[Tech] Monitors

[3278]

I'd given a pretty raving review of the Asus VH236H over on Animalball, and I'd like to amend that review. My parents are out of town for the weekend, so I'm house-sitting, and that means using my mother's computer, a startlingly quick Dell Optiplex Garbagebox, and her monitor, the VH236H in question.

There are a lot of ways in which this is a great monitor, and most of them start with its $180 purchase price. It's fucking huge, 23 inches and 1920x1080. Colors look decent for the most part, and a variety of modes tailor colors for the task at hand [which I personally detest, but whatever]. I have never used an LCD monitor whose ghosting and trailing and other response-time issues didn't drive me absolutely crazy, but this one is almost CRT-like in its response.

But that's the problem. It's almost CRT-like. It's large enough that its corners are actually several degrees out from the corner of my eye, and that means I'm looking at those portions of the panel at a relatively great angle, and right now, the white lines separating the links in the upper-right corner of the Bulldrek page are purple. Purple. Not white. Purple. Fuck you, monitor. A lot of small text is purple, too, like the text right above this posting box. And clearly aliased. Horizontal bands of color - like, say, those used everywhere on Bulldrek - bleed slightly.

The fact is, it's not a CRT. All these LCD issues still exist, it's just that people seem to have stopped caring so much about them; it's all about how good the viewing angle is, not, "Oh my god, why is viewing angle still an issue?" The VH236H isn't a bad LCD, it's just that it's an LCD, and still very guilty of the crimes of its nature.

So I'm not sure what I'm going to get for my next computer, now. The VH236H isn't acceptable to me, not by a long shot, not for long-term use. I can't do Photoshop on this, or video editing. I'm going to have to look into more expensive IPS panels, and the whole time, I'm going to be thinking, "Wow, this is almost as good as my fucking CRT." Too bad you can't buy brand new 23 inch 1920x1080 CRTs. I don't care that it's lighter and thinner. The only two ways in which an LCD is better than a CRT are things I couldn't care less about, and the drawbacks are all the things I care most about.

Any suggestions? Is there a secret source of Trinitrons out there somewhere, or an IPS monitor you recommend? What's the best-looking monitor you've used?

[Salvation122]

I'm using an HP S2031a. Doesn't quite fit what you're looking for - it can't get nearly as bright as a CRT, and it only gets up to 1600x900 - but it's plenty fine for what I use it for, and I'd recommend it to average users looking for a decent, economical monitor without hesitation.

[Raygun]

I'm running an Acer X233H on one machine and an Acer P235H on another. Both 5ms, 23" 1080 LCDs, and I'm not having the same issues you are when looking at Bulldrek. Everything that should be white is, and there's no aliasing going on. Both monitors are native 1080 LCDs, so they look better at 1080 than they do in other resolutions (blurry and other general assyness). But in 1080, they both look fucking great to me. I'm not sure if it's an IPS panel or not (I doubt it), but the X233H is my favorite monitor to work on photography with. Ever. I wouldn't go back to a CRT for anything.

My mother, though, has a 22" Dell-branded LCD that does pretty much exactly what it sounds like yours is doing (god damn moire, too), even in native resolution. I can't stand it either and if I had to look at it every day, I would punt it right out the window, then go outside and drop a few elbows on it for good measure. But it doesn't bug her, so...

It all makes me wonder if that's a defect in either LCD design or production, or if it's a particular video card type or driver that just sucks with certain LCD panels. I'm not sure. All I can tell you is that I've seen them look great and I've seen them look not very good at all.

[DV8]

1920x1080 is such a limiting resolution, and 5ms really isn't good enough. I use the 26" iiyama ProLite E2607WS which has a 2ms response time and a 1920x1200 resolution. I don't know about you, but when I'm coding I really need the height and not just the width of the screen. I'm in love with this screen, though I feel a little foolish for not waiting an extra month for the 27" to come out.

[3278]

Resolution is a difficult one. I usually manage to make do with whatever I have to work with - although this is another bullshit quality of fucking stupid-ass LCD dickbag monitors - and with a big monitor, this is even easier: rather than feel like everything has to be maximized, you can usefully keep things windowed and still work in them, so I can code or post or browse with the bulk of the screen real estate, while using the extra space on the edge to play windowed video or display widgets or something. [Although in practice, no widget has remained on my screen for more than a day or so, so really it's just windowed video and a big view of my desktop. Looks like this.]

So for productivity work where I've got lots of vertical content, or even just general web browsing [have you seen Gmail at 16:9?], these widescreens aren't ideal, but I also do lots of horizontal work in Excel, and more video watching than I'd care to admit, and for those purposes, widescreen is great.

At the end of the day, 16:9, 16:10, hell, I've used 5:4, I adapt to it. The form factor of the monitor is completely secondary to it displaying an image accurately. And I have yet to see a single LCD I thought could do that. Still looking: definitely want to check out the Dell Ultrasharp U2410, a comparatively affordable IPS panel. It still pisses me off that I'd have to pay more than $500 to get a monitor that's still not as good as monitors I bought ten years ago for $400, but sure, okay, whatever I have to do.

[3278]

$900, used? God damn. Ooh! Or $250 each, with 4 available? Too bad every used Trinitron I've had has died within a year of my buying it...

[3278]

...and right now, the white lines separating the links in the upper-right corner of the Bulldrek page are purple. Purple. Not white. Purple. Fuck you, monitor. A lot of small text is purple, too, like the text right above this posting box.

I managed to make some adjustments to eliminate this, but...I'm not sure but what it doesn't make everything else look a little strange. It's one of those situation in which you've been staring at the monitor attentively for so long that it's hard to tell if you're imagining things. Time will tell.

[Raygun]

1920x1080 is such a limiting resolution,

I was wondering how long it would take someone to say that.

and 5ms really isn't good enough.

What isn't 5ms good enough for? Compared to what?

I managed to make some adjustments to eliminate this, but...I'm not sure but what it doesn't make everything else look a little strange. It's one of those situation in which you've been staring at the monitor attentively for so long that it's hard to tell if you're imagining things. Time will tell.

What did you do? I think I've tried just about everything to clean up the image on my mother's LCD with zero success. It either looks like shit or more shit.

[3278]

Most of the adjustments that seemed to help that specific problem were with the Phase. Not sure how many monitors even allow this adjustment, but it seemed to do the trick.

[DV8]

and 5ms really isn't good enough.

What isn't 5ms good enough for? Compared to what?

Gaming. Compared to 2ms.

[Raygun]

Really? Do you think if someone set a 2ms LCD and and 5ms LCD next to each other, you could tell the difference without looking at each monitor's specs? We're talking about a difference equal to about a hundredth of the time it takes for you to blink. It's a marketing point. Sure, 2ms response time is technically better, but 5ms is perfectly good enough. Even for gaming.

[3278]

It's interesting, but I've looked over some monitors and it seems like not all response times are the same. I mean, I know different manufacturers game the spec in different ways, and measure it differently [BTB, GTG], but even with the same methodology, it seems like the number doesn't tell the whole story. I've seen some 5ms monitors that don't ghost or blur at all, and some which are worse than older 8ms or 10ms monitors. I've seen 2ms monitors with noticeable ghosting.

