks. Of My CRT's I actually like the NEC the best

 

[mathesar]

Just remember my opinion isnt biased unlike some others.. When I ordered the 2001FP I was actualy planning on selling the CRT! After all the hype on how much LCD's own blah etc. I decided to give one a try (2001fp was my first LCD).... Anyhow after comparing the two side by side for 3 weeks I figured why would I get rid of a monitor that has the better picture? This is why 2001FP went back to Dell and made me realise a good CRT is still king ,the only thing that confuses the situation is the fact that a 24" Widescreen LCD exists, Very tempting indeed but after reading through various forums I know I wont accept the black levels and motion blur , So im sticking with CRT for the time being.

http://graphics.tomshardware.com/display/20050706/professional_lcd-10.html Recent review of the 2405FPW , Sounds great until he comments on Gaming performance towards the end of the article...

 

[Greenwit]

CRTs burn eyes? How hilarious. How many years have CRTs been around? You see people running around with burned eyes? Speaking of eyes, I've seen a number of people post here complaining about the *excessive brightness* of LCDs.... even Tom's Hardware complains about excessive brightness in his reviews of the Dells. You have it backwards!

And reflections? CRTs have anti-glare screens, genius. I get zero reflections.

Regarding blacks and not playing games in the dark. The only reason why I suggested you look at a blank screensaver in the dark is to show you how black your LCDs will ever get. Want to see LCD black performance in action? Fire up Doom3, Thief, HL2, etc. and tell me that the blacks look natural to you. In a dark or bright room. I can tell you I had no interest in playing Doom3 on the 2001fp....it was a joke.

All this combined with motion blur on fast games, one size fits all resolution, questionable QC and it's amazing that so many find that LCDs rulzzzzz, dr000lllzzz, et. al. when it has so many problems. But, you know, make a kewl thin panel that displays a blazingly bright pretty picture, something you can carry under your arm and uses a fixed pixel display, and you can win the masses 'cause it's a stylin technology.

 

[texuspete00]

Hilarious eh? Yeah I meant scorched eyes! I'm saying all displays have good sides and bad sides. NO... it is absolutely not OK to sit in front of a CRT for 8 hours at work and play Battlefield for a few hours more. It's not. Your anti-glare glass works 100%.. bah... far from optimal to have a sheet of glass in front of your screen. Your display could spit out images that look like a 5 mega pixel photo, I'm sorry you can't tell it's like looking at it through a glass pane, but it is. You have not gotten used to an LCD, and the lack of such a pane. During the day time the sun doesnt bounce of your screen like a ray of sunshine? BS. On a smaller scale, it's happenning all fugging day. All your displays suck, all my displays suck, we chose which has the fewer drawbacks and go with that. Shadow mask, the oldest, has the least problems we talk about today. But at the end of the day we know refreshing aka fast flickering is not optimal, if colors were so good they wouldn't have come up with Aperture Grille! Yah thats perfect, besides GLASS sucking as a front end to a monitor, you also have the equivalent of two rows of dead pixels. You can't refute all the downsides I can think of for modern displays, and I'm no expert. So instead find out whats wrong with one kind of display, and harp on that like your display is the BEST. I'm sorry, but your displays SUCK too.

Audio and Video enthusiasts are always after the best. My uneducated self can see that in these realms. No matter how awesome your HT receiver is, now matter how pristine, you'll eventually upgrade to something with less distortion, or the ability to maintain that and louder. Because at the end of the day, whats best is it sounds like a bomb really did go off right next to you. Super Loud. Super clear. Something will always be better at it. We know EXACTLY what we want out of both audio and sound, the most life like sounds and images. Today I might think my new audio system delivers that on the audio front. It only takes a newer better setup to prove me dead wrong. Here we have two types, so it's even easier to say I wish my CRT did x, I wish my LCd did y. While standards grow though, yes displays are lacking that we even have to have a face off with 10 year old stuff. You think they hit it on the head years ago? I guess anyone who doesnt pick up a used AG monitor is some kind of fool. They've only stopped all advances on them and moved on. Don't forget dude, your display SUCKS. Mine could use some work too.

I'm overexaggerating but to make a point. Be a pessimist for a second.... your display sucks.. and for at least a few reasons. LCD or similar ends up being the topic of today because of the hope it can be better. Flashing/flickering/refreshing will never be the it thing, it's done. Whether it's the best for you so far is another story.

