Raygun wrote:3278 wrote:Nope. Viewing angle isn't an opinion. Color reproduction isn't an opinion. Neither are contrast ratios, brightness, resolution, color depth, response, or any of the other characteristics of a monitor that make it better for looking at stuff on.
Yes, those things you can test, assign values to, and say 'this is technically better than that." Even so, stating categorically that "CRTs are better than LCDs" is an opinion that is only supported by fact if you first
exclude from consideration the advantages that LCDs have over CRTs.
Right, except
you're saying exactly what I said. I included the nuance that CRTs are superior to LCDs in every way
except size and weight, so I definitely didn't state categorically that CRTs are better than LCDs. My point is that those characteristics are only significant in a minority of cases.
Raygun wrote:3278 wrote:As I say, mainstream LCDs of today are inferior in absolutely every way except size and weight, two characteristics which are typically much less important for the majority of use cases than the ability to see what's on the monitor.
In your opinion.
Oh, no. I'm sorry if I've given you that impression. I definitely didn't mean to. No, actually, I use an LCD as my primary monitor because I'm in one of the edge cases where it's necessary, or at least desirable. So it's not my opinion that one's better than the other, only that in the majority of use cases, users choose based on distorted perceptions and skewed priorities; this isn't based on my opinion, it's based on my experience in the field, working with users and choosing hardware with them. My opinion is probably a lot stronger, and less reasoned; my experience is as I've represented it.
Raygun wrote:Not everyone cares about those minute details that make CRTs technically better than LCDs at viewing angle, color reproduction, contrast ratio, brightness, color depth, or response.
No, not everyone does. But without distorted marketing and human frailties like an over-emphasis on the value of novelty, most people, all other things being equal, would be happier overall with an equivalent CRT than an LCD. Most people like to be able to see things well. Most people don't like eyestrain. Most people like to be able to share a monitor without distortion. Most people have a spare square foot. Most people don't lift their monitors very often.
Raygun wrote:Once I installed everything and found that the picture was not only acceptable but an improvement over my old CRT (the image was flatter and wider; handy when you're editing audio files), I bought another LCD to replace the CRT in my office.
No offense, but it sounds like you had a really shitty CRT, then!
Flatter? Did you not have a flat CRT? And again, width is only "better" on LCDs because CRTs were on the way out before 16:9 aspect ratios became popular; nothing about CRTs makes them inherently incapable of having that aspect ratio!
Raygun wrote:3278 wrote:Do most people care about sound quality?
No, I don't believe they do.
What? So most people would be just as happy with a speaker with holes in it than a speaker without? Most people are fine with AM radio quality, and don't want anything higher-def? Most people don't want CDs, and were fine with the sound quality of cassette? Pull the other one.
Raygun wrote:No, I don't believe I have the right to tell them that they MUST consider one thing more important than the other when spending their own money.
Yeah, no one's doing that here. If I've somehow given that impression, my apologies.
Raygun wrote:3278 wrote:So they're worse at doing the things you do with them - reading text, looking at images, watching video, playing games; actually seeing stuff, in other words - but better at stuff that doesn't matter as often, like how heavy they are and how far from the wall your desk needs to sit. Check.
No. In general, LCDs are
not significantly worse at doing those things than CRTs, plus they're easier to move around.
Well, we have interesting differences of opinion on what qualifies as "significant," and apparently wildly differing opinions about how often people move their monitors.
Raygun wrote:I would have to suggest that this is because you put entirely too much emphasis on how much 'better' image quality is with CRTs when, for the most part, these differences are academic and don't make much difference to users.
They don't have to be big differences, though, because even a minor difference is significantly more important than characteristics - size and weight - which are of much lesser concern to the majority of people.
Raygun wrote:In my experience, the vast majority of people simply don't seem to give as much of a shit about image quality as you do.
They definitely don't! I care more about image quality than most people. That doesn't change the fact that most people care at least a little about image quality, and if they had a truly free choice to make, would choose image quality all the time over lightness the almost never they need to move their monitor. I mean, I don't care about fuel economy as much as my dad, but that doesn't somehow mean I don't care about fuel economy at all, or that I care so little that it shouldn't be a primary consideration when the differences between the cars I'm looking at boil down to that and a couple things that matter even less to me.
Raygun wrote:I'm not saying you're wrong to care so much about it, I'm saying it's your opinion to say that CRTs are categorically better than LCDs.
