For me, when all is said and done, looking at flat screen CRT has pretty much always been a better experience than looking at an LCD, for me. And I think one of the reasons for this is the whole viewing angle bit. My Samsung 730b is supposed to be 160°x160° but when I look at the bottom of the screen, or the top, or either of the sides, there is a discolorization that reminds me of
hologram baseball cards. As for pixel response time and scalability, I don' think LCDs are there yet and they probably never will be, I
can see there is a difference. To get into the lower response time, manufacturers have to start dropping color reproduction, which some may say it's not noticeable, but during driver installation I
saw a gradient that had dithering so hard, it almost looked like horizontal stipes. Lastly, 1 pixel stuck on red in one week lets me wonder if it's going to progressively deteriorate. I mean this one that I have right now in the middle of the screen might as well move around and have a voice of its own, so it could be like those little animated screen readers, because that's how much attention it draws from me.
To me, the strongest grace of LCDs (in comparison to CRTs) are the fact that they are so much easier to carry around & move around, plus the fact that they take up much less space due to their size and weight. (Although I HATE it when they have external bricks, then it loses some of that advantage, in mine eyes).
This has been
MY experience with LCDs & CRTs. Maybe Samsung can't make good LCDs and there are some other Miracle panels out there that are more tollerable. However, this LCD pretty much falls in line with all the other LCDs I have seen. With the exception of the SONY SDM HS74 I saw at Cicuit City (I don't know if this is their top dog or not, I know there is an SDM HS75 whose base I HATE) but that HS74 had an unbearibly awesome picture, I wanted to take it with me right there and then. However, I remembered that it is an LCD, and as such it will not give me the 125Hz refresh at ANY resolution, I
need and it probably wont scale too well to 800x600 (the res I
need). That's just too bad becase that SONY XBrite technology really looks amazing to mine eyes. Although I
REALLY did
not get to
SEE it: I didn't see it's ghosting, motion blurring, shearing, dithering with gradients. But what I did get to see was pretty beautiful, rich vibrant colors, nice clean image, brightness and contrast extraordinaire, it looked better than any monitor I had
EVER seen... I understand that LCDs refresh rate is not the same as CRTs and that 60Hz is all an LCD needs. And personally I keep my desktop at 1280x1024; that's all fine and dandy for usual windows stuff. But for Quake 3 Arena I need 800x600 @ 125Hz. And I imagine that if this holds true for Quake 3 Arena, then anything that can not meet or excede my Q3A needs probably wouldn't meet the needs of other games either. But, then again all games are made differently and NeverWinter Nights looks & plays great on this LCD. Although NWN is an RPG, that doesn't need the speed and accuracy that Q3A and other FPS need.
I guess in a nutshell, because I am addicted to Q3A, Q3A has in fact become my real world benchmark utility in which I see and feel the difference between all hardware I use. And in that benchmark LCDs dissapoint me. CRTs will most likely never be matched by LCDs. And my thinking goes, if it's not good enough for Quake 3 Arena, it's not good enough for me.
I realize that I teeter totter on the edge of which tehcnology is better, especially when mentioning that SONY and its Xbrite. But that's just the way it is. LCDs and their low power consumption, small footprint and lightweight could be king of the hill, if only they didn't ghost, motion blur, shear, limit the viweing angle, dither and if the did scale, and allowed refresh rate adjustment... For what it's worth, if God himself came down to earth and told me "I am the all knowing God almighty. I will ask you a question, and if you answer incorrectly, I will strike you dead where you stand. What is better, LCDs or CRTs?" I would risk my life with CRTs and then probably get struck down dead, because there is no spoon, it is only our will that bends...
Please, don't flame me for speaking the truth as I know it.
My hopes ride on OLED technology. Phillips unleashed the 20" and Samsung a 21" screen... I look forward to seeing these in action... Until then Q3A commands CRTs, for me.