That said, most people will tell you that anything below 10ms is indiscernible to the human eye, anyway, or discernible but not at a level most people would give a shit about. So I don't get a boner about these particular numbers, because not only don't they seem to tell anything at all even remotely like the whole story, but it also turns out most people, most of the time, can't tell or don't care. So my advice for a prospective buyer is to use the monitor and judge on your experiences: some things can be objectively measured and compared directly with nothing but a single number, but this ain't one of them.

Short form [I'm practicing]: Response time is like megapixel count; it ain't nothin' but a number, baby.

[DV8]

Yeah, sure, until you're trying to tag someone while playing Modern Warfare.

[3278]

No, even when you're playing Modern Warfare, the number isn't necessarily diagnostic. Two monitors with identical response times won't have identical behaviors, Modern Warfare or not. So saying 5ms just isn't enough is inaccurate, whether that's in Modern Warfare or Excel: the number doesn't necessarily represent the totality of the monitor's ability to accurately display images.

Your statement is like saying 5 megapixels isn't enough in a digital camera, or 100 watts isn't enough in a stereo, or 300hp isn't enough in a car: not only is it pretty senselessly decadent, but it's also far too limited a perspective. Stats and specs don't, by themselves, and certainly not singly, accurately portray the totality of the experience.

[Jeff Hauze]

Yeah, sure, until you're trying to tag someone while playing Modern Warfare.

Really? I don't have a 5ms monitor. Mine's list at 10ms. I certainly don't notice any problems tagging somebody due to my monitor (or any of those problems 32 mentioned earlier). I have issues tagging people, but that's due to my lack of skill. It's not exclusive to my monitor, or Modern Warfare.

[Salvation122]

Yeah, sure, until you're trying to tag someone while playing Modern Warfare.

Out of sheer curiosity, are you running over a pure digital connection (HDMI or DVI) or component? "Monitors" sold as TVs, especially, seem to suffer from processing lag when running on component input.

[3278]

That's display lag, and all LCDs have it, too, and it's not only almost always much higher than response time, but it's almost never quoted, despite the fact that its impact on things like, say, Modern Warfare is much greater than that of pixel response time. Also, many of the tricks used to decrease apparent pixel response time [i.e. the overdrive mode on my mother's Asus] massively increase input lag. Running at non-native resolutions drives it upward, as well, as more image processing has to take place before the image is shown. Think the 3ms difference between 5ms and 2ms is huge? Display lag is pretty much always in the double digits.

[DV8]

Yeah, sure, until you're trying to tag someone while playing Modern Warfare.

Out of sheer curiosity, are you running over a pure digital connection (HDMI or DVI) or component? "Monitors" sold as TVs, especially, seem to suffer from processing lag when running on component input.

I run HDMI at home and DVI at work.

[Reika]

Perhaps a little late, but this is the monitor I'm currently using. Have to say I'm very pleased with the display on it, though I don't play FPS so not sure how they'd look.

And none of the funky distortion on websites that 32 has mentioned at the native 1920x1080 with the window set to maximum, which I generally don't do. The thing is big enough to get close to the dual monitor display I've wanted, but didn't have the room for.

[Crazy Elf]

I tired reading some of this thread until it became clear that you're all the biggest nerds in the world.

[Jeff Hauze]

I tired reading some of this thread until it became clear that you're all the biggest nerds in the world.

You forgot to get a nerd to check your post before submitting it. Silly jock.

[Crazy Elf]

Umm... no I meant that. I was getting tired reading this threads, then I found you were nerds and I woke up and got angry.

[Jeff Hauze]

Umm... no I meant that. I was getting tired reading this threads, then I found you were nerds and I woke up and got angry.

It's a great thing that you have a house Asian to write these complex posts for you, jock.

[Crazy Elf]

Shit, she's been around too long. I'm pluralising when I shouldn't.

[Raygun]

Thinking about ordering this monitor for the office. I see a lot of people bitching about ghosting with it, but A) I think most of them are dumb, and B) I'm not going to be using it for gaming anyway, so it's unlikely to bother me even if I can't figure out how to mitigate it (which seems entirely possible). Mainly why I chose this one is because it's got an LED backlight, which means it's lighter, thinner, and more power-efficient than CCFL LCD monitors.

Asus also makes a 23" IPS LED monitor for $10 more, so I'm considering that option as well, though it doesn't have a VESA mount, which may be a deal breaker. (I'm not really keen on the whole IPS thing either, so if someone - er, 32 - would like to help me understand it better, I would appreciate it).

[Reika]

Yeah, the HP I have is LED backlit, made a huge difference in quality of picture.

Then again the LCD monitor that went belly up on me was about 5 years old and seen a lot of abuse.

[3278]

(I'm not really keen on the whole IPS thing either, so if someone - er, 32 - would like to help me understand it better, I would appreciate it).

IPS monitors have two major benefits over TN panels:

Color Reproduction. TN monitors don't display the full gamut of available color, but instead blend pixel values to produce an approximation of them. [You could draw comparisons to how anti-aliasing works.] IPS panels tend to produce the real 24-bit color that you'd get out of, I don't know, a fucking CRT. [Took four more dead ones to the dump today; only three live ones left now, I think, and none of them very good.]

Viewing Angles. As I'm sure you're already aware, if you move up and down, or side to side, while looking at your monitor, you're going to notice that the colors aren't the same at every angle [particularly side-to-side], and that the level of greys isn't the same at every angle [particularly up-and-down]. IPS panels have much superior viewing angles when compared to their TN counterparts, so you don't have to be dead-on to see the "right" colors and black intensities.

Now, these can seem like nit-picky, anal-graphic-designer complaints, and if you're satisfied with the viewing angles and color reproduction of your existing TN panel, then it's probably not worth the extra money for an IPS. That said, maybe you don't know what you're missing, so maybe it's worth finding an electronics store somewhere that has an IPS panel you could look at for yourself?

IPS also has downsides; for example, their response time is generally not as quick as the fastest TN panels, but a decent one will have sufficient response time for most of us.

I'm pretty sure I'll get an IPS panel when I buy a new monitor [read: when all my CRTs are dead], but if I'm strapped for cash, I think a TN is just fine. I mean, really, what kind of life do we lead that these are the kinds of decisions we're making? At the end of the day, it's really just a computer monitor, you know?

[Raygun]

Thanks.

Now, these can seem like nit-picky, anal-graphic-designer complaints, and if you're satisfied with the viewing angles and color reproduction of your existing TN panel, then it's probably not worth the extra money for an IPS. That said, maybe you don't know what you're missing, so maybe it's worth finding an electronics store somewhere that has an IPS panel you could look at for yourself?

I'll look around, but one of the few downsides to living where I do is that there aren't many places that stock a decent selection of things like monitors (Staples and Wal-Mart, basically. The nearest Best Buy is 170 miles away). But one of them may have an IPS panel to look at.

[Raygun]

Well, as there isn't a single damn IPS panel in this town to examine, I went ahead and ordered that Asus VE248H today. If anyone else is interested, it dropped $10 and there's an additional -$10 promo good until midnight tonight, putting it at $189 shipped. Good deal for a 24" 2ms LED LCD.

[3278]

Know anyone with an iPad? That's IPS. Too late, now.

I don't think you'll be disappointed, you know what I mean? It's going to be awesome, anyway. IPS might be better, but probably in ways you don't care about, and if you don't know what you're missing, so what anyway.

