crt for eye cancer but super smooth no ghosting almost nill input lag or 120Hz lcd for good eyes, low input lag and almost no ghosting + less weight/volume
LCD's are much more tiring for my eyes - and I'm not talking about the shitty ones.
Basically, it comes down to personal preference, but I think, that top CRT's are still better regarding image quality, colors, contrast, refresh rate and input lag. Not to mention that they are ridiculously cheap.
The only "thin" monitors which are able to at least somewhat compete with them are starting at roughly 300 $.
Do you think this monitor is good enough: Samsung 955DF 19"
Afaik you got more experience than I have with CRT monitors, As I've never actually had a CRT monitor :)
Don't waste money on buying a new CRT monitor. People want to get rid of them nowadays.
If it's only for quake then just get anything that can display 640x480 or 800x600 @ 120 hz. You can buy used one very cheaply or even get it for free.
I found mine on a small advertisement site where ppl give stuff away or sell it for low prizes.
it's a polish site. You need to figure out yourself where ppl sell such things in your country. It may be a site like that or maybe a local market with electronic/pc components if you have such things.
edit: Or just ask your friends if they don't have a CRT getting dusty in the attic. Most 'modern' CRTs can display 640x480@120 and some ppl tend to not throw away such things when they stop using it.
IBM ThinkVision C190
IBM P260
IBM P275
Eizo FlexScan F931
Iiyama Vision Master 454 Pro
ViewSonic G225fB
Sony GDM-F520
Sony GDM-FW900
Sun GDM-5410(which is basically a Sony) Dell P992
Dell P1130
Dell P1230
HP P1230
Apple Studio Display
Most of them are ridiculously cheap, despite the top-noch image quality and refresh rates.
You can find many of them in a really excellent condition.
Well, if it's used, its price should be around 40-55 $ - if it is in an excellent condition.
Black ones may be (but not necessarily) a bit more expensive.
If you are lucky, maybe costs a bit less.
If I had the money, I would gladly pay even 75-80 $ for it if it's flawless, but that amount of money should be considered overpricing.
It's a DAMN GOOD monitor. Like IBM-stuff in general. The OSD-menu is simply effective and easily understandable. I would definitely like to have one, it's clearly a professional choice by any means.
Well, what to look out for?
Scratches on the plastic and on the screen, brightness or contrast problems (try the lowest and highest settings too), blurriness, discolouration due to magnetization around the screen edges.
If there's a problem, try to degauss it first.
Bring *jpgs with yourself, both artistic ones (with a lots of detail) and single colored ones (like fullscreen blue, green, red, black, white). Try out, if 1600 x 1200 works properly on 100 Hz.
The visible lines on the screen (especially when the background screen color is light, like white) are normal for a Trinitron monitor. These are shadows from the damper wires used to stabilize the aperture grille.
Look closely at the cables and look for a small amount of rust on the D-Sub connector's pins.
There are also some little utilites internet-wise, which testing the monitor's hardware too, like convergence, colors, refresh rates, geometry and so on.
If you have a bit more money, you can color-calibrating it with proper hardware (not software).
There are professionals who do this for you, usually around ~30-40 $. It's worth the money, but if you do that, never ever touch the brightness, contrast and color controls again (not even in your VGA drivers - of course ingame \r_gamma and \r_contrast is another thing).
That's a single product defect, it doesn't mean that the exact model is not a pro solution nowadays.
I would buy a nice 21" Trinitron / Diamondtron in excellent condition and color calibrate it with a technician, all this for about ~60 EUR. But it's your money, your decision.
IMO, if you have a decent screen, be it LCD or CRT... and it works fine, and you are not a professional gamer, then you have more money than sense if you want to buy a new screen "for that extra edge".
CRTs and LCDs follow the same norms when it comes to level of electromagnetic radiation. It all comes down to visible part of EM spectrum and effectively - eye strain. If your monitor causes you eye strain then it's unhealthy and you should do something about it.
Calibrate it (ale these advanced calibration settings in CRTs are very important so take your time and do it properly), switch to 6500K color temperature, lower the brightness, run at high refresh rate, take regular breaks. If it doesn't help then try another technology like LCD.
I personally use LCD on my laptop and external CRT. LCD causes me more eye strain than CRT.
edit: I can't stress it enough - lower the brightness. Lower it even more when it gets darker. In fact you should set it to 0 and then keep raising it until it's just enough.