I've got a 17" CRT monitor (5 years old) and it still works well but i want to buy a new monitor minimum 19" and i'm very interested in buying an LCD but i'm scared because :

First, i like playing First person shooter games a lot (& also others kinds) and i don't know if it's good playing them in a LCD.

Second, the only dvd player i've got is in my computer but i think LCD are ok for movies.

Third, a lot of people told me : pay attention to dead pixels because they're very common on LCD screen and they ever keep apologizing without changing the monitor. How can i verify this since when you buy it it's in a package and you have to turn it on to see that ?

Fourth, i've read in an article that problems of "remanence" have arrived since lower time response of 5 ms & ...
It's reversible : apply a white screen for one hour and it's ok but it's boring.

Fifth, my screen is always on and a friend of mine has seen is Lyijama just blowing (a black mark in the screen).

Anyway, help me establishing reliable facts to make my choice because a monitor is the thing which lasts more in a pc and i don't want to invest in a bad thing.

If you know essential criteria of choice, please tell me. For example, time response, angle of vision ?, ...

So tell me, what's your advice : LCD or CRT again ?

I'd definetly go for a LCD. i have LCD myself, though only 15'' -- and an old philips too. but i have no dead pixels. not a one. however on an iBook lcd screen i have one r.i.p. :]

well, imho the basic advantages of LCD are -- flatness, high contrast, being exact [it's easy to map gfx device pixel onto the actual lcd screen pixel, which with crt is not quite the case..] and small size.

also, i think it's easier to damage a crt screen than to get dead pixels on a lcd -- at least i see dead pixels very rarely [and i've seen a few lcds].

regarding FPP games, or other fast-paced ones -- small framerate hurts more than lcd screen response, actually.

I've had TFT (LCD) for years now and I would definately recommend you to get one now.Why ?
Because :

1) It gives of alot less radiation (good for your health).
2) It uses way less energy (good for your wallet).
3) It's much more acurate (colors etc.)
4) I play first person shooters all the time, and I don't have any ghosting-problems at all.

None of my TFT-displays has had any dead pixels (even the display in my crappy and really old Compaq Pressario).
Response time is the most important if you play FPS all the day (around 12 ms would be fine).
Angle of vision isn't really important (unless it's really crappy ofcourse).

Flatscreens are sweet once you get used to the blur (if you've never used one before you'll see it when you start usually) flatscreen's don't work off a refresh rate like normal crt's do, they use the ms of the monitor to distinguise how fast it refreshes (why you see a blur sometimes, because there's actually a delay) tho after a week or somethin of using it, the blur goes away pritty much, tho don't let just the ms of a monitor make you purchase it, i've seen 20+ ms monitor outperform 12ms monitors just because there better quality.

a neat thing about lcd's is there actually grown, kind of like how you might have made sugar crystals or whatnot back in like grade 1 lol.

one thing tho related to flatscreens, if you tend to get lots of headaches due to staring at a crt even when setup with a high refresh rate (75+ is unnoticable by the human eye, since our eyes don't see past around 60fps i think it was), because lcd's don't use refresh rate, sometmies they've been known to worsen headache occurances.

Just read the reviews, as usual, and pick the one you like the best. CRTs are pretty much yesterday's stuff, so it might be a good idea to move on already. ;)

Hmm... a few things to clear up here.

Total response time is a bit of a misleading spec - you want to see if you can find out what the rise and fall response times are. A slow fall time will result in blurring, because the liquid crystals don't return to their normal state quickly enough for immediate response.

Well... before I go any further, let's go into how LCD's work a bit. The means of how the color is generated isn't so important to this, so I won't go into that, but the crystals themselves will help you understand the response thing. The liquid crystals used on LCD panels change their molecular orientation when they're struck by electrons - hit them with electrical current, and the molecules untwist and allow light to pass through. So basically, the control circuitry is made up of millions of transistors that control each of the crystals in the panel. Also note that with this method, an LCD does not generate any light of its own. Back to response time, rise time is obviously the time is takes to set the crystal to an open state, and fall time is how long it takes to reset it to a closed state.

Moving along, LCD's are fixed pixel displays and CRT's are not. An LCD will always have the same number of pixels in the same orientation no matter what resolution you send it, so if you send it a resolution that doesn't match it's native one, it will have to interpolate the image in order to display it, which leads to distortion and/or image softness. CRT's, on the other hand, aren't pixel based. For another short description, there's electron guns in the back of the tube (one for each color, red green and blue), and they are fired to the phosphor-coated screen of the tube. The reaction caused by this generates light. The electron guns do a line at a time, thus giving you your scanlines. With this method, it's also possible to display any resolution (within the range of the monitor's electronics) at a 1:1 pixel ratio.