[Raygun]

Know anyone with an iPad? That's IPS. Too late, now.

Actually, yeah. I guess I didn't really notice, but now that i think about it, that makes sense. I worked on a new MacBook Pro today, which I'm sure I'll see again soon. I wonder if they have IPS panels...

I don't think you'll be disappointed, you know what I mean? It's going to be awesome, anyway. IPS might be better, but probably in ways you don't care about, and if you don't know what you're missing, so what anyway.

Yeah. For what I plan to use it for, it should be fine.

[3278]

Know anyone with an iPad? That's IPS. Too late, now.

Actually, yeah. I guess I didn't really notice, but now that i think about it, that makes sense. I worked on a new MacBook Pro today, which I'm sure I'll see again soon. I wonder if they have IPS panels...

I think so? Let me check. No, I think they're all just high-quality, high pixel density TN panels. I would <i>strongly</i> suspect that will change in the next generation.

[3278]

My niggers over at Hardware Canucks just reviewed the Dell UltraSharp I was looking at. They're pretty positive about it, comparing it favorably to the IPS ASUS PA246Q. It even does really well in games and movies, although they say, "To our eyes there is very little difference between an ultras [sic] fast 2ms (GtG) TN panel and a fast 6ms (GtG) IPS or MVA panel," so they may be more forgiving than, say, Deev. But it makes me lean toward the ASUS, having read the review.

[3278]

No, even when you're playing Modern Warfare, the number isn't necessarily diagnostic. Two monitors with identical response times won't have identical behaviors, Modern Warfare or not. So saying 5ms just isn't enough is inaccurate, whether that's in Modern Warfare or Excel: the number doesn't necessarily represent the totality of the monitor's ability to accurately display images.

Interestingly, Tom's Hardware recently tested the total input lag of three IPS monitors. Unfortunately, they didn't do so in perhaps the most accurate way possible. Still, it's interesting to see the real difference, not in some manufacturer-manufactured benchmark of response time, but in a test of the time it takes between action [click the mouse, for example] and display [show Bob firing a gun].

And what do you know? The manufacturer numbers [per-pixel response times] have little to do with the actual tested total lag: a TN panel Acer has a 2ms response time [per manufacturer], but a tested total lag of 73ms. An H-IPS Dell with a response time [per manufacturer] of 6ms has a tested total lag of 98ms. So despite the threefold difference in "response time," the actual difference in action-to-reaction is only 34 percent or so. And an NEC PA271W, with a response time of 7ms, has a tested total lag of 115ms.

So here's my point: response time cannot tell you enough to determine the actual response of the monitor, since it doesn't take into account input or processing lag, and in fact takes nothing into account other than how fast an individual pixel can change states, which has little to do with the overall delay between input and output, which is what counts when you're tagging someone while playing Modern Warfare. It's like megapixel counts in digital cameras: a consideration, yes, but not a majority consideration.

Seriously, I really am the only person who reads something and then goes back and re-fights a conversation from months or years ago. Why do I do that? Is it tiny penis, or a sincere desire to spread truthful information around the world? And am I setting up a falsely excluded middle?

[AtemHutlrt]

It's like megapixel counts in digital cameras: a consideration, yes, but not a majority consideration.

There's so much of this in the electronics marketplace. It seems like every product has one key feature that is marketed above all others in order to, as far as I can tell, provide people with an easily identifiable metric to gauge the relative quality of these devices they don't actually understand. Megapixels, response time, resolution, etc. And none of this stuff is very useful in a bubble. Sure, all else being equal, a higher megapixel count is preferable, but you're usually much better off buying a well-made 5MP camera than a wonky, off-brand 10MP monstrosity. Just try convincing anyone of that. I have a roommate who /always/ buys stuff based solely on these not-very-useful metrics. He's got a high-megapixel camera with a shitty lens, an HD video camera that doesn't work much better than my cellphone, speakers that are way more powerful than they need to be, but don't maintain fidelity across a broad spectrum and one of the first widely-available 1080p digital projectors, which feels like it's held together by toothpicks, and doesn't have many of the most basic features found in modern projectors. It's /insane/.

[3278]

Like the megahertz race in PC processors, where people didn't pay any attention to performance, but just to the One Obvious Number. "1080p" and "HD" are some of the worst: people will pass up a 1600x1200 monitor because they "have to get one that's HD!" despite the fact that 1600x1200 is higher than "HD." I end up having to either bite my tongue or else spend hours and hours explaining to people that there's more than one easily quantifiable benchmark for the hardware they want, and several that aren't easily quantifiable at all. People seem to think they can make intelligent decisions about complex things by glancing at a sheet of figures, and that's just such utter bullshit, and it's so annoying to someone who spends three or four hours researching a single component of a single computer before specifying it!

The megapixel race is the worst. 10MP is something like 3648x2736, a completely ridiculous resolution that's far, far beyond what someone would need unless they were cropping it down or doing large-format work, i.e. professional photography. For your cell phone, taking pictures of your kid on the playground? Your 5MP camera shoots 2584x1936, higher def than high def! Frankly, I would rather have a 3MP camera - 2000x1504, which is plenty for screen or print unless you're massively cropping or blowing up - with a really nice lens than a 10MP camera with a poor one.

This kind of reductionist thinking is a human failing, if an understandable one: we were created by God to be short-sighted and self-destructive - um, I mean, we evolved under conditions in which complex issues had to be decided in split-second moments with little information; time to think is a luxury of modernity.* But it's a luxury we have, so we should all treat complex things in a complex fashion where possible, rather than just say, "I want the 3.0 ghz one!"

*Where by "modernity," I mean, "the last 10,000+ years." I have a real problem with relative timescales.

[Raygun]

Like the megahertz race in PC processors, where people didn't pay any attention to performance, but just to the One Obvious Number. "1080p" and "HD" are some of the worst: people will pass up a 1600x1200 monitor because they "have to get one that's HD!" despite the fact that 1600x1200 is higher than "HD."

Well, to be fair, TV tends to be shot and broadcast in 1920x1080 these days, so having a monitor that can display that industry-standard resolution and aspect ratio correctly is nice, though it is more important in terms of, you know, televisions! This is something one has to consider when buying a 1600x1200 monitor (Am I going to be watching things in 1080 on it? Can the monitor support that resolution?). When it says "1080P YAY !!!!!!!" on the box, you know it will. Also, the need for any higher resolution starts to get pretty specialized. I know I have no use for any higher resolution and I even do photography work with great big, spliced-together, multi-image panoramic photos.

The megapixel race is the worst. 10MP is something like 3648x2736, a completely ridiculous resolution that's far, far beyond what someone would need unless they were cropping it down or doing large-format work, i.e. professional photography. For your cell phone, taking pictures of your kid on the playground? Your 5MP camera shoots 2584x1936, higher def than high def! Frankly, I would rather have a 3MP camera - 2000x1504, which is plenty for screen or print unless you're massively cropping or blowing up - with a really nice lens than a 10MP camera with a poor one.

Yes, there are certainly more important things than megapixel count to consider at this point on a point-and-shoot camera. Consumerism. What can you do?

[3278]

Well, to be fair, TV tends to be shot and broadcast in 1920x1080 these days, so having a monitor that can display that industry-standard resolution and aspect ratio correctly is nice, though it is more important in terms of, you know, televisions!

