Monitor Basics - LCD vs. CRT

Herbal V wrote in with a little article discussing the differences between LCD and CRT. Briefly summarizes all the major issues (Price, Refresh Rate etc). More of a beginner level piece, but as LCD prices are dropping like rocks, it's good to be aware.

Comments

2 Years On, On LCD

[ackthpt]

2 Years and I still love my Samsung Synchmaster 172t, though my only gripe is it's TOO BRIGHT! Even on the lowest settings I think I'm getting some sort of tan. Manufacturers may wish to consider some users sit in dark rooms, plugging away at nefarious^H^H^H^H^Hworking very diligently on upstanding fine projects their mothers would be proud of!

Thing even came with a wall mount, too bad I live in an apartment (though toothpaste does have its other uses...)

Size is great, too, because a 17" LCD is almost as big as a 19" CRT :-)

Response time

[Monkey Angst]

The article only briefly mentions response time -- doesn't explain it. Response time was the reason I returned the LCD I bought and went back to my CRT -- DVD playback was awful. I imagine there are people who don't notice it, just as there are people who are more sensitive to lower CRT refresh rates, but it was hellish for me.

Health Issues

[Drexus]

It's funny, the main reason why I dumped 3 of my 20" Sun monitors for an Apple Cinema Display was the health issues. Sure, we have herd all the stories about special cameras that can read the material on your CRT through walls (and the person sitting in front of it), but that didn't stop me. No, I went ahead and set myself up with enough radiation to cook lunch. 5 months later, I found myself having trouble shaking off common colds, and my appetite went down hill. People should be aware of the health issues, not just specs.

Re:Health Issues

[.orvp]

I switched to an LCD for health reasons as well, just a different one. Mine dealt with the refresh of a CRT. When in college, I had a 19" CRT that I would program on. At night, I was having a hard time falling to sleep, and so when I couldn't sleep, I went back to programing. This really messed up my sleep patern to the point I was at a 26 hour day (where I could only fall asleep every 26 hours). That doesn't really help when trying to go to classes.

After a while, I would just fall asleep at random points because of sleep deprivation, missing classes and all. When I finally went to a sleep doctor, I learned it could be from the refresh of my CRT. I then moved to an LCD and haven't had that problem. I can now sleep 10 minutes after getting of the computer where as before I would need to wait 90 minutes for my brain to wind down.

Don't forget ClearType on your LCD

[Lev13than]

Kind of OT, but important - if you are running XP with an LCD screen, don't forget to turn on ClearType. ClearType dramatically improves the quality of text displayed on screen, to the point where my work laptop almost looks as good as my OS X box w/CRT at home.

ClearType takes advantage of the fact that LCDs make coloured pixels out of three adjacent sub-pixels (usually R-G-B), rather than a CRT which focuses all three of its guns on the same spot. By varying the intensity of the three colours in each pixel, ClearType effectively triples the horizontal resolution of type. The trade-off is some slight colour-banding in small fonts, but the payoff is a much more readable screen.

I stumbled across the settings by accident. With the increasing popularity of LCDs, I'm surprised that Microsoft doesn't promote it more.