I'm currently running two 17" CRTs. One is about 4 years old and running fine the other is nearly 10 and is starting to become a bit fuzzy. They are also both restricted to 1280 x 1024.

I've decided I want to make my primary monitor (4 year old one) my secondary monitor and offer the old one up on freecycle (it's still perfectly good with excellent colours but lacking some definition).

I had a look on eBay and decided that decent TFTs are still far out of my league and I've seen far too many TFTs that look far worse than my 10 year old monitor to warrant messing about with cheap ones.

So I then looked at CRTs, it seems there are plenty around but the snag is people don't want to post them so I'm keeping a look at what's around locally.

I'm looking for at least a 17" ideally 1600x1200 but most importantly a good picture quality. I'd like to spend no more than £50 so what should I look out for? It seems there are a few 17" Apple Studio Displays around for about £30 which would be perfect if one crops up locally.

I have a 19" AOC 9GLRS, cant fault it. It does 1600x1200 @ 70Hz and that's what I play LFS in.
Cost £130 a good few years ago brand new, so they would be fairly cheap now I would have thought.

The thing is now though, to get the same height screen but widescreen, I need a 24" or bigger and they cost serious £££ at the mo

Don't seem to be many AOCs around on eBay any other good brands?

I've got 3x Compaq P1210 22" CRTs, all from ebay, cost £100, £65 and £40 respectively. Looking to get another as the £40 one is a bit knacked (red tint to the darker colours and blurred text - the guy got bad feedback) but the other two have been fine. In fact the best of three is exceptional, I can't fault it, best CRT I've ever used. Not surprising since they were £750 new. Runs at 2048x1536@75Hz, or 1600x1200@85Hz (of course there are a few other resolutions inbetween too).

As I said, I'm looking to get another one but atm there are only 2 on ebay, both from a seller I've already used and didn't think much of (he dropped the monitor off personally, a bit cheeky considering £26 delivery I paid, and even asked for good feedback even though he was 6 weeks late with the delivery!...) so I'm not using him again.

But if you've the space that's one of the best CRTs you can find. The trouble is people don't realise how good the image is supposed to look (perhaps being used to crap CRTs) so when they say the image is fine it could mean anything.

Anyway, that's all my personal experience extends to, hope that helps.

anything newer with a triniton tube should server you well ... especially if theyre rebranded sonys where you can do a lot of adjustments via software to ressurect them from the (almost) dead

Keep in mind that most of the older Apple displays need an ADC-VGA or ADC-DVI adapter.

For £50, I've no idea what I'd get, because I'd never spend that little on a monitor. I'd rather spend more for a monitor that'd be better and probably last longer.

Have you looked on places like dabs.com, scan.com, micro-direct.com and so on?

^^A new monitor is out of the question. I don't want to spend much as getting a car takes priority then a computer upgrade. If I can't find a cheap decentish monitor locally on ebay over the next month or so then I'll probably take the Freecycle route, which can be just as good only problem is you have no idea what you're getting short of the size before you pick it up so it could be good or bad and you can't really do anything but the polite thing of taking it even if it's straight to the tip

Quote from Bob Smith :

I've got 3x Compaq P1210 22" CRTs, all from ebay, cost £100, £65 and £40 respectively. Looking to get another as the £40 one is a bit knacked (red tint to the darker colours and blurred text - the guy got bad feedback) but the other two have been fine. In fact the best of three is exceptional, I can't fault it, best CRT I've ever used. Not surprising since they were £750 new. Runs at 2048x1536@75Hz, or 1600x1200@85Hz (of course there are a few other resolutions inbetween too).

As I said, I'm looking to get another one but atm there are only 2 on ebay, both from a seller I've already used and didn't think much of (he dropped the monitor off personally, a bit cheeky considering £26 delivery I paid, and even asked for good feedback even though he was 6 weeks late with the delivery!...) so I'm not using him again.