Absolutely. In the case of televisions, 1080p is definitely one of the checkboxes you'd want to check, although again it's only one, and there are definitely circumstances in which a TV with a lower resolution could look better, but those are unlikely edge cases.

I'm mostly talking about monitors, and non-topically complaining that today's high-end resolution is way fucking lower than what I was using 10 years ago. It's bullshit.

[Raygun]

I'm mostly talking about monitors, and non-topically complaining that today's high-end resolution is way fucking lower than what I was using 10 years ago. It's bullshit.

So was I. But I'm not sure I agree that it's bullshit. If people want higher resolution monitors, they can certainly find them, though they tend to be more expensive. 1080 is, in my opinion, a perfectly acceptable standard for both uses.

[3278]

I'm mostly talking about monitors, and non-topically complaining that today's high-end resolution is way fucking lower than what I was using 10 years ago. It's bullshit.

So was I. But I'm not sure I agree that it's bullshit. If people want higher resolution monitors, they can certainly find them, though they tend to be more expensive.

Ah, but you're missing the tangent I've gone off on. What I'm really complaining about is that today's mainstream LCDs are inferior to the mainstream CRTs of 10 years ago in absolutely every way except size and weight, two characteristics which actually aren't significant in the vast majority of use cases. LCDs became popular because they were novel, not because they were better. So I'm not really disagreeing with you, I'm still stuck on how shitty modern monitors are compared to my diminishing stable of ancient CRTs.

1080 is, in my opinion, a perfectly acceptable standard for both uses.

Well, yeah, and my parents would use 1024x768 if they could, but their LCDs don't use that as a native resolution. Everyone wants a different resolution: you like whateverx1080, I like 1600x1200 [at least], my parents love 1024x768. Used to be, we could choose whatever we pleased, but now we're largely stuck with native resolutions. Bullshit.

Anyway, none of this is about the topic! The closest I can get to the topic is that it's bullshit that people will just choose a 1080p monitor over some other resolution, irrespective of any other characteristic - like, say, TN vs IPS - which is a bad choice, since in many cases resolution is secondary to other characteristics, or only plays one role out of several in determining the final utility of the device. But really I just hate LCDs.

[Raygun]

Ah, but you're missing the tangent I've gone off on. What I'm really complaining about is that today's mainstream LCDs are inferior to the mainstream CRTs of 10 years ago in absolutely every way except size and weight, two characteristics which actually aren't significant in the vast majority of use cases.

Well, that's the thing. I don't agree with your assessment here. What's 'better' and what isn't is largely a matter of opinion. Technically, yes, CRTs are better at doing some things than LCDs, but it would appear that those things aren't concerns to most people. To me, this argument seems to be a symptom of delving so far into the minutiae of the technology that you're missing the forest for the trees.

LCDs became popular because they were novel, not because they were better.

I think the novelty certainly had something to do with it (as it often does when a replacement technology appears), but you also have to consider the practical side of it: given a similar viewing area, LCDs are lighter, easier to move around, take up less desk space, and are more energy-efficient. No, they don't reproduce colors as well or display them perfectly at every angle, but that's not as big of a concern to most users as the other things, particularly when we're considering such mundane uses as office work.

So I'm not really disagreeing with you, I'm still stuck on how shitty modern monitors are compared to my diminishing stable of ancient CRTs.

I get it, I just don't think 'shitty' is quite the proper adjective. While CRTs may in fact better for some uses, I'd rather use an LCD for the vast majority of uses.

Well, yeah, and my parents would use 1024x768 if they could, but their LCDs don't use that as a native resolution. Everyone wants a different resolution: you like whateverx1080, I like 1600x1200 [at least], my parents love 1024x768. Used to be, we could choose whatever we pleased, but now we're largely stuck with native resolutions. Bullshit.

Yeah, that is one thing that might make things easier for folks, but with the ability to change the sizes of icons and the way things display in higher resolutions with modern OSes, it's really not all that necessary to change the display resolution, unless you're using old software that can't scale or are playing old games.

Anyway, none of this is about tse 1he topic! The closest I can get to the topic is that it's bullshit that people will just choose a 1080p monitor over some other resolution, irrespective of any other characteristic - like, say, TN vs IPS - which is a bad choice, since in many cases resolution is secondary to other characteristics, or only plays one role out of several in determining the final utility of the device. But really I just hate LCDs.

That's consumerism for you, though. Perhaps people don't educate themselves as much as they should when purchasing every single item they choose to buy, so they rely on marketing to jump out at them to help them make that decision. Then again, others, such as yourself, do. And still others, like myself, may not be allowed to make wholly informed decisions ahead of time due to a lack of local availability or other factors.

The reason I chose 1080 monitors was because it was in fact higher resolution than I was dealing with in a CRT (generally I used 1280x1024), I prefer 16:9 to 4:3 aspect ratio, LCDs offer more desk space (or the use of a smaller workspace), they are much easier to move, and are more energy-efficient. The first one I bought replaced a perfectly good, working 19" Viewsonic G90 that I was never really happy with because it had some imperfections in the CRT that annoyed me (it now sits in my garage collecting dust). In my case, the LCD purchase proved a substantial improvement and made a noticeable difference in how I used the computer. So much so that I bought two more of them after I was convinced.

Anyway, the technology will continue to evolve, so please, continue to be dissatisfied! The people who are will make these things better, even though I think it's fair to say that most of us are pretty satisfied with the way this particular technology works now.

[3278]

Ah, but you're missing the tangent I've gone off on. What I'm really complaining about is that today's mainstream LCDs are inferior to the mainstream CRTs of 10 years ago in absolutely every way except size and weight, two characteristics which actually aren't significant in the vast majority of use cases.

Well, that's the thing. I don't agree with your assessment here. What's 'better' and what isn't is largely a matter of opinion.

Nope. Viewing angle isn't an opinion. Color reproduction isn't an opinion. Neither are contrast ratios, brightness, resolution, color depth, response, or any of the other characteristics of a monitor that make it better for looking at stuff on. As I say, mainstream LCDs of today are inferior in absolutely every way except size and weight, two characteristics which are typically much less important for the majority of use cases than the ability to see what's on the monitor. [I'm not including power efficiency only because we don't know what CRTs would be like if they'd been the number one display for the last ten years.]

Now, the relative importance of those characteristics is definitely an opinion, but this is what I'm talking about in this thread: people will assign relative valuations to characteristics not based on their own experiences or opinions, but based on marketing. LCD's have essentially completely eliminated CRTs for no better reason than novelty. Size and weight are rarely as important to people as their preference for LCDs would indicate. People don't look at CRTs and LCDs and say, "Do I have enough room for this CRT?" No, they simply buy an LCD, without considering their own preferences in any way.

Did you? Well, assuming you had the choice - which you really don't - I assume you would have put real thought into it, and decided what was more important to you: seeing things well, or having a smaller desk. But most people aren't making that [seriously, really very dumb] assessment.

