[scottiB]

Soon, my girlfriend and I'll be ordering a Cube to replace our iMac 266. She's a graphic designer, brings her work home from time to time, and does the occasional freelance project.

My quandry is which monitor to purchase: 17" CRT or 15.1" LCD? I've read in Macworld and other articles where an LCD doesn't have as strong color consistancy and precision as a CRT.

I love how the LCD takes less space on our smallish desk but would hate to compromise any accuracy for her work-- the majority of which is print: book design, ads, posters, and signage with a smattering of web.

Anybody have any problems/issues (or not) in using a LCD for this type of work?

Thanks for the input.

From what I've seen Apple's LCD panels are bright, sharp, and comperable to a CRT. They do lack some of the color range and contrast, but overall the're very cool. However, I'd choose a nice 17' or 19' CRT over a 15'LCD considering her line of work.

[andi*pandi]

As a graphic designer, I must say that bigger is better. Palettes take up wayy too much room. Any color badness is largely irrevelant, unless she bothers to calibrate the monitor, get a hood, and work in a light-controlled (no flourescents) environment. Since she's probably like me, (er, cheap) any color-sensitive stuff she sends to prepress house for proofs/corrections.

now to toss out my own argument: let's discuss which CRT gives best color, even given bad lighting in most home studios...

[drfrank]

I'm not sure you can calibrate an LCD monitor with Colorsync easily. Any experienced users able to do this?

I also agree, bigger is better—pallets in graphics programs use a lot of screen real estate.

Frank

[scottiB]

Thanks for the replies thus far. Points were made about lighting environment that I haven't considered (being the design Philistine that I am). Perhaps I should break the bank (along with my back) and order a Sony W900 . Kind of ruins the idea of space saving, but I probably wouldn't have to do laundry for a year. Heh...heh...heh...