What do you have and how big!

I have a 17inch flat panel mac screen.

Flatscreen are much better than cheaper CRT screens although I would say that simerly priced CRT screen do offer much better resolutions.

My only bummer is the basically one decent native resolution with flat panels, moving any where past this doesn't lead to great picture quality.

Also some of the flat panels on the market, although cheap really look like appauling attempts to get 2 or 3 year old laptop montiors in a desktop screen, and are very much best left.

We got an LG 18" Flatron L1800P when it seemed amazingly cheap at around £950, two years ago, on the principle that whatever your computer system, investing in a good monitor was always going to pay off.

While I think this is still true, the monitor doesn't seem so cheap now though , as they've halved in price, and will probably keep on plummeting.

CRT's still have the 'theoretical' technical edge for photographic & games use, but it's amazing how your brain quickly learns to read and compensate for the sometimes unflattering qualities of LCD [unflattering because they're so precise] - to the extent that after a couple of weeks a CRT looks so blurred and woolly you really would never consider going back, even though you *know* that the persistence of CRT is in some cases better. It's a bit like getting used to a pair of varifocals.

In my flat screen TV fantasies, plasma seemed, until very recently, the way to go. A stroll round Curry's shows that things are not that simple any more. Latency and contrast on LCD displays seems to be improving by the week, and plasma is beginning not to look slightly less 'right', whatever that might be.

LCD is going to conquer the world, and even if we don't like it, we can console ourselves that we'll very quickly get used to it.

throb

I recently bought a Philips 17" LCD from PC World for £310. I think its well worth seeking out LCD panels with good contrast ratios. The Philips was 50 more somethings than the others at the same price and you could really see the difference in dark parts of photos.

Martin

Don't hold your breath on flat panels being the future, I know of one company that is not far off a foldable screen, yup a screen you can roll up and take with you.

Now that would be sweet!

I have a 21" Sony CRT on my oldish desktop (700MHz) which I use for photo processing because you can adjust the colour temperature and lots of other aspects of colour. This is very usefull because I have the screen "matched" to the color off my photo printer which gives me true WYSIWYG which is vital for photos.
I have a much newer laptop with a 15" LCD screen which has better sharpness for word intensive tasks.

One other comment. A key part of the whole equation is the quality and resolution output your Video card is capable of. The laptop is capable of 1600 x 1200 resolution which really brings out the amount of detail visible on the LCD. At lower resolutions the LCD is not as sharp.

GEOFFP

Understood, but like a CRT there is a native resolution where the various flatpanels work best.

You could have the worlds best video card, it ain't gonna help the flatpanel because its restricted by the size of the pixels.

Its a shame, and no doubt will improve.

I have a 15" flat screen from the Tiny etc shop, £195. I think its great VFM its screen is only 1/4" smaller than my 17" CRT and is a hell of a lot smaller and lighter box. My son still plays his NASCAR 2000 on it and has not complained about so I guess it functions OK.

Howard

If you're looking for a high quality monitor for image retouching, don't go for the lcd. The crt are in a different league. The Sony GDMF 520, with a aperture pitch of 0.22mm is stunning.

I can't imagine lcd touching crt for some time, because of the method of reproduction.

Room isn't a problem in my computer room, so I was quite lucky to pick up a Dell 21" (I think) with Sony Trinitron tube for £20 when my brother's company upgraded to flatties.
Tony
ps. Had a 14" before!

Tony you must have a very strong desk, my 17" nearly collapsed ours (it is a MFI one though).

Howard

Tony you must have a very strong desk, my 17" nearly collapsed ours (it is a MFI one though).

Howard

Now come on guys stick to the topic there's no need to digress. After all I think MFI desks deserve a topic all of their own

Regards
Clive

Talking of Trinitron can you still see the wires?

Stuart

Yep, those two lines are just visible, but for the price I paid....
My desks came from my wife's last company, very strong and no silly, useless drawers etc.
Tony

I have the Dell 21" Sony trinitron-based monitor too which I purchased after some informed reponses to a post I made about a year ago. I thought I got a great deal at $250 US, but obviously not as good as Tony. Image quality, brightness and contrast is excellent. Far better than the no-name 17" I had before and rather better than a 15" flatscreen that is on the computer in the next room. For someone who does on-screen image editing of largely analog-sourced pictures (35mm and 6x7 formats)a monitor of this size and quality is a godsend.

Ron
Dum spiro audio
Dum audio vivo

I've got an HP M70 at home, and it's not very good (17inch CRT). The screen is sharp enough but colour purity is pretty crap even after degaussing...

However, I'll have a CRT over TFT any day - my eyesight problem LOVES the no-flicker of panels, but the contrast is all over the place and I hate that if you run in anything other than native res, the quality tanks.

My PC is dead as we speak though - hope to get it back up later tonight when I rebuild it...

My 1995 Compaq laptop (485 DX100) has an 8 inch TFT - it's brighter and with better whites than almost any other laptop I've ever seen - including bang up to date ones. Pity the CMOS battery's dead - anyone know how to replace them?

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