The size issue reminds me of speakers. Ever since it became technologically possible to make small speakers with big sound [particularly backed with a subwoofer], people have been touting the benefits of tiny speakers, like there was some epidemic of space-lacking in people's living rooms. So now people will simply purchase a tiny 2+1 system without any regard for whether or not a full-size set of stereo speakers would sound better, even if they have plenty of room, because small speakers are novel...except that they typically sound shitty. Do most people care about sound quality? After the marketing has been done to them, I'm not sure we can assess what they really want, anymore, if left to their own devices. There's a lot of discussion lately about how modern receivers don't sound any better than ones from a few decades ago, because it's impossible to put "sound quality" in a benchmark checklist or whitesheet: instead, they prioritize features with acronyms, or home theater features which often go unused. Marketing wins over actual preference in many of these cases, in the same way that marketing has made people choose 10MP cameras over 5MP cameras not because one looks better than the other, but because "image quality" is impossible to put in a benchmark checklist.

LCDs became popular because they were novel, not because they were better.

I think the novelty certainly had something to do with it (as it often does when a replacement technology appears), but you also have to consider the practical side of it: given a similar viewing area, LCDs are lighter, easier to move around, take up less desk space, and are more energy-efficient. No, they don't reproduce colors as well or display them perfectly at every angle, but that's not as big of a concern to most users as the other things, particularly when we're considering such mundane uses as office work.

So they're worse at doing the things you do with them - reading text, looking at images, watching video, playing games; actually seeing stuff, in other words - but better at stuff that doesn't matter as often, like how heavy they are and how far from the wall your desk needs to sit. Check. I mean, unless you live in a studio apartment and move your monitor every day, I don't see how "image quality" can be trumped by "size and weight." I just don't buy the argument that, left to their own devices, irrespective of novelty and marketing, people would be concerned with things they do so much less often.

And this includes mundane tasks like office work, and in fact is even more important there, since LCDs are much harder on the eyes, and much less flexible in resolution.

Well, yeah, and my parents would use 1024x768 if they could, but their LCDs don't use that as a native resolution. Everyone wants a different resolution: you like whateverx1080, I like 1600x1200 [at least], my parents love 1024x768. Used to be, we could choose whatever we pleased, but now we're largely stuck with native resolutions. Bullshit.

Yeah, that is one thing that might make things easier for folks, but with the ability to change the sizes of icons and the way things display in higher resolutions with modern OSes, it's really not all that necessary to change the display resolution, unless you're using old software that can't scale or are playing old games.

Modern OSes can only scale a small subset of the GUI [and that typically in large steps] like text and icon size. Window chrome, tray icons, button sizes, etc, don't scale. There are a lot of fixed assets on today's OSes that make just choosing the native resolution impractical in a number of use cases.

And in gaming, it's worse, unless you're Jeff's dad, because you're stuck with the native resolution, whether the game you're playing can be run productively at that resolution or not. Again, win to the CRT.

Anyway, none of this is about tse 1he topic! The closest I can get to the topic is that it's bullshit that people will just choose a 1080p monitor over some other resolution, irrespective of any other characteristic - like, say, TN vs IPS - which is a bad choice, since in many cases resolution is secondary to other characteristics, or only plays one role out of several in determining the final utility of the device. But really I just hate LCDs.

That's consumerism for you, though. Perhaps people don't educate themselves as much as they should when purchasing every single item they choose to buy, so they rely on marketing to jump out at them to help them make that decision.

And marketing misleads them as to the relative importance of various characteristics, leading to a realignment of market availability based not on consumer preference, but on marketing ease. That leads to a product which pleases fewer people less of the time, and in the case of CRTs, leads to a near-complete elimination of a largely superior technology due primarily to misleading marketing. Consumers aren't really getting what they want, they're getting what someone tells them they want, and those two are often not the same thing.

The reason I chose 1080 monitors was because it was in fact higher resolution than I was dealing with in a CRT (generally I used 1280x1024), I prefer 16:9 to 4:3 aspect ratio...

Then your CRT wasn't a particularly good one, if it couldn't handle a resolution higher than x1024, and you actually didn't gain very much in resolution, just a few more lines. As to aspect ratio, CRTs got largely killed before the aspect ratio changes; had they survived, they would have been offered in 16:9, as well.

...LCDs offer more desk space (or the use of a smaller workspace), they are much easier to move, and are more energy-efficient.

Right. So what it boils down to [minus the energy efficiency, which again can't be compared], is size and weight, those two things I mentioned earlier were the only two things LCDs actually did better than equivalent CRTs.

So what you're saying is that you genuinely care less about what the LCD looks like than how easy it is to lift, or how much room it takes up. And that seems really weird to me. Do you spend a lot of time lifting your monitor? Is there not an extra square foot in your workspace to put a monitor? Look, if space is at that kind of premium, and you genuinely don't give a shit about eye strain, bad image quality, or the fact that the monitor will always, always, always look worse off-axis, then by all means you should have gotten the LCD you got! But for most people, most of the time, how well the monitor displays stuff is going to be a lot more important than the extra square foot of space.

In my case, the LCD purchase proved a substantial improvement and made a noticeable difference in how I used the computer. So much so that I bought two more of them after I was convinced.

Ah, but this isn't a good comparison. You're comparing two "what is" devices, without regard for "what could have been." [And that's not considering the fact that we're talking about an old CRT and a new LCD.] If CRT evolution had continued, they'd also have been smaller and lighter [although likely never as small or light as LCDs!], more energy efficient, and been offered in 16:9 aspect ratio. In that case, your choice between CRT and LCD would come down to size and weight versus image quality, and I absolutely cannot believe that your LCD purchase in that case would be an improvement at all. It would have been, in almost every way that mattered, a step down.

[Raygun]

Nope. Viewing angle isn't an opinion. Color reproduction isn't an opinion. Neither are contrast ratios, brightness, resolution, color depth, response, or any of the other characteristics of a monitor that make it better for looking at stuff on.

Yes, those things you can test, assign values to, and say 'this is technically better than that." Even so, stating categorically that "CRTs are better than LCDs" is an opinion that is only supported by fact if you first exclude from consideration the advantages that LCDs have over CRTs. These factors you mention above aren't the whole package.

As I say, mainstream LCDs of today are inferior in absolutely every way except size and weight, two characteristics which are typically much less important for the majority of use cases than the ability to see what's on the monitor.

In your opinion. Not everyone cares about those minute details that make CRTs technically better than LCDs at viewing angle, color reproduction, contrast ratio, brightness, color depth, or response. LCDs work satisfactorily for most and are lighter and smaller to boot! Hence, better. (AND THAT'S JUST A STRAIGHT UP FACT, SON! )

Did you? Well, assuming you had the choice - which you really don't - I assume you would have put real thought into it, and decided what was more important to you: seeing things well, or having a smaller desk. But most people aren't making that [seriously, really very dumb] assessment.

The first LCD I bought was for my studio desk, which a CRT would not even fit on. Hell, neither would an LCD for that matter; I bought a VESA mount with it so that it would fit, an option I wouldn't even have had with a CRT. Once I installed everything and found that the picture was not only acceptable but an improvement over my old CRT (the image was flatter and wider; handy when you're editing audio files), I bought another LCD to replace the CRT in my office.

Do most people care about sound quality?

No, I don't believe they do. Should they? No, I don't believe I have the right to tell them that they MUST consider one thing more important than the other when spending their own money.

So they're worse at doing the things you do with them - reading text, looking at images, watching video, playing games; actually seeing stuff, in other words - but better at stuff that doesn't matter as often, like how heavy they are and how far from the wall your desk needs to sit. Check.