But if you've the space that's one of the best CRTs you can find. The trouble is people don't realise how good the image is supposed to look (perhaps being used to crap CRTs) so when they say the image is fine it could mean anything.

Anyway, that's all my personal experience extends to, hope that helps.

iv just done a search on ebay for those monitors and iv found the bloke your on about... from bolton.. but he dont claim they do the sort of resolution as you say.. he says they as 1920 x 1440 / 80 Hz max, but what im really wanting too know as 3 of these would be hell of alot cheaper than buying a tft. is how you get 3 monitors too run on your gfx card.. i only have the 2 ports... 1 a normal monitor port and the other that dvi port... were you plug in the other one...

That guy has the specs wrong, trust me there.

As for plugging them all in, I have 2 PCs, the left and centre displays are plugged into my main rig, the right display into the secondary rig. So, I can't triple screen games, which would be nice. I managed something similar by joining a server I created with the other PC and a custom camera position, however you end up with two separate FOV centres. See photo. If I could adjust those (I did make a thread in improvement suggestions) then I could get both images to match and it would be great.

im liking the look of that LOL


the bloke onlt lives 60 miles from me and at £20 each i think thats a right bargain.... so theres no way of getting more that 2 monitors on one machine, well unless you have sli...

Well his excuse for the late delivery, and then the personal delivery, is that he was moving further up north (to Bedlington - so it didn't take long to drive to my house), if that held any truth then perhaps he just hasn't updated his ebay info, or maybe still keeps a shop of some sorts in Bolton.

Matrox has a product called TripleHead2Go. Google it.

I have 17" CRT ADI MicroScan...works fine for 3-5 years od hard-using

Forbin - that has major refresh rate and resolution limitations.

Quote from Bob Smith :

Forbin - that has major refresh rate and resolution limitations.

iirc they increased the maximum refresh rate for 1024*768 and 1280*960 to 75 which should be enough anyboddy except for the ultra refresh rate sensitive crowd

Dell and Samsung CRTs are good. Will have to pay a good price for the high res and low response time ratings... but it is worth it. Viewsonic maybe... but they have lots of choices in a good price range.

@Tweaker: I think you mean refresh rate. A CRT's response time is many times faster than that of an LCD and is (I think) primarily responsible for why you see flickering on CRT's. I personally can't stand anything under 80 Hz and typically use 85 Hz on my behemoth (Sony FW900).

blah, I was talking about LCD's yeah. :doh:

CRT refresh rate should at least be 75, if you can't go above 60 or 70, that is terrible. 75 is safer for a CRT monitor, and you shouldn't notice any flickering if you use a really high resolution. 80 or 85 is not good for the life of your CRT... and anything higher just kills the components. My monitor can go up to 120hz at 1600x1200, but there is no point nor any difference to that of 80hz imo.

Have a 21" Sony CRT here that is 75lbs, and I can't wait to get rid of it and replace it with a lighter (and crisper) LCD.

Quote from Shotglass :

iirc they increased the maximum refresh rate for 1024*768 and 1280*960 to 75 which should be enough anyboddy except for the ultra refresh rate sensitive crowd

Well, I've always had problems with refresh rates, 75Hs makes me eyes strain quite quickly, 85Hz is the minimum, I'd love to run 100Hz all the time but I prefer the desk space the higher resolutions give.

My school, when they first upgraded the PCs many years ago now, had lots of 15" CRTs running at 60Hz. Aside from the minor eye strain and headaches it gave me, one day it screwed my eyesight right up, everything went really blurred, had to sit somewhere else for half an hour or so and let my vision come back.

I can't watch conventional 50Hz tellies for too long either, they're not so bad though since you're far away and not concentrating that hard on the image.

But back to the hardware, anything less than 1600x1200 is very pixelated on a screen this large (another reason I'm not fond of TFTs, their perfect pixels means they suffer from aliasing really badly, IMO small text looks horrid on TFTs, not nice and smooth - yes still crisp - like on a CRT), and I need that 85Hz to be comfortable.