(Please note that both of the above descriptions are very basic, and only meant to serve the purpose of this thread.)

Another misleading point is contrast ratio. LCD monitors are capable of very bright (almost retina burning) whites, however, they cannot produce blacks as deep as that of a CRT. Why, you ask? Think back to the descriptions for a moment. A CRT only generates light where the electrons hit the phosphor of the screen. LCD's, on the other hand, require light that's either reflected from the front/sides or passed through it from behind, since they can't generate their own light. That means, at any given time, there will be at least some light passing through every part of the panel. Thus, the overall contrast is lower, even though the whites might be brighter.

So, to sum up some advantages... LCD's are sharper (due to their per-pixel configuration), brighter, and easier on the eyes. CRT's produce a deeper image with better contrast, and are better at handling low resolutions. What you should eventually decide upon really depends on what you want to do with the display and what you can or are willing to get used to.

I personally have an LCD and a CRT sitting on my desk. The CRT almost never gets exclusively used (I have my desktop extended to it through the use of UltraMon), simply because the LCD is so much brighter and sharper than it. There are a few caveats, however. In order to run at a native resolution, I have to play games at either 1600x1200 or 1920x1200. Any other resolution results in a soft picture, and while my monitor handles the interpolation better than a lot of displays (It softens the image rather than outright distorting it like a "nearest pixel" interpolation that some displays do; it's a Samsung panel), it's still quite noticable. A lof of 17 and 19" panels max out at the irregular 1280x1024 resolution, so make sure to watch that when you're making your decision as well. Anyway, if you can set everything you'll be using on your computer to run at the display's native resolution, I'd happily recommend an LCD overall. If not, it's really up to what kind of image you prefer. As for blur in gaming... I can't say it's a problem on mine.

Hmm i'll get LCD's now, back a year ago i had a chose between lcds, crt i chose CRT cause back then i didnt think LCDs were that good. but now they're getting pretty good :) in a year or 2 i'll definately get one! technology is increasing fast

Thank you everybody for your informations, i think i'll definitely buy an 19" Lcd but before i'll continue my investigation to make a good choice.

alienzero

[it's easy to map gfx device pixel onto the actual lcd screen pixel, which with crt is not quite the case..]

What do you mean by that ?

Ganjam4n

flatscreens are sweet once you get used to the blur (if you've never used one before you'll see it when you start usually) flatscreen's don't work off a refresh rate like normal crt's do, they use the ms of the monitor to distinguise how fast it refreshes (why you see a blur sometimes, because there's actually a delay) tho after a week or somethin of using it, the blur goes away pritty much ...

one thing tho related to flatscreens, if you tend to get lots of headaches due to staring at a crt even when setup with a high refresh rate (75+ is unnoticable by the human eye, since our eyes don't see past around 60fps i think it was), because lcd's don't use refresh rate, sometmies they've been known to worsen headache occurances.

Getting used to Blur ?
If i understand well : Lcd worsen headache ?

Orchid

Another misleading point is contrast ratio. LCD monitors are capable of very bright (almost retina burning) whites, however, they cannot produce blacks as deep as that of a CRT. Why, you ask? Think back to the descriptions for a moment. A CRT only generates light where the electrons hit the phosphor of the screen. LCD's, on the other hand, require light that's either reflected from the front/sides or passed through it from behind, since they can't generate their own light. That means, at any given time, there will be at least some light passing through every part of the panel. Thus, the overall contrast is lower, even though the whites might be brighter.

So, to sum up some advantages... LCD's are sharper (due to their per-pixel configuration), brighter, and easier on the eyes. CRT's produce a deeper image with better contrast, and are better at handling low resolutions. What you should eventually decide upon really depends on what you want to do with the display and what you can or are willing to get used to.

I'm glad you pointed out different caracteristic times because even if i know them in other subjects (like control systems, ...); i was not thinking about them in the case of Lcd.

I'm always in front of my screen because my studies require that (a lot of projects to carry out) and i'm really fond of pc games & movies, mangas, ...
So i'm afraid that the excessive brightness of an Lcd screen will give me more headaches. My question : knowing that i'm always using my computer (nearly never turned off) can i work,play, ... with an Lcd without having tremendous headaches ?

About resolutions & refresh rate (RR) : for now, i use 1024*768 @ 85Hz (17"); so i want a higher resolution and better RR because i know it's lower in Lcd but the way it works is different so what RR should i watch for ?

I meant what Orchid explained in details -- that LCD is sharper cause a pixel of an image is displayed in the actual pixel space of the LCD [if you set it to it's target resolution, that is], where on a CRT the pixel is just shoot by the light beam of the cathode-ray tube [more or less, not going into details] -- so i.e. on the edge of the CRT screen, it bends..

