Everybody has always told me how much cheaper newegg is, but today I went and found out for myself. A $190 Athlon 64 3200 processor at newegg was $209 at Frys, and a $119 Abit motherboard at newegg (on special right now for $105) was $190 at Frys. They didnt even have the case and video card I wanted, so I didnt bother checking all the rest of my components. Im just going to buy it all through newegg.

So with that, what does everybody recomend for a monitor? I've always believed that Flat Screen CRTs were better for gaming, and I had a 19" Envision Flat Screen CRT picked out at newegg for $141 (plus a bunch of shipping)

HOWEVER, for some reason my parents seem to really want me to have a flat panel LCD screen, and even offered to buy it for me. I looked at all the LCD screens at Frys and the picture quality on every single one, even the thousand dollar ones, seemed to be of lesser quality than any CRT they had. Is this just me, or is the picture quality on LCD screens always less than CRT? The old 15" LCD i have now is dark and you cant see it from the side, i hate it. Are newer LCDs like this? Im really confused on monitors. All that is important to me is bright vibrant colors, clarity and image quality at higher resolutions and that its 19 inch. I dont care if its LCD, CRT, heavy, more expensive, whatever.

Jelp me out.

CRT has a better refresh rate, a clearer image quality, is perfectly visable in all lights, all angles, and looks good with ALL movies. LCD has all of these problems plus overexpense. No, LCDs are just a joke played on the rich man.

With that, Newegg owns you. I've built at least 400 dollars in savings each with Newegg on 5 different computers.

If you do get an LCD and you plan on using it for watching movies or gaming, make sure to get the LOW ms response rates. They will at least look much better (although IMO still not as good as a CRT). There are of course advantages to LCD - lighter, smaller, use less electricity.

Dont give a **** about any of those things, so no thanks to LCD.

I love NewEgg to death (and TigerDirect.com). I can always go to pricewatch, and buy a video card for 10 bucks cheaper at some other crap site, but I will always spend the extra money (if it does cost extra, which is rare) to get it from NewEgg. It has best customer service, usually best prices, and fastest shipping EVER!!!

And regarding LCDs, they aint as bad as they used to be. I got a 17" ViewSonic N1750w LCD TV, 12ms response time, and it looks absoulty gorgeous. Way better than the CRT I used to have. It's got component input, two composite inputs, S-Video input, and a coaxial input for analog TV. Plus, it's got HDTV support. So, if you get the RIGHT LCD screen, you will get a really great deal. I got this for 350 dollars, and for the all the stuff I got with it, it's so worth it.

oh my god, the shipping IS fast. Everything I've ever ordered from them has been there 3 days later, 5 at the most.

You guys are are crack.

http://dealmac.com/deals/Refurbished+Gateway+FPD1810+18.1in+LCD+for+555/41178.html

That's the moniter I have and I have seen NO moniter that compares to it. It's perfectly bright enought. I can see it from any angle and any light.. the quality blows anything out of the water. It's so sharp and clean. It's all about the TFT, and the DVI.

I've actually seen that particular monitor. It looks okay...but I saw some slight ghosting. Not to mention it costs somewhere in the neighborhood of 400 dollars more than a comparable CRT monitor.

Fundamentally, LCD technology is far superior to CRT technology. However, over the course of the last 70 years or so, CRT technology and production methods have become incredibly good. Sony was king of CRTs last I checked, they had some STUNNING large displays for graphics work that NO LCD can touch in image quality.

LCDs however, are much lighter, smaller, use much less power and potentially last longer. CRTs, especially trinitrons, have color divergence problems over time. LCDs last a very long time, the most you have to do is replace the backlight. And with more LCDs using more advanced backlighting technology, such as Lumiled's Luxeon LEDs (not sure if there are models in production using luxeons), you're looking at even better picture and longer life.

If OLED technology becomes more reliable and long lasting, which it probably will, it will be just about the ultimate display technology. No more than a few mm thick (the display itself, not the housing), high contrast and brightness, refresh rate is only limited by switching speed of the LEDs (READ: VERY VERY FAST), cheap and easy to make. Unfortunately they have problems still...they fade and die over time, and I think the blue subpixels die even faster.

I've had my Samsung 19" LCD for about 3 years now and have never regretted it. I moved from a very nice Dell 19" CRT and the brightness and clarity are so much better. I don't see how angle is such a big deal. I sit in front of the thing, nertz to whoever wants to look over my shoulder. As far as response rate, mine has a 25ms response and I have never had a problem with ghosting.

LCDs may be a little bit more expensive, but they've come down a lot and are well worth the extra money.

