With the purchase of the components for a new computer only a few days on the horizon now, I think it's time to seriously look into replacing my dear, sweet, ten year old 21" CRT.

The damned thing still runs, with a few minor problems though. An image was burned into it long before I got it. I've noticed that when turned on after being off for awhile, the image is signifigantly brighter. It dulls after about 90 minutes. Occasionally, the gamma will freak when you turn it on and everything will flash pink and then slowly flash back to normal colors. Recently I've noticed the image tearing in some places. It's not immediately noticeable, but if you know where to look, you can find it.

So. Time to say good bye and purchase a new one. I have been looking at flat panels, but frankly, I'm wary of getting one for a number of reasons. The biggest being color shift and ghosting. Now, I've heard that the ghosting goes away if you have a lower refresh rate (12ms as opposed to 25ms). This leaves the color shift. By color shift, I mean that if I were to look at the color black one way, it would indeed appear black, but if I were to change the way I'm sitting, or tilt my head in another direction, that black could become a very dark blue. I do quite a bit of Graphics work in my free time. A color shift like that is NOT good.

I've taken a small look at CRTs, which I'm pretty sure I can rely on being about as good as what I have now, if not better since this thing IS 10 years old. The problem here though, is heat and space. The 21" I have consumes about a quarter of my desk and puts of ALOT of heat when running. Consequently, when I have the door to my room closed so I don't annoy the rest of the house with music or gun fire, it gets warm in here pretty fast. Again, in the 10 years since this thing has been around, that problem may have been solved or at least lessened.

So, you know what I've at least looked into and my concerns. I need you guys to tell me what I should be looking at and for. You see to be pretty good at that. I'm not looking to spend any more that 600 bucks really, and I'd preferably like something similar in size to what I have now. So anything 17-21" would be nice. In my prefect world, I think I'd go for something 19ish, but hey, I might not have that option.

Talk to me.

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Put me in the hospital for nerves and then they had to commit me,
You told them all I was crazy,
They cut off my legs now I'm an amputee, God damn you.
============
Frogblast the Vent-Core!

Color shift is a problem, but when looking at LCD stats, it is not identified as Color Shift. It is labeled as "viewing angle". This viewing angle is the angle that you can look at the LCD and the color be still within guidelines for color shifting. (Generally a lot of testing is done for this)

So, the higher the angle, the better.

Now, as for refresh rates affecting ghosting, yes, it does help. Although CRTs avoid the problem completely, 12ms LCDs can still have slight bit of ghosting. Note that this ghosting only appears on fast-moving high-contrast objects, such as scrolling text quickly, or moving a notepad window around really fast.

Finally, another thing that might affect your decision is how LCDs handle resolutions. LCDs only look great at their native resolution. This is generally 1280x1024 for 17", 1600x1200 for 19", etc. Although the LCDs can run lower resolutions (NOT higher, only lower), they either stretch the image or confine the entire image to a portion of the screen. Most stretch the image, making everything look blurry. This is only a problem, of course, if your video card cannot support the native resolution, or you cannot use that res for some reason.

And one more thing about size. A 17" LCD is not the same size as a 17"CRT. A 17"LCD is true 17" viewable area, while a 17"CRT is generally 15.5-16" viewable. On your old 21", it was probably only around 19" viewable, so getting a 21"LCD would be gigantic compared to your other monitor. If you want the same size, look for a 19" LCD.


Now, onto CRTs. CRTs are still hot, especially the larger ones. And they are still very large. Although they look sharper (Especially flat screened ones), they still have nothing on the sharpness of an LCD, especially on text. Also, LCDs generally have better color, and are much brighter and vibrant. Definately something to keep in mind. My LCD easily puts out more light, and has higher contrast, than my CRT with Ultrabright on.

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"The future is not determined by a throw of the dice, but is determined by the conscious decisions of you and me."
I am addicted to ellipses!!! AHHH!!! ...
Make Sorrowind Worthwhile... join it! http://sorrowind.net

Yeah, I was taking note of the screen size factor last night when I was browsing NewEgg.