No. In general, LCDs are not significantly worse at doing those things than CRTs, plus they're easier to move around.

I mean, unless you live in a studio apartment and move your monitor every day, I don't see how "image quality" can be trumped by "size and weight."

I would have to suggest that this is because you put entirely too much emphasis on how much 'better' image quality is with CRTs when, for the most part, these differences are academic and don't make much difference to users. In my experience, the vast majority of people simply don't seem to give as much of a shit about image quality as you do. I'm not saying you're wrong to care so much about it, I'm saying it's your opinion to say that CRTs are categorically better than LCDs. Because it is.

And this includes mundane tasks like office work, and in fact is even more important there, since LCDs are much harder on the eyes,

Not. Factual. Both will kill your eyes if you let them.

and much less flexible in resolution.

Factual.

And in gaming, it's worse, unless you're Jeff's dad, because you're stuck with the native resolution, whether the game you're playing can be run productively at that resolution or not. Again, win to the CRT.

Not necessarily true. Mine runs both 1080 and 720 pretty well, though those are both industry-standard HD resolutions, and only two to choose from.

And marketing misleads them as to the relative importance of various characteristics, leading to a realignment of market availability based not on consumer preference, but on marketing ease. That leads to a product which pleases fewer people less of the time, and in the case of CRTs, leads to a near-complete elimination of a largely superior technology due primarily to misleading marketing. Consumers aren't really getting what they want, they're getting what someone tells them they want, and those two are often not the same thing.

That's possible, though I believe that consumers are getting what they want and they're voting with their checkbooks. They want easy, universal, and not a bitch to move around. Unfortunately, that doesn't appear to necessarily coincide with what we might want, but we're totally under-appreciated geniuses and fuck those shit-throwing monkeys!

Then your CRT wasn't a particularly good one, if it couldn't handle a resolution higher than x1024,

I didn't say it couldn't handle higher resolutions, I was suggesting that I had little use for higher resolutions and I believe that to coincide with the desires of most users.

and you actually didn't gain very much in resolution, just a few more lines.

Vertically, anyway. Gained about 640 horizontally, which I think worked out well, particularly for audio and panoramic photo editing.

Right. So what it boils down to [minus the energy efficiency, which again can't be compared], is size and weight, those two things I mentioned earlier were the only two things LCDs actually did better than equivalent CRTs.

Yes, and the fact that consumers don't really seem to care all that much about the difference in image quality compared to CRTs. Sometimes the difference between better and good enough isn't very consequential to the people who buy things. It'd be nice if we all drove Audis, but Ford seems to get more business for some reason.

So what you're saying is that you genuinely care less about what the LCD looks like than how easy it is to lift, or how much room it takes up. And that seems really weird to me.

No, but I am saying that both of those things figure into it. I've seen both CRTs and LCDs that were not acceptable in terms of image quality to me.

Do you spend a lot of time lifting your monitor?

No, but I'm not in an office environment where shit sometimes gets moved around. I do turn the studio monitor around when I'm playing drums so that the occasional stray stick doesn't go flying into the LCD and wreck it. Light weight and a VESA mount makes that easy.

Is there not an extra square foot in your workspace to put a monitor?

In the studio, no, there isn't. On my office desk there is, but that space id currently occupied by a center channel speaker, a lamp, and a stack of CDs that did not fit there when I had the CRT.

Look, if space is at that kind of premium, and you genuinely don't give a shit about eye strain, bad image quality, or the fact that the monitor will always, always, always look worse off-axis, then by all means you should have gotten the LCD you got! But for most people, most of the time, how well the monitor displays stuff is going to be a lot more important than the extra square foot of space.

I think most people won't care about the differences between the two in terms of image quality, 32. And the eye strain argument is bullshit. Both types can easily strain eyes, and LCD backlights are adjustable.

In that case, your choice between CRT and LCD would come down to size and weight versus image quality, and I absolutely cannot believe that your LCD purchase in that case would be an improvement at all. It would have been, in almost every way that mattered, a step down.

A step that made no significant difference to me. I have this crazy habit of looking at my monitors as straight on as possible. Everything is fantastic!

[3278]

Nope. Viewing angle isn't an opinion. Color reproduction isn't an opinion. Neither are contrast ratios, brightness, resolution, color depth, response, or any of the other characteristics of a monitor that make it better for looking at stuff on.

Yes, those things you can test, assign values to, and say 'this is technically better than that." Even so, stating categorically that "CRTs are better than LCDs" is an opinion that is only supported by fact if you first exclude from consideration the advantages that LCDs have over CRTs.

Right, except you're saying exactly what I said. I included the nuance that CRTs are superior to LCDs in every way except size and weight, so I definitely didn't state categorically that CRTs are better than LCDs. My point is that those characteristics are only significant in a minority of cases.

As I say, mainstream LCDs of today are inferior in absolutely every way except size and weight, two characteristics which are typically much less important for the majority of use cases than the ability to see what's on the monitor.

In your opinion.

Oh, no. I'm sorry if I've given you that impression. I definitely didn't mean to. No, actually, I use an LCD as my primary monitor because I'm in one of the edge cases where it's necessary, or at least desirable. So it's not my opinion that one's better than the other, only that in the majority of use cases, users choose based on distorted perceptions and skewed priorities; this isn't based on my opinion, it's based on my experience in the field, working with users and choosing hardware with them. My opinion is probably a lot stronger, and less reasoned; my experience is as I've represented it.

Not everyone cares about those minute details that make CRTs technically better than LCDs at viewing angle, color reproduction, contrast ratio, brightness, color depth, or response.

No, not everyone does. But without distorted marketing and human frailties like an over-emphasis on the value of novelty, most people, all other things being equal, would be happier overall with an equivalent CRT than an LCD. Most people like to be able to see things well. Most people don't like eyestrain. Most people like to be able to share a monitor without distortion. Most people have a spare square foot. Most people don't lift their monitors very often.

Once I installed everything and found that the picture was not only acceptable but an improvement over my old CRT (the image was flatter and wider; handy when you're editing audio files), I bought another LCD to replace the CRT in my office.

No offense, but it sounds like you had a really shitty CRT, then! Flatter? Did you not have a flat CRT? And again, width is only "better" on LCDs because CRTs were on the way out before 16:9 aspect ratios became popular; nothing about CRTs makes them inherently incapable of having that aspect ratio!

Do most people care about sound quality?

No, I don't believe they do.

What? So most people would be just as happy with a speaker with holes in it than a speaker without? Most people are fine with AM radio quality, and don't want anything higher-def? Most people don't want CDs, and were fine with the sound quality of cassette? Pull the other one.

No, I don't believe I have the right to tell them that they MUST consider one thing more important than the other when spending their own money.

Yeah, no one's doing that here. If I've somehow given that impression, my apologies.

So they're worse at doing the things you do with them - reading text, looking at images, watching video, playing games; actually seeing stuff, in other words - but better at stuff that doesn't matter as often, like how heavy they are and how far from the wall your desk needs to sit. Check.

No. In general, LCDs are not significantly worse at doing those things than CRTs, plus they're easier to move around.

Well, we have interesting differences of opinion on what qualifies as "significant," and apparently wildly differing opinions about how often people move their monitors.

