Monitors - LCD vs. CRT

**Doctor Feelgood** · Posted: Mon, 17 Jan 2005 16:15:09 Post Subject: Monitors - LCD vs. CRT

As the technology has improved and the prices have come down, LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) monitors have rapidly been replacing CRT (Cathode Ray Tube) monitors on desktops around the world... The question is why choose LCD over CRT? There are several pros and cons to consider, and a few items will be considered in this Tech Tip. - The Article

Cosine · Rated PG Joined: 18 Jan 2005 Posts: 1

There's a few things to consider when talking about the image quality of LCD vs. CRT monitors that are missing from the review.

- first off the reason LCD's have such high brightness numbers (often fudged) is to compensate for the lousy (and also often fudged) contrast ratios

- secondly in terms of response time, even the 16ms screens show a lot of ghosting on moving images, I've had three different 16ms screens returned by users for this reason, all from different manufactorers

- thirdly, unless you are running the LCD at it's native resolution, which 95% of people aren't when I check, the image looks like fuzzy crap

- lastly, touting the "sharper image' quality of LCD's is a total non-started, you know all those "cleartype' font filtering schemes? They're there to remove the (now totally visable) jagged lines in images that the 'sharper' LCD now shows.

Go to ANY web design dept, animation studio, CAD dept and count up the CRT's vs. LCDs. let me know what you find.

Cos

Jamison · Rated PG Joined: 20 Jan 2005 Posts: 1

An issue that most people aren't aware of, but in many cases LCD's can be very hard on the eyes. LCD's use flourescent lights for their backlights. This means that even though the screen doesn't refresh, the lighting behind the screen is refreshing at 100+Hz. If you are someone who is bothered by flourscent lights, then an LCD might bug you.

I've found that I've only been able to use laptops that use very very high quality screens and controlled backlighting without getting headaces and such.

If anyone is interested google the term 'LCD Display Discomfort' and you'll see stuff about it.

hummel · Rated PG Joined: 20 Jan 2005 Posts: 1

The article overlooks one of the biggest reasons to not buy an LCD monitor: The bad pixel problem.

Whether it shows up as a dark/missing pixel on brighter images, or a bright pixel on dark images, this persistent problem is an ugly side of LCD monitors.

Ever since buying an iMac with a single bright blue pixel on its LCD, I've resolved to never again buy another LCD that isn't warranted to be 100% defect-free. At least for now, no manufacturer except for Samsung (and only in S. Korea) seems to believe that more than zero bad pixels constitutes a problem.

The general line still is that a bad pixel or two is "normal". Well, it is as normal as an LP album with a scratch, a CD with an intermittent skip, or a dropped cell phone call. It happens, and much of the buying public accepts it, but it sucks and such garbage has no place in a quality product.

Vote with your pocketbook. I do. Caveat emptor!

BillBlass · Rated PG Joined: 20 Jan 2005 Posts: 2

Ok first off he's comparing the price of a 17" LCD to a 17" CRT. Thats apples to oranges. The are measured differently dumbass. Should be a 17" to a 19"

When figuring price you should also remember in a year or two what you saved in electricity will probably pay the difference.

I had a 21" CRT that dominated my desk and replacing it with my 19" Benq LCD was the best computer related purchase I have made since my 9800 Pro back when I got that. Gives a much more crisp and vibrant picture imho, couldnt be happier.

Mine has 16ms response and I have NEXT to no ghosting using DVI. Halo works great and I do alot of photoshop work too. No complaints. I have a 25ms reponse monitor thats NOT DVI at work and its crap. Get a good monitor and no troubles.
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=24-014-063&depa=1
DVI MAKES A HUGE DIFFERENCE

**Doctor Feelgood** · Posted: Thu, 20 Jan 2005 22:03:07 Post Subject:

Couldn't agree with most of the comments any more!

On hummels... I bought a MAG 17" LCD monitor at Best Buy and it had 6 dead pixels, which was not acceptable to me, so I took it back. Had to fight a bit, but they exchanged it for a 17" Samsung, which wound up having a combo of 3 dead/lit pixels... still no good to me. Took it back and got a 17" Viewsonic which only had one lit pixel that only shows up on white background. Not perfect but good enough for me!

Spire · Posted: Thu, 20 Jan 2005 22:23:06 Post Subject:

We have 103 24" LCD's for the operator workstations at the Refinery.

They figured the electricity savings alone was justification.

They were running 22" CRT's!!!

earthe · Rated PG Joined: 20 Jan 2005 Posts: 1

Another major point to make about LCDs versus CRT is that LCDs are not capable of producing as much variation in color as CRTs. This problem is huge for anyone who works in print. It is the sole reason we currently have CRTs on our desk now (dual head, one CRT and one LCD) so we can check colors.

It is actually somewhat depressing how bad the LCDs are at doing colors. I wonder if there is any near future improvement in this. And it only really matters for people who need to get their print output to match what their screen shows or need to be able to differentiate between two colors that will look identical on an LCD but are easily differentiable in print or on a decent CRT.

We are considering moving our CRTs to a separate location to get them off the desk and having "the CRT machine" that would have the behemoth for when we get ready to go to print and doing the rest of the work on LCD, but obviously doing prep-work on images or layouts and assuming that an image is going to match a spot color and then finding out that it was all just a Big LCD lie can be a waste of time.

HackaX0rus · Posted: Thu, 20 Jan 2005 23:49:27 Post Subject:

another thing is dead pixels my dad has returned 4 monitors before he got one that didnt have dead pixels. Its a big problem i am not sure if its jsut with cheap lcd's but almsot all the lcd's that i have seen have dead pixels on them...they arent that much of a problem but it makes you wonder how much quality goes into them...

pkarlos_76 · Rated PG Joined: 21 Jan 2005 Posts: 1

LCD's have a considerable shorter lifespan then CRT's, form what I understand and someone can correct me if I'm wrong since I can't find the link to the article that states this: but LCD's lifespan is for 4 hours a day for 5 years vs 8 hours a day for 7 years CRT. So really the lifespan of a LCD is prolly 2 to 3 years vs the 5 to 6 year lifespan of a CRT in practical usage!!!! See it does pay in the long run to buy CRT, and CRT's are cheaper especially if you buy them used. Smile