LCD vs CRT

I think I need a new monitor. My HP P1110 21" monitor apparently burned up. My wife called me at work because she thought the house was on fire. I came home and looked around and it appears to be the monitor. It won’t turn on and it smells a little burnt.

Anyone ever have a montior burn up? I’ve had lots of monitors and that’s the first one that ever went. Of course it was my best and biggest too. Is it shot or is worth fixing?

Anyway this monitor weighs about 85 pounds and takes up huge amounts of space. I really like the flat panel monitors but I’ve heard they’re not great for games. I don’t play lots of FPS, Joint Ops every once and a while. Mostly TBS and roleplaying stuff.

Any gamers here have a LCD monitor or does everybody still have CRTs? I’d like to have a big picture without sacrificing so much space. Any thoughts?

Thanks.

I had a brand new Viewsonic 19" CRT burn up on me days after I purchased it. Luckily I got it from a place here in town and was able to exchange it for another. I turned it off and looked away and it just made a poof sound. When I looked back, there was a little cloud smoke over it, like on I Dream of Jeanie. Smelled bad. Woudln’t turn on. Finally put two and two together. It was odd because it must have happend just as I was turning it off.

I would only buy an LCD these days. You ought to be able to get one with a fast enough response time that you can play games without noticing any ghosting.

Did you get another Viewsonic? I was leaning towards them.

I definitely had a monitor die before after leaving it on for a week while away on a vacation. When I got back it just wouldn’t work anymore :(. So I bought my new Mitsubishi Diamond Pro 2020u, a 23" CRT.

That was back in 2000. It still works awesome today :). If I had a choice to buy now I’d probably get a fast-response LCD, although the big screen LCDs like 23" might cost you a pretty penny (I know it did for me back in 2000 ;)).

Here’s a tip, when you buy it, buy it to last. Big screen, high native resolution, low response rate, good company that has experience making monitors, since after all buying new monitors every year doesn’t make sense as much as buying new video cards!

Low refresh rate? I thought a higher refresh rate gave a better picture. I don’t know a thing about LCDs.

Any monitor can go “poof” on you. Viewsonic makes excellent monitors. I’ve used them for years.

Sorry, I was thinking of low response rate… I went back and edited it now, that happens sometimes (my native language is Russian ;)). As for the refresh rate I recommend 85+ Hz so it’s easy on your eyes.

Yep, just did a swap for the old one. It’s not a bad monitor, other than the fact that the first one died within weeks of taking delivery.

Any monitor can go “poof” on you. Viewsonic makes excellent monitors. I’ve used them for years.[/quote]

But you never forget the first one that goes poof on you. That’s a fact.

The reason we have a perpetual thread on Dell LCD prices, is because they’re inexpensively priced, and fantastic for games.

http://www.quartertothree.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=17422

Do yourself a favor and get a DELL 2001FP. Provided you have a card that can give you a reasonable frame rate at 1600x1200 in games you should be thrilled. I have had no ghosting with it in any game I have played on it and that includes everything from Brothers in Arms to WoW and in between.

– Xaroc

I may be cheap, but I just buy lightly used (as in, 1 year office lease) 21" CRT’s for about $120 shipped.
On LCD’s, do you have pixels fail over the life of the monitor?

Dude, you’re gettin’ a Dell.

Best piece of PC hardware I ever bought.

I bought the 20" Dell widescreen at about the same time Whitta did, and he’s right, it is a sweet piece of hardware. I waited a long time to get one because I figured I already had a 19" CRT that still worked, but once I got it set up I had absolutely no buyers remorse.

The 20" Dells are great; I’ve had mine almost two months now and I still love it.

Wow. I’ll put that on my wish list. I’ll have to scmooze the wife to get that bad boy in here. Sounds fantastic. I only have a geforce 4 4200ti as well. I don’t know if the card could take full advantage of the monitor. Well, I’m definitely convinced to get an LCD over a CRT this time. Thanks guys.

Edit - I notice the refresh rates don’t go beond 75 hz. And only 60hz at 1600x1200. Do LCD not need higher rez rates to combat flicker? I noticed on my monitors I would have flicker at 60.

As I understand it, LCDs display differently than CRTs, so refresh rates as traditionally understood don’t really apply. I’ve got a FP2001, it’s set at 60hz in display settings, and I don’t get any of the headache-inducing flicker that such a setting would yield on a CRT.

And it looks gorgeous. I love this monitor.

Yeah, I’m no tech-head either, but I’ve heard the same thing about LCDs and refresh rates. FWIW, I replaced my CRT with a Dell 20" (the regular aspect ratio one), and it’s amazing. I have it set at 60 Hz and it’s noticeably better than my old CRT at 75 Hz, over a long computing session. I can’t say enough good things about it.

With my LCD – Benq FP931, which is pretty damn good even though it ain’t a Dell – there’s no visible difference between 60 and 75 Hz.

Yes, IIIRC with CRTs, the # of Hz is how many times the tube shoots electrons at the screen (they disappear right away), and with LCDs it’s the # of times the crystals change shape per second (but the crystals don’t disappear, hence there isn’t a flickering issue with lower frequencies).

Personally I have a 60 Hz on my laptop (1600x1200 native), and 85 Hz on my CRT (1600x1200) and while I would be having really big flickering trouble doing 60 Hz on a CRT, I cannot see any problems on my 60 Hz LCD.