Sony has discontinued all CRT monitors.
This is a sad day for me. For about 7 years i've lived by Sony's CRT monitors. They have had the best visual quality of any monitor i've ever seen.
I had been looking to upgrade my 19" to a 21" CPD-G520 soon and almost have enough saved but when i looked online today i noticed that there were far fewer available and they seemed to go up a bit in price. A few of the places i called said they had none in stock and then the last place i called told me that Sony has actually discontinued ALL of their crt monitors for lcd's. Called Sony and its true.
Its really sad when you've developed a brand loyalty to someone and then they completely stop making the product that you love. I play a lot of games so obviously i can't stand the picture quality of lcd monitors not to mention the fact that they're a lot more expensive.
Does anyone know of another good brand of high performance CRT monitors that can even compare to the Sony ones? Nothing i've ever seen in a store comes close.
I had been looking to upgrade my 19" to a 21" CPD-G520 soon and almost have enough saved but when i looked online today i noticed that there were far fewer available and they seemed to go up a bit in price. A few of the places i called said they had none in stock and then the last place i called told me that Sony has actually discontinued ALL of their crt monitors for lcd's. Called Sony and its true.
Its really sad when you've developed a brand loyalty to someone and then they completely stop making the product that you love. I play a lot of games so obviously i can't stand the picture quality of lcd monitors not to mention the fact that they're a lot more expensive.
Does anyone know of another good brand of high performance CRT monitors that can even compare to the Sony ones? Nothing i've ever seen in a store comes close.
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I reccomend you check out merkortech.com. Many of us here have bought their refurbed monitors (including myself) and loved the outcome (expensive monitors at really cheap prices).
Has Sony quit marketing CRT monitors? or Have they quit making Trinitron tubes?
Two very different issues.
That means no more F520.
Must... buy... now...
This indeed is a sad moment
AFAIK, only high-end Mitsubishi & NEC monitors utilize the DiamondTron CRT tubes (aperture grille, perfectly flat).
Its really hard to tell what the max refresh rates for each resolution are by the specs on merkortech.com. Its also hard to find any info on the G520's refresh rates other than max res/refresh and recommended res/refresh.
It's currently available at Merkortech right now, or at least the last time I checked. It's the best monitor I have ever used/owned, especially since I paid a fraction of the cost compaired to what this thing cost brand new (over $1500 new, I got it for just over $300 shipped).
Just be sure to get a "Grade A" monitor no matter what you end up buying. Otherwise you'll get one with scratches on the screen (however minor they may be).
No more "decent" monitors for me, just the best!
I can do 100hz@1280*960
They (LCDs) do not overheat, draw less power (hugely less than CRTs do when they sleep, and lots less even when actively displaying), take up less desk or table space, etc-- and most are light enough that you can wall-mount them now that flat panels are using more and more plastic\polymers and less and less glass.... Expect a type transition over next two years. Then another to cool plasma technology, within next decade.
Correct. I like NEC 21" high-end monitors also-- for pure quality of picture. AFAIK, Sony will still be mfring the Trinitron CRT gun and tube assemblies, just not whole monitors. NEC\Mitsu makes monitors with Trinitron tubes also, though they are very high end offerings typically-- the funny thing is, in US, one of the biggest mfr refurb high-volume lead resellers for NEC\Mitsu is TigerDirect .
They buy CRT mfr refurbs by the whole truck trailer load per model, almost. ProVantage sells some mfr refurbs also, mostly Sony and NEC\Mitsubishi. So does Dartek, but they are also under the same umbrella corporation now as is TigerDirect-- the SystemMax umbrella.
My main problems with it are the contrast, the color, the brightness doesn't go low enough, and text is a bit blurry (might be the convergence).
My Sony E400 had an amazingly crisp picture. The contrast got bright enough that i kept it down to about 60 to be perfect. The new monitor needs to go all the way up to 100 and it still feels like it might be slightly dimmer.
The color seems a bit yellow but this should be easily fixable with some tweaking. I just need to set my old monitor up next to the new one so i can get it as close as possible.
The brightness on my E400 got very low if i needed it to. The normal setting was around 55-60 but this new monitor seems very milky unless i take the brightness all the way down to zero. Is there some way to recalibrate it so that the normal range is more in the middle like the 50's so that i can take it even lower if i want? This is helped though by the light sensor setting which does take the brightness much lower in low light situations. The problem is that it also seems to take the contrast a bit lower than i like even when its maxed out at 100. I also don't really like the idea of an auto adjust.
The text seems a bit blurry and rainbowy which leads me to believe it could be fixed by tweaking the convergence. I've never really tried this but i assume it can't hurt.
Overall i'm pretty disappointed. Don't get me wrong, this monitor is fantasic by most standards its just that my Sony E400 is my most prized possession in the whole world and i only really wanted to upgrade it if i could get a near identical monitor just with higher refresh rates and a larger screen. If i'm still longing for my old picture somewhat it makes me wonder why i upgraded to begin with. I'll take some time with it and finish the tweaks but i may end up selling it to a friend and holding out for a leftover CPD-G520.
I would recommended starting by running the auto configure in the settings menu (again, I'd have to be sitting in front of it to tell you exactly where it is) and going from there.
The convergence is also something which will need to be played with before you really can judge the picture (again, only AFTER the heater has warmed up). Finally, in the Color menu, you can tweak the RGB settings to your liking.
As for the light sensor, I don't use it either. It's an interesting little gimmick, but it was far from the reasons I purchased the monitor in the first place.