LCD vs CRT

diroga

diroga

New Member
I'm going ut to college and putting to gether a computer. I need to figure out what type of moniter to get, LCD or CRT. I like the small space of the LCD and it's good image quality. But my brother, a civil engineer, who does CAD for hours on end says LCD's will hurt my eyes more and for CAD a flat screen CRT is what i need. Other people have told me the briteness of the LCD will hurt my eyes also. I'm going into Electrical Engineering so I will use CAD and be programing, I will no doubt be in fornt of my monitor a lot. I will also be using the monitor for entertaimen via games and movies. The three catagories i can think of are image quality, cost, size. I have a buget of $1,000 for the entier computer. I am not familier wiht the numbers and nomenclature of moniters. i know CRT's are cheeper than LCS' and CRT's are much larger. I am looking for about 17-21 inches in viewing size.
 
I would decide on the system you want and then see how much you have left and let that dictate the type of monitor you get
 
If you're using your computer a lot, I'd go with a LCD. They are easier on your eyes because they don't run by Hz(constant flickering) unlike CRTs. Now, LCD's tend to be MUCH more bright than CRT monitors, but you can usally adjust this. They won't get as dark as CRTs, but my LCD on my laptop's running pretty dark now(saves battery and I use it in the dark a good bit)
 
LCD's wont hurt your eyes because they don't flicker. CRT's will hurt your eyes and may give you a headach if the refresh rate is low. If the lcd is too bright, just turn down the brightness.
 
CRT have a higher frame rate and a better contrats ratio.
If you play games alot, get a CTR, If you do not play games alot get LCD
 
. But my brother, a civil engineer, who does CAD for hours on end says LCD's will hurt my eyes more and for CAD a flat screen CRT is what i need. Other people have told me the briteness of the LCD will hurt my eyes also. I'm going into Electrical Engineering so I will use CAD and be programing, I will no doubt be in fornt of my monitor a lot
Click to expand...
1. People doing CAD will benifit from the CRT because it will provide you a sharper image
2. If you're going to looking at text (i.e., word/acrobat documents), its kinda a tossup between a LCD and CRT (i.e., personal preference). Odds are the tossup will goto LCDs.
3. LCDs arent that bright (CRTs tend to be brighter) but regardless, you can tone down the brightness and contrast to taste

Now, LCD's tend to be MUCH more bright than CRT monitors
Click to expand...
If you pick a random LCD from all the LCDs ever made and a random CRT from all the CRTs ever made, CRTs will be brighter. Not all LCDs are of the current generation ... just look at 2nd generation laptops for instance. Of course if you get a nice current gen LCD that will be evened out but then your budget wont be. :)

And, you don't have to lug around a huge CRT monitor.
Click to expand...
But you also wont be able to do your HDL stuff so well due to the pixel imprecision.

CRT have a higher frame rate and a better contrats ratio.
Click to expand...
True about the contrast but LCDs dont have a framerate per se :)

If you play games alot, get a CTR, If you do not play games alot get LCD
Click to expand...
Hehe you seem to have missed the part about "electrical engineering" :P
 
Praetor thank you for your high content post.

so the LCD britness can be toned down but with out image loss?

what is contrast ratio?

HDL? what HDL are you talking about?

in my spare time and after college i would like to use the same system for games. what do i need to look for in a montire for ok preformance. in general what do i need to look for.
 
so the LCD britness can be toned down but with out image loss?
Click to expand...
Generally you can tone down both the brightness and contrast to suit your particular taste without any "quality loss" (of course, if you turn it down too low you wont be able to see anything :P)

what is contrast ratio?
Click to expand...
From Wikopedia we have,
Wikopedia said:
In reference to computer monitors, the measurement of the difference in light intensity between the brightest white and the darkest black. Contrast ratio is often used in marketing computer monitors, where a high contrast ratio, such as 400:1, represents a better color representation (the better the information will appear against a darker background) on the monitor than a lower contrast ratio, such as 150:1.
Click to expand...
I.e., the bigger the ratio the more contrast and generally, the more contrast, the better :)

HDL? what HDL are you talking about?
Click to expand...
HDL = Hardware Description Language ... something CompEng kids do although I would imagine EEs may do a bit of it ... its part coding and part CAD. While the text part (the coding aspect) may not be such a big deal, the CAD component will be a bummer if you're stuck with an imprecise screen. I guess it does depend on the cirriculum you guys will have.

in my spare time and after college i would like to use the same system for games. what do i need to look for in a montire for ok preformance. in general what do i need to look for.
Click to expand...
Budgetwise, you'll probably be able to get a decent quality CRT that suits both your school and nonschool activities before you can get a LCD that suits them because for gaming, the property/feature known as "response time" for LCD (lower is better) is one of the factors that determines the price tag of the LCD monitor. As cromewell suggested, it might be wise to get the rest of the system spec'd out first and then decide on what options are feasible with the remaining budget :)
 
Depending on the amount of CAD type of work you do, the dotpitch (0.294) may be too big (smaller is better and gives crisper image). Other than that, an awesome price-size-responsetime ratio :)
 
I would personly definaly go CRT. I don't know about them for staring at them for hours, but i do know CRT's are much better for games, movies, etc. I think the quality is better, and so is the color.
 
knexkid said:
I would personly definaly go CRT. I don't know about them for staring at them for hours, but i do know CRT's are much better for games, movies, etc. I think the quality is better, and so is the color.
Click to expand...

have you seen digital media played on a LCD monitor? it is by far better looking than CRT.
 
have you seen digital media played on a LCD monitor? it is by far better looking than CRT.
Click to expand...
I would argue otherwise but that is clearly an issue of personal preference. The color is not contestable though ... I do profesional photography on the side and simply cant use a friggen LCD for that stuff (pretty colors sure but for photography you want accurate colors).
 
should i goto circuit city and ask to run CAD on there computers on different monitor so i can see the difference? I'll play wiht some monitors next time i'm out. What is the best way to "test" them?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top