I would have to suggest that this is because you put entirely too much emphasis on how much 'better' image quality is with CRTs when, for the most part, these differences are academic and don't make much difference to users.

They don't have to be big differences, though, because even a minor difference is significantly more important than characteristics - size and weight - which are of much lesser concern to the majority of people.

In my experience, the vast majority of people simply don't seem to give as much of a shit about image quality as you do.

They definitely don't! I care more about image quality than most people. That doesn't change the fact that most people care at least a little about image quality, and if they had a truly free choice to make, would choose image quality all the time over lightness the almost never they need to move their monitor. I mean, I don't care about fuel economy as much as my dad, but that doesn't somehow mean I don't care about fuel economy at all, or that I care so little that it shouldn't be a primary consideration when the differences between the cars I'm looking at boil down to that and a couple things that matter even less to me.

I'm not saying you're wrong to care so much about it, I'm saying it's your opinion to say that CRTs are categorically better than LCDs.

Okay, seriously, I'm not saying CRTs are categorically better than LCDs. I don't know where you're getting it. I didn't say it, I don't mean it, nothing I've said implied it, and I don't understand why you could possibly think I've said any such thing. I do not now, nor have I ever, stated or believed that CRTs are categorically better than LCDs. Saying or believing such a thing would be criminally stupid, genuinely batshit fucking retarded.

Are we clear now? Is that misconception of yours laid to rest, or do I need to go on?

And this includes mundane tasks like office work, and in fact is even more important there, since LCDs are much harder on the eyes,

Not. Factual. Both will kill your eyes if you let them.

Well, both a .22 and a .45 will kill your face if you let them, but that doesn't mean one isn't better at it than the other, and I cannot understand how a device which makes it harder to read text could possibly not result in more eyestrain. That said, I have no evidence to support this assertion, and no more than apocryphal experience, and a quick Google search shows a variety of assertions to the contrary. I don't understand how that could possibly be so, but without evidence to support my assertion, I withdraw it.

And in gaming, it's worse, unless you're Jeff's dad, because you're stuck with the native resolution, whether the game you're playing can be run productively at that resolution or not. Again, win to the CRT.

Not necessarily true. Mine runs both 1080 and 720 pretty well, though those are both industry-standard HD resolutions, and only two to choose from.

Of course not necessarily true. What I meant by the reference to Jeff's dad is that some people have a video card capable of running whatever games they choose at whatever resolution they choose, but for many people, this isn't an option. If you're stuck at 1680x1050, and you don't have a high end card, you're stuck lowering image quality until your frame rate can be brought up to acceptable levels.

And marketing misleads them as to the relative importance of various characteristics, leading to a realignment of market availability based not on consumer preference, but on marketing ease. That leads to a product which pleases fewer people less of the time, and in the case of CRTs, leads to a near-complete elimination of a largely superior technology due primarily to misleading marketing. Consumers aren't really getting what they want, they're getting what someone tells them they want, and those two are often not the same thing.

That's possible, though I believe that consumers are getting what they want and they're voting with their checkbooks.

Could be. I've never seen anything to suggest that's true, but we clearly have very different experiences with users. Or something.

They want easy, universal, and not a bitch to move around.

What about an LCD is easier or more universal than a CRT? I don't know what "easy" means in this context, but a CRT is far more universal than an LCD. As for it being a bitch to move around, I don't know where it is you think these people are taking these things all the time, but in my experience, most people dump the things on a desk and that's that. What they care way more about is the space they take up, and today that concern is largely a function of furniture manufacturers who have reconfigured desks with today's monitors in mind. When I deal with a monitor use case, this is always the issue that pushes toward an LCD, while weight is given very limited consideration.

Then your CRT wasn't a particularly good one, if it couldn't handle a resolution higher than x1024,

I didn't say it couldn't handle higher resolutions, I was suggesting that I had little use for higher resolutions and I believe that to coincide with the desires of most users.

Then I misunderstood what you meant when you said, "The reason I chose 1080 monitors was because it was in fact higher resolution than I was dealing with in a CRT." If you had little use for higher resolutions, then I don't understand why the reason you chose the 1080 monitor was for its higher resolution.

It'd be nice if we all drove Audis, but Ford seems to get more business for some reason.

False equivalence. That'd be a good metaphor if we were talking about TN vs IPS, but not LCD vs CRT, because the reason more people drive Fords than Audis has to do with cost.

In that case, your choice between CRT and LCD would come down to size and weight versus image quality, and I absolutely cannot believe that your LCD purchase in that case would be an improvement at all. It would have been, in almost every way that mattered, a step down.

A step that made no significant difference to me. I have this crazy habit of looking at my monitors as straight on as possible. Everything is fantastic!

[s]Right. And everyone is you. Your use case - small studio, a desk that can't fit a monitor, needing to turn the monitor around so it faces your drum kit - is very typical.[/s]

You make a lot of noise about how my position is opinion, based on my preferences, but that seems to be the shoe you're wearing, as far as I can tell. My position is informed by a decade or so getting people the monitor they want, and that means the monitor they actually want, irrespective of what someone's told them they want. Nothing you've said encourages me to change that position. While it seems to me that your use case, like mine, makes an LCD ideal, I retain my position that in the vast majority of use cases, an equivalent CRT would better satisfy the needs of the vast majority of users. That's not my personal opinion - again, my current use requires an LCD - that's my professional experience. Yours may differ.

[Raygun]

Okay, seriously, I'm not saying CRTs are categorically better than LCDs.

Hmm. Well, you've got a funny way of not suggesting that, dude!

Could be. I've never seen anything to suggest that's true, but we clearly have very different experiences with users. Or something.

This is the only thing that makes sense.

What about an LCD is easier or more universal than a CRT? I don't know what "easy" means in this context, but a CRT is far more universal than an LCD.

Plug in and go. Auto syncing position and resolution, using a standard resolution (1080). When everyone is using a standard resolution on a more-or-less standard technology, shit gets universal.

As for it being a bitch to move around, I don't know where it is you think these people are taking these things all the time, but in my experience, most people dump the things on a desk and that's that.

Until they're sitting there next to somebody, doing something on the computer, and flipping the monitor around to show the other person what's on the screen. I see this kind of thing almost every day of my life (working with doctor's offices, car dealerships, and retailers). How are you missing it? Don't even start talking about how this is just as easy to do with a CRT, man.

Then I misunderstood what you meant when you said, "The reason I chose 1080 monitors was because it was in fact higher resolution than I was dealing with in a CRT." If you had little use for higher resolutions, then I don't understand why the reason you chose the 1080 monitor was for its higher resolution.

To clear this up: As you were saying, 1920x1080 isn't that much more vertical resolution than 1280x1024. I had no need for more vertical resolution, but because audio files and panoramic photos tend to take up more space horizontally, having that additional 640 horizontal was desirable. Sorry for the confusion.

It'd be nice if we all drove Audis, but Ford seems to get more business for some reason.

False equivalence. That'd be a good metaphor if we were talking about TN vs IPS, but not LCD vs CRT, because the reason more people drive Fords than Audis has to do with cost.

I was going with quality as opposed cost. Audis, in my experience, are better quality cars than Fords. They also happen to be more expensive. The same exact principle applies to monitors.

You make a lot of noise about how my position is opinion, based on my preferences, but that seems to be the shoe you're wearing, as far as I can tell.

