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A 20-year-old CRT monitor can be better than a 4K LCD (2019)

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Re: A 20-year-old CRT monitor can be better than a 4K LCD (2019)

#231
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am still waiting for a decent size e-ink screen (22"+) without backlight which should be enough for low-FPS stuff like backend coding, slack, terminal and text content web pages. Existing solutions are still too small - Dasung and Onyx Boox are 13.3" with HDMI.

Syntax highlighting is too important to me to use this.

Decent color e-ink tech is finally here:

https://gizmodo.com/the-first-color-e-ink-devices-are-finall...

It's just a matter of time before a major brand (Amazon, Microsoft, etc.) decides to take a chance and use it to make a big multipurpose tablet.

Re: A 20-year-old CRT monitor can be better than a 4K LCD (2019)

#232

Please don't let CRTs come back in style. After a while they tend to develop this headache inducing high pitched tone almost akin to tinnitus that is emitted constantly while they're powered on. It seems to be so high pitched most people cannot hear it at all but if you're one of the lucky few who can it can actually be really disruptive. Unfortunately it's also often loud enough to hear through doors, walls, etc...…

Oh the flyback transformer noise or whatever it is, that you notice whenever you enter a room where a CRT is powered on. It's very annoying. But I love how old games look on my vintage CRT monitor!

Now that you've reminded me of it I swear I hear some high pitched noises coming from some other electronics. ;-p

At least you can escape the high pitched noise by going into another room. Low frequency rumble – usually from aircraft – is a nearly inescapable torture that cities have somehow decided that their residents must endure.

Re: A 20-year-old CRT monitor can be better than a 4K LCD (2019)

#233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like 4k is pretty darned wasteful part of the hedonic treadmill. At a more reasonable resolution, this processing power could be used for higher-end graphics algorithms, better AI, longer battery life, and so on.

I've had 4K monitors on both my work laptop, my PC, and my TV for as long as that was possible. Nearly 7 years. This has cost me thousands and thousands of dollars. My logic is that when I use a computer, it's the monitor that I'm looking at. I don't sit next to the case staring at RGB LEDs. I can't "experience" a processor in any aspect except speed, and that's been perfectly acceptable for a decade. But I'll stare…

>My logic is that when I use a computer, it's the monitor that I'm looking at.

Sure. But that doesn't get over the law of diminishing returns. It might not be 4K that, but would you buy 8K or 16K because "it's the monitor I'm looking at", when the only thing it does is waste CPU/GPU, resources, and battery -- for angular resolution lost to the human eye anyway?

Re: A 20-year-old CRT monitor can be better than a 4K LCD (2019)

#234

Heh, everything is better on Tubes whether it is guitar amps or gaming monitors? :-) I can pretty much assure you that with a 240Hz refresh rate 4K LCD monitor it will look better than your CRT :-) But it is perfectly valid to say "What is the best experience I can get for $X?" and find that CRT solutions out perform LCD solutions at various price points. That said, I suspect it is less about the "superiority" of the…

The CRT monitors do have a faster response time and higher refresh rate (I've seen up to 640x480@480hz But you would be sacrificing fidelity for this "competitive advantage".

The CRT monitor being discussed in the article does 160hz at < 2K resolution and 80hz otherwise.

Re: A 20-year-old CRT monitor can be better than a 4K LCD (2019)

#235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was a kid I would always hunt down and turn off CRTs left on anywhere in the house since the sound annoyed me so much. Either my hearing has gotten worse or all the CRTs are gone now... probably both.

I read somewhere that you lose high pitch hearing first, which is why the young could hear the CRTs when the elderly could not. I tried to google for this (actually DDG) but all I got was SEO spam.

"The Mosquito" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mosquito) came to my attention when we were walking out of a multi-story car park with my kids. They complained of an irritating repeating high pitched noise that gave one a lingering headache and sense of nausea that lasted for about 20 minutes after leaving the area. If I concentrate very hard I can hear it myself but age and probably one too many loud concerts has rendered that range basically silent to me.