LCD's are typically easier on the eyes for general-purpose stuff (word processing, web browsing, etc) for a couple of reasons. 1) The light you see is light reflected from side or back lighting, rather than light being radiated directly from the screen (like on a CRT). 2) LCD's use something called capacitance discharge - the fall of each pixel output is smoother than that of a CRT, so the image seems more stable at 60hz (which is what LCD's usually default and/or max out at). With a CRT, the light output drops off almost instantaneously after the phosphor is hit by the beam, which is why you see flickering at low refresh rates. The flicker is caused by the period of time between the passes of the electron guns because the phosphors are going dark that quickly.

Also, while edge geometry and convergence can become an issue since CRT's use electromagnetic force to guide the electron beams, if you buy a good CRT it typically won't be an issue, unless you're extremely picky. You have to remember that there are no LCD's on the market that have perfectly uniform light output, either.

Anyway, I'm pretty fond of Dell LCD's myself - they use Samsung panels (the same used in the Apple Cinema/Studio displays), and some of the widescreen ones have composite/S-Video/Component inputs for plugging video game consoles and other stuff into. My only problem with my 2405FPW is that the backlight only has two settings: off and radioactive, which may be a problem if you like using your computer in the dark a lot. Also, if you do decide to go Dell, find a discount coupon on the internet before you buy. They offer 25+% off coupons on them pretty often.

We have NEC LCD's at work, and they have a deeper picture with better blacks than the Dells, however half of them have at least one or two dead pixels right in the center of the screen. I have about a dozen friends with Dell/Samsung LCD's and not a one of them has a single dead pixel (Dead/stuck pixels are usually caused by faulty transistors - not the panels themselves, by the way.

I use an Apple Cinema 20in display (widescreen), I've had it for a while and I am still very pleased with it. It's been good for games, movies and general use (programming etc...), though it was quite expensive. As Orchid said it uses the same panel as the Dell, though I believe it has a different backlight.

As for the backlight, I leave it on maximum (mainly because at the mid range it makes a high pitch whine, at at minimum it's not bright enough), some people do comment that it's very bright, though even at maximum some of my flat mates and I watch films in the dark on it without any problems. I find that I rarely get headaches or eyestrain from using the display, unlike my old CRT (A 17in Sony E200, I think).

+ make sure you buy one with a DVI port, rather than the ones with only a VGA port. You will get a clearer picture.

Maybe someone can clarify one thing for me, I've heard from a couple of sources that having a dark bezel (the bit of the case surrounding the panel/CRT) can cause more eyestrain than a lighter one. Not sure if this is true or not.

19" is a good starting point, a good pricepoint. you won't be able to go to any resolution higher than 1280x1024 however, so keep that in mind
also, its best to run LCDs at their native resolution at all times (again with a 19" thats going to be 1280x1024) so if you game alot, make sure your video card can handle that

the issue of "remenance" (i think you are referring to ghosting) depends entirely on the person and their eyes. 25ms combined rise/fall has been enough for me to not notice ghosting, but on the other hand i know people who can see it at 12ms.

the benefits of LCDs outweigh their detriments, and i suggest you get one. good luck and remember to check out about a specific LCD model on review websites before buying (google + insert lcd name here + reviews)

When i started using my laptop with the LCD after my computer broke down my eye vision improved and i found that i could use the computer in a blight room and have no problems :)

When i get the new computer, i will try and change to to a LCD :) so getr a LCD :) but do look at reviews before you go and buy one as well :) i heard dell lcd screens are quite good :)

I would recommend a modern, decent quality LCD... Dell offers one model, the 2001FP that kind of sets the minimum bar I think that would make you happy. I bought one of these back when the price was pretty high ($750) and haven't regretted it.

Here's why:
1. Pixel response time of 16ms. This means the monitor truly refreshes at 60Hz, consequently there is no noticeable ghosting effect.
2. 20.1 inch. I like bigger displays. What can I say?
3. 1600x1200 resolution. On a 20 inch monitor, you can't really live with anything lower.
4. Supports VGA, S-Video, DVI, and Component input. This covers old video cards, new video cards, HD display input, and old TV input.

Also, in one of the previous posts, someone said that the color accuracy on LCD's is better. This is not true. A high end CRT has more accurate color if you research the accuracy of their color curves. CRT's also offer better contrast ratio at the same price.

In fact, this particular model of monitor has become somewhat of a standard. The last two companies I've worked at actually provided me with one of these monitors. ;)

Also note that the Dell 2001FP and higher models are much much cheaper these days if you can catch one of the times they offer stacking coupons. Last I heard, the 2001FP could be purchased for $370 if you timed it right. =)