[monokitty]

Which of the two has better quality - LCD or CRT displays?
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I've seen the Apple LCD monitors, and have personally judged their quality significatly less than high-end CRT monitors. The extreme brightness of Apple's LCDs is also annoying. Then, I've looked at other LCD screens that are just slightly thicker, but far better in quality versus the Apple LCDs - and not nearly as bright, far more crisp.
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Thoughts?

 

[Urban_Legend]

You know I have come to the same conclusion as you with regards to Apple's LCD's and other manufactures LCD's. It is a very tough decision on which LCD to purchase these days. I am in the market, but I think I will wait until the new year to see how much more the LCD prices will drop as predicted.

As for the CRT monitors, you may get more accurate colour etc... but man they sure hurt on the eyes.

I too would love to hear from anyone who owns anything else besides Apple LCD's and give your opinion on them.

 

[PosterBoy]

The main issue with Apple's LCDs isn't the brightness, in fact the brightness is usually not that bad, and as a rule the brighter the backlight the better (it makes for better colour).

The issue that Apple's displays have low contrast ratios (ability to display colour difference from one pixel to the next). Apple's displays are all 350:1, which sounds high until you compare it to say the Viewsonic VX series which start at 500:1 and go up.

For most users though, this is fine. Professionals working with Video or Graphics will probably still want to use CRT displays for one main reason though:
LCDs can actually colour match as well a CRT these days, the problem is that LCDs don't look consistant from all angles, in fact until recently a variation of a few degrees in viewing angle could cause quite a shift in colour. It is getting steadily better, but it is not quite there yet.

The other thing to consider is that OLEDs (Organic Light Emitting Diode) displays are starting to get to the point where big volume production, and not only are they better at colour matching and require less power to run, but they are actually cheaper to produce!

To give you an idea of what an OLED could do for a computer, think about what they are about to start doing for Cell Phones, Toshiba recently debuted an new OLED cell phone at a big tech show in the UK. It is capable of displaying video as well as any LCD (they had a fish swimming in screen) but it has as much (or more) battery talk/standby time as the average new phone that only has a one line LCD display.

Plus, on top of it all, some people recently discovered that with a slight modification one of the diodes in an OLED will produce a different colour if you run the current backwards through it, so you can have an RGB (three diode) with just two diodes, requiring less power and boosint battery life even further!

Good times are right around the corner for digital devices.

--PB

 

[jkojima]

I work part time for a tech helpdesk, and have seen pretty much every make and model of LCD and CRT come through. As a semi-pro designer, I also have a very strict eye for displays.

I'd say in terms of absolute image accuracy, CRTs still hold the lead - graphic designers and publishers in particular are probably the biggest single group of CRT holdouts. Another key benefit of the CRT is resolution scalability; LCD screens only produce the best picture at their native resolution.

That being said, I personally prefer LCDs, because I think the technological gap is rapidly narrowing, and LCDs provide other benefits. Chiefly, an LCD takes up very little desk space as compared with a CRT, and is much easier on the eyes after prolonged periods of use.

Apple LCD displays are very good overall, but pricey. Dell actually produces very high quality LCDs at really good prices - the just discontinued 17" 1704 panel was particularly vibrant and colour-accurate. Samsung makes good value panels, but quality could be better. Their analog units are so-so, and generally seem to exhibit some ghosting around black text on white backgrounds that can't be fully eliminated using the on screen controls. Higher end digital-capable panels from Samsung seem to not have the same problem and are in fact very nice. Viewsonic and IBM panels are solid choices. I hear Formac produces stunning units, but haven't seen one myself. I'd say the "sweet spot" in terms of image quality, contrast, and resolution is in the 18" to 19" range these days. Larger panels seem to still have low contrast ratios (around 300:1) and the units I've seen appear to exhibit uneven backlighting.

As for CRTs, I think the champion remains anything based on Sony's Trinitron tube, though Mitsubishi Diamondtron units are also pretty solid. LaCie makes some great CRTs based on the Mitsubishi tube, and they are geared towards designers. Beware though - their 22" model is the size of a small oven, and probably produces nearly the same amount of heat! IBM and Dell units using Trinitron tubes are also worthy of note. Sony's high end CRT models are great. Other manufacturers, like Viewsonic and Samsung, offer good value, but the overall image quality leaders are I'd say Sony and LaCie, in that order.

The clincher? Any Apple user knows style counts, so how can you go with anything but an LCD unless you absolutely, positively need a CRT (and IMHO, nobody, not even designers these days absolutely postively need CRT - except maybe for budgetary purposes).

 

[Neil Yates]

I've bought and used just about every brand of LCD out there. Apple, IBM, Dell, Samsung, Hitachi, Viewsonic, LG.

I now use a Samsung 191T 19" LCD on my PC and an Apple 17" LCD on my Mac. I used to have 2x 21" Sony Trinitron CRTs on my PC. I don't regret switching to LCD one bit on the PC. No heat, no eyestrain, no flicker, no radiation, perfect focus, instant on/off, no pincushioning or other geometric calibration issues.

However, I don't really like my 17", too dim, and the pixel-response time seems to be way too low (35ms+ ?). New Samsung displays like the 213T and 195T all have 12ms pixel-response, high brightness/contrast ratios like 400cdm2 and 500:1, and resonable pricing. Unless Apple offers comparative pricing and increased brigthness/contrast ratios and much lower pixel-response times, I won't be getting another Apple, but going to Samsung on my DVI-enabled AlPB.