Re: A 20-year-old CRT monitor can be better than a 4K LCD (2019)

#236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had 4K monitors on both my work laptop, my PC, and my TV for as long as that was possible. Nearly 7 years. This has cost me thousands and thousands of dollars. My logic is that when I use a computer, it's the monitor that I'm looking at. I don't sit next to the case staring at RGB LEDs. I can't "experience" a processor in any aspect except speed, and that's been perfectly acceptable for a decade. But I'll stare…

> My logic is that when I use a computer, it's the monitor that I'm looking at. Sure. But that doesn't get over the law of diminishing returns. It might not be 4K that, but would you buy 8K or 16K because "it's the monitor I'm looking at", when the only thing it does is waste CPU/GPU, resources, and battery -- for angular resolution lost to the human eye anyway?

>for angular resolution lost to the human eye anyway?

Personal experience tells me that the resolution difference between 4k and lower resolutions (for the same size screens) are Very Noticeable on my 27 monitors. (I have one 4k and one 1440p.) Text is noticeably easier to read on the higher resolution monitor. I think this is primarily because we sit much closer to monitors than to TVs. (I don't think I can tell when my TV plays 4k vs 1080p, as I sit about eight feet away.)

If I had a 30" monitor with 8k resolution, I would probably not be able to tell a difference, unless I went looking very closely to it, so I don't think I'd spend the money on that. However, at 40" or 42", I suspect one would notice it at the distances one normally sits from a computer monitor. At that point, my reason for not buying it would be that I can't afford it. ;)

Re: A 20-year-old CRT monitor can be better than a 4K LCD (2019)

#237

I had one of those that a programmer that worked for me sold me. It did cost him something like $6000-9000 new. The image was incredible, but it had lots of drawbacks: 1. It was huge and heavyweight. Most people that say "people obsession with flatness" has never expirienced having an screen that is as deep as long and tall. Attaching it to the wall was a nightmare. 2. It had problems with magnets. I put a big magnet…

No display made in at least in late 90-s would emit X-Rays.

Re: A 20-year-old CRT monitor can be better than a 4K LCD (2019)

#238
post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tried that but looked like too much effort. Instead, I never turn off the room lights any more when using monitors. Seems good enough since oled is coming.

LED strips stuck to the monitor itself, pointed at the wall. Powered from a USB port on the monitor if it has one.

This is what I do. Cost what $10 and took about 5 minutes. Well worth it.

Re: A 20-year-old CRT monitor can be better than a 4K LCD (2019)

#239
post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read somewhere that you lose high pitch hearing first, which is why the young could hear the CRTs when the elderly could not. I tried to google for this (actually DDG) but all I got was SEO spam.

"The Mosquito" ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mosquito ) came to my attention when we were walking out of a multi-story car park with my kids. They complained of an irritating repeating high pitched noise that gave one a lingering headache and sense of nausea that lasted for about 20 minutes after leaving the area. If I concentrate very hard I can hear it myself but age and probably one too many loud concerts ha…

Teen repellent! My school had one above the entrance.

Re: A 20-year-old CRT monitor can be better than a 4K LCD (2019)

#240

Heh, everything is better on Tubes whether it is guitar amps or gaming monitors? :-) I can pretty much assure you that with a 240Hz refresh rate 4K LCD monitor it will look better than your CRT :-) But it is perfectly valid to say "What is the best experience I can get for $X?" and find that CRT solutions out perform LCD solutions at various price points. That said, I suspect it is less about the "superiority" of the…

That 240hz panel will have terrible colour reproduction compared to the CRT. Only TN panels are clocked that fast, and TN are ugly. If you want nicer colours you go for IPS, which has a very slow response time (especially when compared to a CRT). The only modern display technology that comes close to CRT in terms of colour, contrast and responsiveness, you need to go OLED. And that's great (Oled with scanline emulati…

I recently bought a couple of Alienware AW2521HFL monitors that are 8-bit IPS and do actually run at 240Hz. They don't even use FRC to achieve that 8-bit color! There's also the MSI MAG251RX which uses the same panel but adds FRC to get 10-bit color!

The downside to them is that they're 24.5" and 1920x1080. I'm ok with that because I paired them with my 34" 3440x1440 screen as side screens. However, it's a really low pixel density to use as a primary monitor.

That's the part that sucks. A nice 4k or 5k monitor like the LG Ultrafines will only do 60hz.

All that said, the Alienware screens seem expensive until you look at how much the other 240hz IPS screens cost. At the price, they also come with a nice 3 year warranty and a really good stand. The part that irritates me is they don't calibrate them. One was way off compared to the other, so I'm waiting on a warranty replacement just on the basis that I think that one is not going to be easy to correct.

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