Okay, seriously, I'm not saying CRTs are categorically better than LCDs. I don't know where you're getting it. I didn't say it, I don't mean it, nothing I've said implied it, and I don't understand why you could possibly think I've said any such thing. I do not now, nor have I ever, stated or believed that CRTs are categorically better than LCDs. Saying or believing such a thing would be criminally stupid, genuinely batshit fucking retarded.
Are we clear now? Is that misconception of yours laid to rest, or do I need to go on?
Raygun wrote:3278 wrote:And this includes mundane tasks like office work, and in fact is even more important there, since LCDs are much harder on the eyes,
Not. Factual. Both will kill your eyes if you let them.
Well, both a .22 and a .45 will kill your face if you let them, but that doesn't mean one isn't better at it than the other, and I cannot understand how a device which makes it harder to read text could possibly not result in more eyestrain. That said, I have no evidence to support this assertion, and no more than apocryphal experience, and a quick Google search shows a variety of assertions to the contrary. I don't understand how that could possibly be so, but without evidence to support my assertion, I withdraw it.
Raygun wrote:3278 wrote:And in gaming, it's worse, unless you're Jeff's dad, because you're stuck with the native resolution, whether the game you're playing can be run productively at that resolution or not. Again, win to the CRT.
Not necessarily true. Mine runs both 1080 and 720 pretty well, though those are both industry-standard HD resolutions, and only two to choose from.
Of course not necessarily true. What I meant by the reference to Jeff's dad is that some people have a video card capable of running whatever games they choose at whatever resolution they choose, but for many people, this isn't an option. If you're stuck at 1680x1050, and you don't have a high end card, you're stuck lowering image quality until your frame rate can be brought up to acceptable levels.
Raygun wrote:3278 wrote:And marketing misleads them as to the relative importance of various characteristics, leading to a realignment of market availability based not on consumer preference, but on marketing ease. That leads to a product which pleases fewer people less of the time, and in the case of CRTs, leads to a near-complete elimination of a largely superior technology due primarily to misleading marketing. Consumers aren't really getting what they want, they're getting what someone tells them they want, and those two are often not the same thing.
That's possible, though I believe that consumers
are getting what they want and they're voting with their checkbooks.
Could be. I've never seen anything to suggest that's true, but we clearly have very different experiences with users. Or something.
Raygun wrote:They want easy, universal, and not a bitch to move around.
What about an LCD is easier or more universal than a CRT? I don't know what "easy" means in this context, but a CRT is
far more universal than an LCD. As for it being a bitch to move around, I don't know where it is you think these people are taking these things all the time, but in my experience, most people dump the things on a desk and that's that. What they care way more about is the space they take up, and today that concern is largely a function of furniture manufacturers who have reconfigured desks with today's monitors in mind. When I deal with a monitor use case, this is
always the issue that pushes toward an LCD, while weight is given very limited consideration.
Raygun wrote:3278 wrote:Then your CRT wasn't a particularly good one, if it couldn't handle a resolution higher than x1024,
I didn't say it couldn't handle higher resolutions, I was suggesting that I
had little use for higher resolutions and I believe that to coincide with the desires of most users.
Then I misunderstood what you meant when you said, "The reason I chose 1080 monitors was because it was in fact higher resolution than I was dealing with in a CRT." If you had little use for higher resolutions, then I don't understand why the reason you chose the 1080 monitor was for its higher resolution.
Raygun wrote:It'd be nice if we all drove Audis, but Ford seems to get more business for some reason.
False equivalence. That'd be a good metaphor if we were talking about TN vs IPS, but not LCD vs CRT, because the reason more people drive Fords than Audis has to do with cost.
Raygun wrote:3278 wrote:In that case, your choice between CRT and LCD would come down to size and weight versus image quality, and I absolutely cannot believe that your LCD purchase in that case would be an improvement at all. It would have been, in almost every way that mattered, a step down.
A step that made no significant difference to me. I have this crazy habit of looking at my monitors as straight on as possible. Everything is fantastic!
[s]Right. And everyone is you. Your use case - small studio, a desk that
can't fit a monitor, needing to turn the monitor around so it faces your drum kit - is very typical.[/s]
You make a lot of noise about how my position is opinion, based on my preferences, but that seems to be the shoe you're wearing, as far as I can tell. My position is informed by a decade or so getting people the monitor they want, and that means the monitor they
actually want, irrespective of what someone's told them they want. Nothing you've said encourages me to change that position. While it seems to me that your use case, like mine, makes an LCD ideal, I retain my position that in the vast majority of use cases, an equivalent CRT would better satisfy the needs of the vast majority of users. That's not my personal opinion - again, my current use requires an LCD - that's my professional experience. Yours may differ.