Quote from Bob Smith :

But back to the hardware, anything less than 1600x1200 is very pixelated on a screen this large (another reason I'm not fond of TFTs, their perfect pixels means they suffer from aliasing really badly, IMO small text looks horrid on TFTs, not nice and smooth - yes still crisp - like on a CRT), and I need that 85Hz to be comfortable.

CRTs are really NOT crisper than a good LCD screen. Most cheap LCD screens will really mess up the crisp quality of finer details when you are at the wrong resolution (better to use the highest resolution it supports, or native resolution). And even a good resolution wont fix it on cheaper LCD models because they simply suck with what technology they use for the pixel alignment and their backlight. It's best to have any LCD screen that is UXGA or higher.

With CRT you are relying on poor signals and lots of landing and miore issues. CRTs will have a very good color gamut, but usually is poor with various contrast levels. LCD's are very consistent from corner to corner, but are limited with its color gamut. It is possible to find one that is really spot on with color representation and good quality all around.... however those professional displays will be around $600/£300 or higher these days.

Edit, here is a good read for comparison: http://compreviews.about.com/od/multimedia/a/CRTvsLCD.htm The one that holds true the most is where they mention the CRTs can die over time. This is true, and I'd rather invest in a quality LCD at this point, than a large CRT that will die within 4-5 years.

Quote from Bob Smith :

and I need that 85Hz to be comfortable.

you do realize that the 60hz on an lcd dont cause any sort if flickering since lcds are setup & hold displays
atherwise full agreement as long as its a aperture grille ... text on a shadow mask looks horrible

Quote from Tweaker :

CRTs are really NOT crisper than a good LCD screen.

true yet i (like bob apparently) prefer the slight vertical gaussion blur of an aperture grille which results in text thats a lot nicer to read than on an lcd imho

Quote :

With CRT you are relying on poor signals and lots of landing and miore issues.

not true for high quality crts and good graphics cards ... the worst youll have to deal with a minor geometry issues which imho are hardly recognizeable in desktop usage

Tweaker - I never said CRTs are crisper than LCDs. But LCDs are over-crisp, the pixels stand out far too much. As to the link you provided, I was hoping for something much more in depth, rather than a comparison which stated the obvious. Huge is impressive in my book, and heat generation saves me having to put the central heating on - so it's not wasted energy.

Shotglass - I'm well aware TFTs can't flicker, they are a little easier on my eyes too.

Cheap TFTs are a massive improvement over cheap CRTs, in just about every way. But compared to a good CRT, and in my case especially, all the advantages are unimportant but all the disadvantages are. Well that's a slight lie, the 1.5 inch plastic frames around the CRTs means I have 3 inches between images on my multi-monitor setup, with TFTs I could reduce that to almost nothing. I'm sure I'll give in at some point, but until then, CRTs for the win.

What's this one like: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/IBM-21-P ... yZ174QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

sounds good:
* Specifications:Manufacturer: Sony
* Model Number: P275 (22P6429)
* CRT Type: 21" FD Triniton CRT
* 19.8" Viewable Screen Size
* Screen surface treatment: Anitreflective/Antistatic
* Resolution Maximum: 1920 x 1440 @ 75 Hz
* Recommended Resolution: 1920 x 1440 @ 75 Hz
* Dot Pitch: 0.24 MM Stripe Pitch
* Horizontal Scan Range 30 - 130 kHz
* Vertical Scan Range 48 - 170 Hz
* 300 Mhz Video Input Bandwidth
* Connectivity: 15 PIN Mini D SUB / DVI-A
* Complete On Screen Digital Menu Controls
* Power Cord Iand VGA Cable Included
* Monitor Dimensions: 20.1" x 19.8" x 18.1"
* Weight Unit: 68.3 Lbs