Anyways, I can tell your a total !!!!!! for harping on anything I said bad about CRTs. Of course them being perfect and all. Maybe ignorant to the fact I'm complaining about my LCD as well. No guy who spent 1k here convincing himself of anything. CRTs came the closest to perfection, you know besides size, heat, and ease on the eyes, but the goal was NEVER reached, so much so we're starting over.

The perfect screen is a thin 24" widescreen CRT that doesn't refresh, emit a lot of heat, have a glass front, or strain my eyes... sounds like a CRT and LCD had sex and an offspring to me.

 

[mathesar]

Ive NEVER had a problem with CRT's glass being reflective ...as mentioned above the anti glare film coating takes care of that. And ive had absolutely no problem with Eye strain even with extended online gaming sessions or chatting on efnet etc. and ive had my crt @ 1600x1200 since I bought it.

For me Image quality is priority #1 and anyone thats not in denial will admit CRTs have better color accuracy ,the benefit of no motion blur and a superior Contrast Ratio , speaking of contrast ratio thats not something you see listed on a CRT's specification ,out of curiosity I googled around for more info and came across an LCD Round up from April 2005 , They decided to add a CRT into the benchmarks for comparison sake (Color Accuracy & Contrast Ratio) It was interesting to see these graphs:

Not a big suprise here.. the CRT had the best color accuracy overall:

"Taking contrast ratio and color accuracy together helps you get a feel for the picture quality of the monitor. Remember that contrast ratio has more to do with deeper blacks than actually a “more contrasty” image."

Wow Looks like LCD has a long way to go with black level performance, The Iiayama CRT used isnt even considered a high end model (although definately a good one), and the Sony 200sx CRT was used on purpose to see how well an older / aged CRT faired in the tests , you can tell it lost a lot of its contrast punch over the years (as all monitors will do as they age ,lcd's included) but it still managed to top the LCDs in the contrast ratio graph.

I agree both LCD & CRT have their weaknesses and strengths but Im seeing more strengths with CRT's when it comes to overall image quality , LCD's strength's have more to do with being smaller for space saving reasons,use less power and generate less heat.

 

[texuspete00]

So long as my opinion isn't hilarious I'm fine with that. Blacks better on a CRT? No doubt. I'd venture the color accuracy has gotten closer though. You say it's from 2005 but I don't see the hotness monitors on there. Fine by me. Gotta live the glass thing bro. Building the anti glare flip downs of year's past into the monitor is not good enough for me, on the glass front. Hard to explain but trust the glass screen front is dead. The monitors and the TV's of tommorrow do not have this. It's just not optimal, life or life through a window. On the topic of eye strain, poeple don't get carpel tunnel gaming all day. In the long run it's not good. I didn't think it would bother me until I started staring at one 11 hours a day or so. Hell maybe eyes weren't sensitive but I'm getting old. My eyes were drying a bit, until eventually by the end of the day it felt like I had some light grade sand paper on the back of my lids. Luckily, the screens of today will be all but dead before we can grow old with them. Someone decided to shake the world and give up slightly tweaked technologies from eons ago, in the hope of something better, finally once and for all something better.

 

[Greenwit]

'Glass screen front.' I just bought a 'glass screen front.' Panasonic 50px50u plasma HDTV. This after about a year of researching/watching all technologies. It displays a wonderful picture which destroys LCD rear projectors (yes, black problems there too, not to mention screen door effects, silk screen effect, motion artifacts....), DLPs and CRTs. Really, you and this 'glass screen front' business.....you don't care about performance do you.

 

[texuspete00]

Bear in mind we are also talking about somethng a hell of a lot closer to your face. Like I said I'm being a pessimist, I don't think my LCD is perfect either. Although the blur is next to impossible to see when I watch someone else play my games. I just got used to the LCD, you get used to having it look like the image is just "there." I will certainly not buy an LCD TV. I think no 24" or 23" LCDs would meet my needs perfectly right now, 19" speeds are more attractive and hopefully that comes soon to the bigger ones. I certainly wouldn't dare expect any big LCD to shine, no monitor no TV.