Now, you're talking about LCds not being able to handle a smaller resolution than what they're designated for. How does that affect gaming? Right now, I run my desktop environment at 1280x1024, but the vast majority of my games are run at 1024x768, I have a few older ones that run as low as 640x480. How are they affected?

Another thing I noticed last night, was that none of the LCDs I looked at that were 19" appeared to have a refresh rate below 25ms. However, I was only looking at a few select brands and I did have some search restrictions on that might have eliminated them from my viewing. Do any exist that are reasonably cheap like that?

Lastly, what brand and models would you recommend?

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Put me in the hospital for nerves and then they had to commit me,
You told them all I was crazy,
They cut off my legs now I'm an amputee, God damn you.
============
Frogblast the Vent-Core!

open your window, and throw your old monitor out into the street.



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I have found that you can transform your character solely by the power of belief: as you believe yourself to be, so you shall become over time.

And then I'm left with no monitor, and many neighbors calling the house complaining of flat tires from shards of monitor.

Not such a great idea. Or helpful for that matter.

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Put me in the hospital for nerves and then they had to commit me,
You told them all I was crazy,
They cut off my legs now I'm an amputee, God damn you.
============
Frogblast the Vent-Core!

I have a 17'' (equal to a 19'' CRT) LCD monitor with a 12ms response time. There is no blurring at all. Ever. None. I only really use it for gaming, interenet browsing, and MS Word etc, but the colour shift is not an issue unless I really slouch (like lie down) in my chair. Then it can become a little hard to read what's on the screen.

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The Massassi-Map
There is no spoon.

If you find an LCD monitor that suits your needs, go for it. If not, just get another CRT.

Plenty of 19-21' monitors offer high resolutions with decent refresh rates (up to 2048*1536, with 85Hz in 1600*1200 natively, higher than that if you're willing to try some unsupported modes, which made people have /wo problems) for 300 bucks, like the Samsung Syncmaster 900 NF, among others.



[This message has been edited by KnobZ (edited August 05, 2004).]

Well, as for gaming, the blurriness really isn't noticible. It is only noticible in text and spreadsheets, where defined lines are displayed for a long period.

As for 19" 12ms refresh rates, it might be because 19" aren't mainstream, 17" are. It's the same way with CRTs. It's hard to find a GOOD, cheap CRT at 21" or larger.

As for good companies, I love Viewsonic. I have 2 of theirs, a 17" LCD and a 19" CRT, running in dual-monitor mode. I wouldn't give them up for the world. (Well, maybe the world, then I'd get even more )

Their models are VG700b (b for black) for the LCD, and P95f+ b(b for black, + is part of the model) for the CRT. I love the CRT's ultrabright mode, and it's very high-res and very-high refresh rate, great for CRTs. It runs at 85hz refresh rate at 2048 res
I love the LCD's brightness, vivid color, the fact it has speakers (PERFECT for LAN parties, but they aren't no home stereo system), and that auto-image adjust is nifty and easy. Its only downside is VGA connector instead of DVI. Some serious monitor experts recommend DVI over VGA, but I've yet to see a difference in day to day use. The only time it seems to be effected is by feedback, such as a microwave running on the same circuit on high. But then again, that microwave causes feedback on damn near everything, so milage may vary

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"The future is not determined by a throw of the dice, but is determined by the conscious decisions of you and me."
I am addicted to ellipses!!! AHHH!!! ...
Make Sorrowind Worthwhile... join it! http://sorrowind.net

Ok, after a bit more looking around and reading what you guys have told me. I think I've mostly settled on the Samsung SyncMaster 710T.

Good decision? Bad decision? Anything else I should really know before I go and spend more money?

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Put me in the hospital for nerves and then they had to commit me,
You told them all I was crazy,
They cut off my legs now I'm an amputee, God damn you.
============
Frogblast the Vent-Core!

I have a Viewsonic 19 inch G90f+ and I'd also just like to give the UltraBrite mode a good pimping. It's very handy for games and especially videos. I watch cable tv and DVDs on my pc sometimes and I find it a godsend for that.