As far as NewEgg goes, yeah they are great. Their prices are almost always going to be better than store-front retail, but compared to other online stores, they can be more expensive sometimes. For example, FrozenCPU.com, who are rated right below NewEgg on ResellerRatings.com, carry the XP-90C for about $15 cheaper, and have for some time now.

Considering over half of the LCD's I see, I could build a computer for the price, and the ones that aren't that expensive are 15" or 17" crappy ones...I'll wait.

I think I'll have to trust in LCDs, my sister has had one for over a year (Samsung) and it's been awesome. Frankly any visual problems with it, ie: not being able to see it all angles are fine since they take up so little space. Just turn it if you need it at a different angle. :p

Actually, Yoshi, a high quality, 8ms, something like 400 brightness and 600:1 contrast ratio Samsung 19" LCD is about $340 last time I checked. CRTs used to be similarly high in price. My brother bought a high end Sony monitor back in 1998, it had dual inputs in the form of VGA and BNC, the dot pitch, refresh rate and resolulation were very nice. It was around $900 at the time.

Just got me a stick of 512 for 35 bucks on newegg. I love them. Now gonna slurge on a DVD burner and HD

Yeah, but you're forgetting other visual problems: backlight bleeding, too bright, too dark, colors suck, bad contrast. This plagues MANY LCD screens. My friend just bought a brand new Dell widescreen display. As soon as he hooks it up he notices horrible backlight bleeding. And this is the widescreen one that's supposed to be ubersuperhighquality.

So yeah, I'm not putting much faith into LCDs.

Emon: I could still build a computer for that :p. I could also buy 2 19" CRT's for that :|

It looks to me that getting a good LCD depends mostly on, well, luck. And even if you spend a lot you still end up with the possibility of it not being of high quality. However, CRTs are a much more proven and perfected technology, and judging by what people are saying are more consistent to be good. I'll take CRT for now.

I'm interested to see how luxeons will affect the LCD monitor market. Luxeon technology is amazing, and should be able to evenly light an LCD and be quite bright.

A lot of LCD's don't look that great, but my 400$ 2005fpw has a lot better image quality than my Samsung 955df.

That's what my friend bought.

Really? I've never seen any of those problems, maybe that's why I'm "forgetting" them. My sister's works fine as does the monitor of a friend's. I think you're misjudging from earlier problems or products from lesser companies. The 19" monitor my friend has is around $285 on newegg and about three times smaller than a CRT. The only problem he's mentioned since he's had it is a dead pixel, but at the very bottom of the screen.

As for the Dell thing, I don't trust them anyways so it's no surprise to me something of theirs doesn't work right. Just because one company is like that though, doesn't mean the whole LCD market is flawed.

Dell makes very good LCD screens. And no, I'm not saying these problems plague EVERY LCD screen, just some. Ghosting plagues most, and even if you can't see it, it's still there. That's the main reason I refuse to upgrade. Any monitor that doesn't ghost, I could buy myself an AMD64 setup for. I'd rather have an AMD64 setup than an LCD monitor.

Build me a AMD64 system for $400. Do it, right now. I'd love to see the specs on it.

LCDs are MUCH better than they used to be.

Their best feature is beautiful text. There is 0 blur on LCD monitors, so everything looks extremely crisp.

In addition, low response LCDs have dropped price majorly. Color issues are fixed in most of the better brands (Aka ViewSonic, Sony), and having a dark LCD is just unacceptable in a monitor. (Hell, CRTs have more problems with darkness than LCDs, I have no idea where this darkness issue spawned from) My current LCD has a great brightness control, ranging from near-black to blindingly white. All without the artifacts that you get from conventional brightness/contrast controls.

Finally, LCDs have a rich dark black, which is absolutely beautiful for movies. I'd never trade in my LCD for a CRT. And my next monitor purchases will be LCDs, for sure. (I use dual monitors, and my CRT will be the first to go.)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813127197

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813127197

I didn't say anything about a full out system (though I could build a very basic AMD64 system for about 400), just the AMD64 setup. As per requested, though.

CM--I'm not talking about darkness, but things like backlight bleeding like I saw, and a lot of times LCD's that are just washed out bright. They don't look good at all.

Okay, I concede you could build a very BASIC PC for 400. But I hardly consider it justifiable against getting a nice LCD. (Or CRT for that matter)

That's what we call 'priorities'. They differ in you or me.

And good CRT's are cheap...what, 200 for a 19" flatscreen? Maybe?

Here, just to show everyone the $400 AMD 64 PC (give or take a few bucks):

url=http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16813123225]motherboard[/url]

case

DVD Burner

hard drive

RAM

Processor

Video Card