My last monitor purchase was an LCD (also known as flat panel or TFT) display, and now that prices have dropped to the affordable range, I will never be buying another CRT monitor again. In this article, I will explain my reasoning behind this thinking, elaborating on a topic by topic basis. Furthermore, I will give points to each display technology for each category.

Up until very recently, if you wanted a to get a fashionable LCD monitor, you had to pay a premium. Now, 17 inch LCD monitors are down to the $250 range, making them nearly as cheap as their CRT counterparts. In fact, if you want a CRT that is going to be close to as clear as an LCD, you will have to buy a non-budget display, meaning that the LCD may end up being cheaper. Still, those looking to save as much money as possible will probably end up with a cheap CRT. Give 1 point to the CRT.

Figure 1. A typical CRT monitor

I can't talk about price without talking about the monitor sizes. When you are looking to buy any type of monitor, the first thing you look at is the size (diagonal measurement of the screen) on the monitor. For instance, most typical buyers these days look to get a 17 inch monitor. When you look at a 17" CRT, you will notice that only about 16.1" are viewable. On the other hand, a 17" LCD monitor gives you the full 17" as a viewable screen. You are actually getting what you paid for with a LCD. 1 point for LCD displays.

We might as well jump to the technology itself. CRT monitors are notoriously good at representing colors, especially when properly calibrated. On the other hand, LCD monitors are very bright when compared to CRTs. For the professional designer that needs exact colors for reproduction on various media types, a CRT is still the technology of choice. However, everyone else will benefit from the brighter, more vibrant LCD displays. Let's call this a tie (you decide which category you fall in).

Every LCD display I have ever used has had incredible text rendering capabilities. The text is very easy to read, even for aging eyes. CRTs can have good text rendering capabilities, if you want to spend a small fortune for them. Even the cheaper LCD monitors are better at text display than most CRTs, which is a boon to anybody who uses their computer to read something (i.e. everybody). LCD gets the point here.

Now moving on to the way these two technologies actually work. In a CRT monitor, there is a electron gun moving back and forth at high speeds, illuminating phosphorous on the back side of the glass. When you set the refresh rate in your preferences, you are setting how fast that gun moves. The faster it moves, the more solid the picture looks. However, if this setting is too low, there will be very noticeable flickering, which is extremely irritating.

The way LCD monitors works is quite different. In an LCD display, there are millions of little pixels that can be turned on and off individually. All of the pixels are always in the same spot. This technology means the image is always solid, no matter what the refresh rate is. There is never any annoying flickering, which gives 2 points to the LCD monitors (I really hate flicker).

Figure 2. A typical LCD monitor

Because of the nature of LCD screens having a set number of pixels, they have a native resolution (this is exactly how many little pixels are built into the monitor). When you wish to use a lower resolution (higher resolutions are never possible), the monitor will have to use multiple physical pixels, and many times parts of a pixel, to display an on-screen pixel. The monitor will have to use some interpolating functions to accomplish this, and this will never be as good looking as when running at the native resolution. CRT monitors never suffer from this problem, so they get the point in this category.

Another area in which LCD displays have inherent technology problems is with quickly changing colors. This is called the response time, measured in milliseconds. The higher the response time, the more time it will take to change colors. This is only a problem if there is a lot of fast paced action, such as in games or movies. The problem this causes is there will be a lag in changing frames of the game/movie, and thus there will be a ghosting effect seen. Luckily, LCD manufacturers are hard at work in this area. Currently, the fastest response time is 8 ms, but ghosting effects are rarely seen at anything below 16 ms. Again, CRTs simply never have this problem, so that technology gets another point.

Aging Effects

One thing I have noticed with every CRT display I have noticed is that the image quality lessens as the monitor gets older (normally noticed by increased blurriness or shadowing). However, this is one area where the technology behind an LCD completely corrects that problem. The size of the built in pixels will never change, which means that the monitor will always have a crisp display, no matter how old it gets. The only thing that you really have to worry about is the backlight dying. Luckily, the lamps used have very long life ratings, so this should not be a problem unless you plan on using the monitor 24 hours per day for about 10 years. Overall, the LCD monitors get the point here.

Now, let's examine the absolute worst thing that can happen with a LCD monitor, dead pixels. No matter how much you spend on your monitor, from the budget $150 15" monitors to the superb $3300 30" Apple Cinema HD Displays, there is always the possibility of some dead pixels. These can come in a variety of blemishes including stuck at a color, always over bright, or never on pixels. Having one might mean that you have a bright or dark spot on in the middle of your monitor that will never go away.* Worse yet, most manufactures feel these little problems are no big deal, unless you have a bunch of them (often 8 or more). These things are extremely annoying, and thus the CRT gets two points for these things.