e-bay monitor madness!

[Canis Vulpes]

I have been down on my luck for a little while and decided to treat myself. Those who know me realise I am no fan of the LCD monitor but rather a big fan of the Sony Trinitron. I had been researching LCD monitors with a view to photo processing for some time and finally gave in. Almost settled on an Apple 23" Cinema display I decided to look on e-bay for a lower price than the 'high street'.

I don't know what made me search for 'Trinitron' but it came back with lots of very low priced units some professional specification that would cost £600-800 in their heyday. A sale was due to end last saturday morning so knowing I would be around decided to see what it was going for in the final minutes. To my amazement the same monitors were still going for £5-10 with 30 minutes remaining. I stayed at the computer and placed my bid for a 19" Sony Trinitron, moments later I had won it for £10.50......thats £10.50! Again I don't know what made me do this but I clicked 'view sellers other items' and saw a 21" G500 for sale again going for £10 with minutes to go, I placed my bid and 'won' the item for £16.50....yes, £16.50!

The only snag was having to collect the items but as I travel through my business a small detour took my to collect last Wednesday. Both items were in pristine condition, taken from a home user in leafy Surrey.

When I returned home I tried the 21" which is as clear and sharp as you would expect from Sony's finest.

Anyone looking for a new monitor should forget latency times, colour accuracy etc, etc and go for trusted CRT technology for practically nothing! CRT has no blurring, Sony Trinitrons are known to be the best for colour accuracy due to their design.

The only downsides are.... this thing is LARGE, really large and heats the room quite a lot. The radiator should not be necessary in winter. No guarantee - you could always buy another at that price! Its also very heavy 30Kgs and would not fit into the boot of my Audi so both had to go on the backseat secured by seatbelts. Finally its not widescreen, the best of my knowledge suggests no widescreen trinitron computer monitors were ever produced. If there were any I would be looking for one!

Attached is a photo by my bargain! (wide angle 17mm shot hence distortion) Compact flash card in lower LHS for size reference.

you are welcome Stephen; I spent years lugging various 21" CRTs around and watching them go grey after a year or two, till having bought my powerbook for emergency site use found its display on a 15" screen better and was pleased to see the last CRT out of the door - surprised you don't find the same on your more modern powerbook

[Gidders]

Stephen

I'm using a HP monitor with a 21" triniton tube but in the last few weeks it has started flickering and snapping in and out of focus, but until that point I loved it particularty with its 1600 x 1200 resolution.

I too have been researching LCD screens, and not wanting to downsize on resolution have been contemplating a 24" widescreen but decent ones have price tags of ~£600+ so I was very interested in your post. I'd be interested to know the name of the ebay seller that you bought your screens from, and where are they located.

[Canis Vulpes]

Clive,

My screen's were bought from a chap in Surrey who had two only. There is plenty of e-bay CRT madness just be prepared to travel and collect.

Agreed, 23-24" S-IPS screens are silly money and becoming obsolete quickly as the technology is developed. I think a used professional spec CRT is the way until LCD technology matures.


I forgot to mention there are NO dead or hot pixels on a CRT which is something of a lottery when you buy a LCD. Apparently a screen must have 10 pixel defects before its considered to be bad because they are mostly grade 2 (I forget the actual term)

[Wheeler]

I threw out my last CRT years ago. I've never had a dead pixel on a monitor so either I'm lucky or the technology's not as bad as you've convinced yourself it is. Gone are the days when I'm happy to devote so much deskspace to a monitor and risk a hernia moving the thing.