[Spliff]

I want to buy a 19" CRT monitor, but I'm on a bit of a budget.

I hear Samsung and NEC are good. What about ViewSonic?

And more importantly, what specs should I look for? I'm pretty clueless as to what separates a good monitor from a bad one.

[Powaqqatsi]

Originally posted by Spliff:
I want to buy a 19" CRT monitor, but I'm on a bit of a budget.

I hear Samsung and NEC are good. What about ViewSonic?

And more importantly, what specs should I look for? I'm pretty clueless as to what separates a good monitor from a bad one.

High refresh rates (+80 hz) and a small aperture grille I think. Also, look for Trinitron or simlilar. But I don't think they make normal tubes anymore.

[Powaqqatsi]

The ViewSonic E75f looks nice (I haven't got the time to check prices and the ViewSonic site is a bit weird)

[bradoesch]

Originally posted by Powaqqatsi:
High refresh rates (+80 hz) and a small aperture grille I think. Also, look for Trinitron or simlilar. But I don't think they make normal tubes anymore.

By normal do you mean non-Trinitron? If so, I'm pretty sure they still make shadow-mask CRTs. But I do agree, look for a monitor with a Trinitron tube-- they're so much brighter and clearer. I've got a ViewSonic PT813 and it just blows away my iMac DVs display (which it very well should of course.)
I'd buy a monitor where you can see it in action first, try all the resolutions and see if you like what you see.

[Powaqqatsi]

Originally posted by bradoesch:
By normal do you mean non-Trinitron?

Yep . You know, screens that are kind of "spheric" instead of flat (FD Trinitron) or half-flat (Trinitron).

[Eug Wanker]

Originally posted by Powaqqatsi:
High refresh rates (+80 hz) and a small aperture grille I think. Also, look for Trinitron or simlilar. But I don't think they make normal tubes anymore.

I personally prefer shadow mask. The colours are often not quite as bright, but OTOH, the text quality is often much better.

It depends on what you want to use it for though.

Also, for a 19" I look for a minimum spec of 1600x1200 x 75 Hz. YMMV.

[benb]

Originally posted by Eug Wanker:
I personally prefer shadow mask. The colours are often not quite as bright, but OTOH, the text quality is often much better.

It depends on what you want to use it for though.

Same here. I have also had problems with Trinitron's going to crap after a few years. The screen ould be narrowest at the top and widest in the middle, and no amount of fiddling with the gometry controls could fix it. I don't know, but of all the monitors I have had (3 Trinitron and many more shadow mask), the shadow mask ones seem to age better than the Trinitrons. After a few years, the overall image of the shadow mask looks better to me, it doesn't degrade as much. And the fact that the convergence always seems a bit off to me.

[dfiler]

CRT image quality varies greatly between two monitors of the same brand and model. Some have convergance proglems, some have crawling dots, and most are reasonably perfect.

So... my criteria for buying display is: Buy from a local store so that you can exchange the display if it happens to have slight problems.