With my CRT I always had a hard time playing in the bright light summer time without really getting on the blinds. Anti-glare and all. Too much light gets in the room and things would get washed out looking. I've said my main monitor is a 2405FPW. Anyone want to tell me what their flawless monitor is? The 21" trinitron I have is still the "in" CRT or no?

 

[xdkimx]

i don get wut theres to really debate about.. theres only a few factors that go into comparing lcds n crts (flickering, refreshrate, display quality, ghosting, screensize/widescreen, deskspace, energy consuption/heat)

lcd:
1. no flickering
2. better screen size n comes in widescreen
3. more deskspace
4. uses less energy/heat

crt:
1. higher refresh rates = higher fps in games w/o distortion
2. better display quality
3. no ghosting (meaning none at all)

whichever list looks more appealing to u go with that 1.. SIMPLE!! >:O oh yeah and 1 more point for lcds when it comes 2 stye "D

damn im bored i have nothing better to do but type on forums until my damn +4400 comes!!!!!!! hurry up zipzoomsnail!!!! >:O >:O >:O

 

[brom42]

CRTs burn eyes? How hilarious. How many years have CRTs been around? You see people running around with burned eyes? Speaking of eyes, I've seen a number of people post here complaining about the *excessive brightness* of LCDs.... even Tom's Hardware complains about excessive brightness in his reviews of the Dells. You have it backwards!

And reflections? CRTs have anti-glare screens, genius. I get zero reflections.

Regarding blacks and not playing games in the dark. The only reason why I suggested you look at a blank screensaver in the dark is to show you how black your LCDs will ever get. Want to see LCD black performance in action? Fire up Doom3, Thief, HL2, etc. and tell me that the blacks look natural to you. In a dark or bright room. I can tell you I had no interest in playing Doom3 on the 2001fp....it was a joke.

All this combined with motion blur on fast games, one size fits all resolution, questionable QC and it's amazing that so many find that LCDs rulzzzzz, dr000lllzzz, et. al. when it has so many problems. But, you know, make a kewl thin panel that displays a blazingly bright pretty picture, something you can carry under your arm and uses a fixed pixel display, and you can win the masses 'cause it's a stylin technology.

I'll tell you what won me over to LCDs. I switched to an LCD at work and at home at about the same time. I stopped getting eye strain and the associated headaches after about a week. Feeling better >>>>>> perfect black. And before anyone bitches about refresh rates, both my CRTs were running at 100hz refresh.

Unless you are doing something that needs perfect colors and black, then LCDs work great. Gaming, internet surfing, email, doesn't need to have perfect color. Sure you can get much better representation on a CRT, but 99.9% of people don't take the time to do it, so their CRTs end up being just as bad.

I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but Greenwit; you are living in just as big a dream world as the people who think LCDs are perfect. Yours is just CRT flavored.

 

[shadylx]

i don get wut theres to really debate about.. theres only a few factors that go into comparing lcds n crts (flickering, refreshrate, display quality, ghosting, screensize/widescreen, deskspace, energy consuption/heat)

lcd:
1. no flickering
2. better screen size n comes in widescreen
3. more deskspace
4. uses less energy/heat

crt:
1. higher refresh rates = higher fps in games w/o distortion
2. better display quality
3. no ghosting (meaning none at all)

whichever list looks more appealing to u go with that 1.. SIMPLE!! >:O oh yeah and 1 more point for lcds when it comes 2 stye "D

damn im bored i have nothing better to do but type on forums until my damn +4400 comes!!!!!!! hurry up zipzoomsnail!!!! >:O >:O >:O

also a pro for the lcd category is that dual setups or even more than 2 monitor setups are easier to arrange as well as being mountable anywhere

 

[Lost Ronin]

You want good advice? but yourself the most expensive or quality lcd you can afford and try it out for yourself..that way you dont have any regrets, or else youll wonder "maybe if i bought the better model?" that is the only way youll ever know if its worth it, (for you)

crt's and lcd's both have their pros and cons, and the only way youll know if the pros out weight the cons in your opinion is if you try it out for yourself, so best bet is buy it from somewhere you know will refund you in case you dont want it...what do you have to loose?