Yes, because IT IS. We're both stating opinions based on our experiences. I don't mean to suggest that my opinions are any better or less fallible than yours.

My position is informed by a decade or so getting people the monitor they want, and that means the monitor they actually want, irrespective of what someone's told them they want.

Sure, except that YOU informed their decision, rather than them relying on marketing. You're getting them the monitor that you think best serves their needs, based on factors that you believe to be important. The same way I do.

Nothing you've said encourages me to change that position. While it seems to me that your use case, like mine, makes an LCD ideal, I retain my position that in the vast majority of use cases, an equivalent CRT would better satisfy the needs of the vast majority of users. That's not my personal opinion - again, my current use requires an LCD - that's my professional experience. Yours may differ.

Yes. And my point here is that it most certainly does. I really have trouble fathoming how a CRT would be a better choice for anyone who isn't dealing with color accuracy specifically. Other than response time (ridiculously unimportant at this point) it's the only edge CRTs have over LCDs.

[3278]

What about an LCD is easier or more universal than a CRT? I don't know what "easy" means in this context, but a CRT is far more universal than an LCD.

Plug in and go. Auto syncing position and resolution, using a standard resolution (1080). When everyone is using a standard resolution on a more-or-less standard technology, shit gets universal.

CRTs are plug in and go. They can run any resolution well, not just the native resolution. There is no standard LCD resolution; 1080 is not a standard resolution. Nothing about LCDs is more universal than CRTs.

Auto positioning sure is nice, though. I mean, whee, it saves me 30 seconds of calibration, not that big a deal, but I still think it's novel. Definitely one place the win goes to LCDs...although when you compare it to the fact that, say, you miss details in every dark scene you ever watch because of uneven backlighting, or one of these other LCD flaws, those 30 seconds don't seem like a big deal. Still, I really like it.

As for it being a bitch to move around, I don't know where it is you think these people are taking these things all the time, but in my experience, most people dump the things on a desk and that's that.

Until they're sitting there next to somebody, doing something on the computer, and flipping the monitor around to show the other person what's on the screen. I see this kind of thing almost every day of my life (working with doctor's offices, car dealerships, and retailers). How are you missing it?

That's not moving the monitor, that's rotating the monitor. CRTs do it just fine. [And maybe if the viewing angles were better, they wouldn't need to swivel their monitors so much. But you saw that one coming, right?] The weight of a CRT doesn't somehow make it harder to rotate it to show someone else what's on it. How are you missing that?

Then I misunderstood what you meant when you said, "The reason I chose 1080 monitors was because it was in fact higher resolution than I was dealing with in a CRT." If you had little use for higher resolutions, then I don't understand why the reason you chose the 1080 monitor was for its higher resolution.

To clear this up: As you were saying, 1920x1080 isn't that much more vertical resolution than 1280x1024. I had no need for more vertical resolution, but because audio files and panoramic photos tend to take up more space horizontally, having that additional 640 horizontal was desirable.

Right, but - here, let me make this bold for you: aspect ratio has absolutely nothing to do with CRT vs LCD. I get that this was helpful for you, but it has absolutely nothing to do with the CRT vs LCD issue. 16:9 CRTs exist, and would be a viable choice for people without space or weight considerations, or for whom those considerations are second to aspect ratio. Additionally, most CRTs equivalent to your LCD would be capable of running a significantly higher horizontal resolution as well as a significantly higher vertical resolution, so you'd be able to get the same stuff on the screen and then some.

Don't get me wrong, an LCD was probably right for you, given your use case, but resolution should have played no role in it.

It'd be nice if we all drove Audis, but Ford seems to get more business for some reason.

False equivalence. That'd be a good metaphor if we were talking about TN vs IPS, but not LCD vs CRT, because the reason more people drive Fords than Audis has to do with cost.

I was going with quality as opposed cost. Audis, in my experience, are better quality cars than Fords. They also happen to be more expensive.

They don't happen to be more expensive, they're more expensive because they're higher quality. What is your point, here?

The same exact principle applies to monitors.

Yes, but that has nothing to do with CRT vs LCD, either. I don't know what your point is supposed to be.

You make a lot of noise about how my position is opinion, based on my preferences, but that seems to be the shoe you're wearing, as far as I can tell.

Yes, because IT IS. We're both stating opinions based on our experiences. Fact has very little to do with this conversation at all.

I'm sorry you feel that way. To my mind, this conversation is almost entirely about fact, and secondarily about professional experience. We've both provided a number of both facts and experiences. My personal experience, as well as my professional experience, does not match your own. I have no way to account for this except that one or the other or both of us has had experiences which are not typical.

My position is informed by a decade or so getting people the monitor they want, and that means the monitor they actually want, irrespective of what someone's told them they want.

Sure, except that YOU informed their decision, rather than them relying on marketing. You're getting them the monitor that YOU think best serves their needs, the same way I do.

Right, but here's the part that makes all the difference: I don't get paid any differently depending on what monitor someone gets, unlike the marketer. I don't have a professional bias toward one type of monitor, so I can provide a more objective viewpoint than the mad men who want you to buy their monitor. [Or in the early days, just an LCD, since driving (artificial) demand for LCDs meant more people would buy more monitors, trashing perfectly good CRTs for something novel.]

And I don't think we do this the same way. I haven't seen anything to suggest that you even consider CRTs for users, which implies to me that you don't get someone the monitor that best serves their needs, because you just get them the LCD that best serves their needs, unless you think they're dealing with color accuracy, about which, more, now:

Yes. And my point here is that it most certainly does. I really have trouble fathoming how a CRT would be a better choice for anyone who isn't dealing with color accuracy specifically. It's the only edge CRTs have over LCDs.

Okay, now you're just pissing me off. I don't know if you can't read, or are just stuck on your own thing, but color accuracy is so very much not the only thing better on a CRT than an LCD. I've listed, like, a dozen characteristics of CRTs that are technically superior to LCDs. You can debate the relative merits of those issues if you so choose, as compared to the benefits of LCDs, but if you can't even comprehend the basic characteristics of the devices being discussed, I'm really not sure what I can do.

Seriously, I'm not trying to be a jerk, but you're completely ignoring a huge swath of simple, clear, basic, factual information; this isn't one of the million arguable points of the conversation, one of those few that genuinely boils down to opinion, this is the part of the argument that comes down to objective fact, and your objective facts are completely incorrect and wildly ignorant. What am I supposed to do with that?

[Bonefish]

Jello wrestling. It's the only way to decide this conflict conclussively.

[Jeff Hauze]

Conclusions via concussions, I guess? I'm sorry, I don't speak Johnny Reb.

[Raygun]

That's not moving the monitor, that's rotating the monitor. CRTs do it just fine. [And maybe if the viewing angles were better, they wouldn't need to swivel their monitors so much. But you saw that one coming, right?] The weight of a CRT doesn't somehow make it harder to rotate it to show someone else what's on it. How are you missing that?

*thunk* *thunk* *thunk* *thunk* thunk*

Okay. I'm sick of this bullshit too.

[Bonefish]

Conclusions via concussions, I guess? I'm sorry, I don't speak Johnny Reb.

Shut up, you know you'l lget a chubby from this! And Earl needs someone for victory(or defeat) sex.