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Cantina Cloud | BCF | The Massassian 1, 2 & 3 | Gonk WoW Petition <- SIGN!
Corrupting the kiddies since '97

The stats on it look pretty good.

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"The future is not determined by a throw of the dice, but is determined by the conscious decisions of you and me."
I am addicted to ellipses!!! AHHH!!! ...
Make Sorrowind Worthwhile... join it! http://sorrowind.net

i'll wait until we have single digit refresh times for LCDs before i start to consider one

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LONG LIVE DREAMCAST!!!

I honestly feel about the same, but another CRT back in my room just isn't going to work. I don't have the space, and it puts off too much heat. I know I can solve the space problem with an LCD. Hopefully the heat problem will be solved as well.

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Put me in the hospital for nerves and then they had to commit me,
You told them all I was crazy,
They cut off my legs now I'm an amputee, God damn you.
============
Frogblast the Vent-Core!

What's a little heat? And room can ALWAYS be made. Trust me, LCD technology just isn't sophisticated, unless you're prepared to spend thousands. Hell man, you could buy a brand new kick *** computer for the amount it would take to get an awesome LCD monitor.

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There is no signature

You haven't been in my room after the computer's been running for about 45 minutes and the door is shut. The rest of the house is about 70 most of the time. My room can get up to about the mid to upper 70s. It's a noticable difference, and not comfortable.

And room? Ha. No. I don't HAVE ENOUGH room on my desk with a 21". I've got crap I'd like to move over here, but can't, because the 21" is hogging a lot of it. It takes up a quarter of the desk, the printer takes up an eighth, my CDs take up another eighth, the keyboard and mouse a further eighth. Doesn't leave much space.

As for buying a really good LCD, I'd KILL for an Apple HD Cinema Display. But I won't have cash like that for a long, long, LONG time. Honestly, Apple Cinema Displays are the only ones I really trust to give me a good picture. They've always looked to display things better when I've compared them to other LCDs. I'm not aiming for god-like here. I wasn't even aiming for that with the new PC. I'm aiming for something good, that can do what I need it to, and last awhile. Besides, it's not like I'm going to completely throw out the 21" when I get the LCD. It's what my mom would want me to do, but this is the exact reason we have attics. If the LCD starts sucking at some point, I can pull this one back out.

Seriously, I think getting the LCD is among the only real ways to get what I want all around.

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Put me in the hospital for nerves and then they had to commit me,
You told them all I was crazy,
They cut off my legs now I'm an amputee, God damn you.
============
Frogblast the Vent-Core!

Avoid those damn Apple LCDs like the plague. They have tons of problems, and horrid refresh rates.

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"The future is not determined by a throw of the dice, but is determined by the conscious decisions of you and me."
I am addicted to ellipses!!! AHHH!!! ...
Make Sorrowind Worthwhile... join it! http://sorrowind.net

I'm waiting for OLED displays to come up in the next few years, they're superior to LCDs in every manner. Yeah, there you have it, LCDs get perfected and are suddenly obsolete.

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Bassoon, n. A brazen instrument into which a fool blows out his brains.

WHAT??? LCDs are known to have crap brightness, contrast and less than stellar color duplication. There's a reason professional graphic artists don't use anything but a CRT. I don't know what kind of CRT you have, but even the best LCDs are not capable of the same brightness, contrast and color as a decent CRT. Only professional LCDs that do at least 700:1 on their contrast ratio can keep up, the newer 500:1 or 600:1 Samsungs being more than enough for average gamers and amatuer artists however.

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Bassoon, n. A brazen instrument into which a fool blows out his brains.

[This message has been edited by Emon (edited August 07, 2004).]

...OLED?

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"Judging by the name of the author, and the name of the work, I'd guess it's an energy "beam". You know, like in the Japanese cartoons where those guys with big hair fly around, talk philosophy, and shoot fireballs at each other." - Hellequin

Organic LED. They use them for cell phone displays, but they still have lots of problems (one of which is the fact that the blue pixels wear out a lot faster than the other ones, leaving you with a red and green display).

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"May your gravity well be shallow, and your deBroglie wavelength short."