The 900NF and similar CRTs are mostly not for everyone
Written: Jun 04 '03
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Pros: Big and flat.
Cons: Big and heavy
The Bottom Line: High performance for low price (in Canada). Better value than everything in its class.
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| purplepeoplede's Full Review: Samsung SyncMaster 900 NF 19 inch CRT Monitor |
Let me start by saying that most people would never need the benefits of aperture grille monitors, let alone a 19" model. You probably won't either. In fact, there are constant complaints about the two little horiz wires that cross the screen at 1/3 and 2/3 screen height. Do what I do, use them to line up rotated images on the horizontal. Really, though, I'm not looking at them, I have work to do.
So why would I buy one, then proceed to recommend it to others? Well, because I use it for more than office work and gaming. You see, at my house, it is the primary display for a PC that's used for 3D-CAD and digital photography. Straight lines in my drawings are displayed as straight lines and the contrast is good enough for me to work on Photoshop with no complaints. Bearing in mind that I nothing can deliver what I would really like, on this monitor, black is almost black, white is almost white and all the colours are fairly accurate.
Case in point: Someone complains that some monitor has bad colour reproduction. Yet, they haven't colour corrected the unit. Tells me that the car ain't bad, the driver is.
Here's a hint people, if you can't print the same colour on your cheap inkjet printer as on your monitor (regardless of monitor) take some time and colour correct the monitor, then use the same ICM profile for your printer output. If you don't know what this is, find out, it'll make all your home photos way better. BTW, this is why a website looks different at home, at work, on a laptop etc.
So anyway, in this class of monitor are the Viewsonic P95F, NEC FP955, LG 915, etc. Basically, the most expensive, highest res 19" monitors available. Even though I only display at max 1600x1200, I only chose from monitors that could display at much higher resolutions. It actually helps to minimize the jaggies created by curves and diagonal lines. Normally I use 1280x960 and if I had chosen a monitor that could only render that, I would definitely notice the jaggies.
At this level the different models are all basically the same, and even my well-trained eyes cannot tell them apart unless they are side by side. In fact, the tubes are either made by Sony or Mitsubishi. The Sony tubes tend to be more expensive and have .24mm dot pitch while the Mitsu tubes are .25mm dot pitch. Having the rectangular pixels is nice for really clean horizontals and verticals. Anything that has a special Extra Bright feature is charging more money for something that a pro won't need. In fact, turn it off, as it will only serve to burn out the tube sooner.
This thing is big. I could barely lift the box. So, you ask, why so big or why not a flat panel. Well, the big part is because in 3D modelling, total monitor area gets used up really fast. In fact, if I could afford it, I would have got the 1200NF. The reason for not getting a flat panel is that they do not have the contrast ratio needed for semi-professional digital photography and the active backlight technology makes for horrible colour correction. Don't get it? Try this, set your digital camera for manual white balance, then shoot an outdoor photo of a sheet of paper with the indoor setting and vice versa. The outside shot will look blue and the inside photo will look yellow. This is due to the colour temperature of the ambient light. Well, your monitor has these colour temperature settings also. Since LCDs use a transmissive CMYK filter they add a slight tint to the whole image from their backlight. Because a CRT uses an active RGB phosphor system, once the colour is calibrated, other light sources nearby don't affect the image. Call me a perfectionist!
So after all this, you ask, why not a Sony or an NEC. Well, Sony costs way too much for mostly the same thing. The Viewsonic is the same tube but costs more. The NEC is the same tube but costs more. See the pattern? Same tube, more money.
There are other smaller details. At this level you should have a monitor that is capable of a faster refresh rate than your video card. Since my card is an ATI 9700 Pro, I needed a fast monitor. That put me into the high end almost immediately. Finally, this unit has one of the (if not the) highest max resolutions in the class. Remember my jaggy lesson?
If you need this type of monitor, it's the less well known sleeper. Buy it.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 350
Operating System: Windows
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Epinions.com ID:
purplepeoplede
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Reviews written: 2
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