The only drawback of course, is finding a store thatll do that for you.

what does it matter if some guy says gaming is awsome on their lcd if you dont agree...i think when it comes down to lcds and gaming you gotta try it for your self, what some one else conciders good or acceptable may not be up to your standards.

man i just noticed your sig....i dont think it matters what you get

 

[FluxCap]

You want good advice? but yourself the most expensive or quality lcd you can afford and try it out for yourself..that way you dont have any regrets, or else youll wonder "maybe if i bought the better model?" that is the only way youll ever know if its worth it, (for you)

crt's and lcd's both have their pros and cons, and the only way youll know if the pros out weight the cons in your opinion is if you try it out for yourself, so best bet is buy it from somewhere you know will refund you in case you dont want it...what do you have to loose?

The only drawback of course, is finding a store thatll do that for you.

what does it matter if some guy says gaming is awsome on their lcd if you dont agree...i think when it comes down to lcds and gaming you gotta try it for your self, what some one else conciders good or acceptable may not be up to your standards.

man i just noticed your sig....i dont think it matters what you get

I did exactly that. I have been a long time fan of CRTs and often just refused to even consider a LCD for gaming. Well, yesterday, I finally made a choice. Get the 2005fpw and see what all the fuss is about or just keep waiting. I have read about the 2005fpw and other Dells LCDs for over a year and I think I made a good choice. It arrives today and it may very well have backlight issues and some dead pixels, but I will return it until I get one that doesn't have issues. I play all types of games like HL2, SH3, WoW, and WC3 and you better believe that if it isn't a high quality gaming experience, I will return it. I think gaming is finally viable on an LCD. If it proves to just be a terrible experience then I will probably just wait at least 2 more years until the tech gets even better. I have 20/10 vision so it may prove to be a nightmare, but at least I can finally tell for myself first hand if it works for me.

 

[Saint]

man i just noticed your sig....i dont think it matters what you get

Your probably right. You guys have awsome stuff. Things that look bad to you guys will probably look amasing to me. I have had a Sony Trinitron monitor for years and it works ok but its time for something new. I personally hate the aperture grille technology especially when I use a white wallpaper. Its like having 2 lines of dead pixels across my screen. I am planning my first build and im going to get some good parts so I dont get to far behind in technology like I am now. When I went to best buy and played Unreal on one of there computers with a generic LCD I was blown away. I though it looked great so my standards are not very high it seems. I think I will get an LCD but keep my CRT just in case I decide to go back.

 

[eastvillager]

Unless you're doing color pro/repro work, get a good LCD with a good pixel refresh rate. Good CRTs have the best color representation, and ability to calibrate that color, which is critical in pro/repro work.

You can get a good LCD for that type of stuff too, but they cost a fortune right now... and still won't equal the best CRTs. Fortunately, that isn't what you're doing, so it is not important.

As has been mentioned in here, CRTs will have better blacks. What he didn't tell you is that doesn't matter for what you want to do. WIth proper lighting and a properly configured LCD, black levels are perfectly acceptable for gaming... and just about every other purpose you'd use them for.

Two things that make me never ever consider CRT for general purpose use:

1. LCD has perfect geometry out of the box, FOREVER. CRTs do not. Good CRTs can be calibrated to perfection, in some cases, but be prepared to recalibrate every time you move the monitor, or introduce another electronic device that effects the electro-magnetic field around the CRT. Personally, geometry issues drive me bananas and I'll never put up with them again. This isn't such a big deal on smaller CRTs, but once you go large, it is both more common, and more noticeable.

2. Eyestrain. Even an average LCD is better on my eyes than the best CRTs, especially when dealing with multi-display, multi-system environments---something I do every day at work. LCD has removed my daily eyestrain headache and I'm grateful.

You have to make sure you get the right LCD for you, and the right hardware to drive it. You want an LCD that yields comfortable reading/viewing of standard fonts at its native resolution. Additionally, if you're a gamer, you want an LCD with a native resolution that is a) supported by the games you play, and b) you have enough horsepower to game at that resolution with all of the eyecandy and/or FPS you want. If you can't run native, you'll either have to run with a reduced screen size, or with interpolation. You want to avoid this. Some LCDs have great interpolation, but it'll still be noticeable on things like text in chat windows, gui widgets, etc.

I am a fairly competitive FPS gamer and I've had no problems with ghosting in the last two generations of LCD panels---when picking the right panel. Are there panels that still have noticeable ghosting? Sure there are, but you're not going to buy one of those.