are CRT monitors really better?

[naotgerai]

you see, i found some posts with people talking about how CRT monitors are way better than LCD or OLED because of motion clarity, about how they could have over 60hz even before LCD's came out, etc, etc
but that seems unreasonable to me, because they say that daily driving CRT's its the better choice, and because im not a expert on monitors (turns out this is a bigger rabbit hole than i could ever imagine) i kinda need someone to give a quick rundown if possible, because i see alot of people giving arguments about how CRT's are better (mostly from people who daily drive it), but none from the opposite side of the debate (even here, i could not find many posts with the search function), so if you could give me some light into this topic it would be of great help, thanks!

[RealNC]

Off the top of my head:

Perfect geometry (CRTs can have varying amounts of distortion.)
Less power consumption.
Sharper image (but only at native resolution.)
They are lighter (CRTs feel like they weigh a ton.)
Bigger screen size (good luck trying to find a CRT monitor that's larger than 21".)

I still find the image a CRT produces more pleasing though. Not only due to motion clarity, but also the smoothness of it. It almost looks like you're using DRS/VRS downsampling. Also, the image looks good on a CRT regardless of resolution. CRTs do not really have a native resolution like LCD and OLED have. They are pretty much resolution independent and everything will look good.

(Note that I'm only talking about CRT computer monitors. CRT TVs look like crap since they're very low resolution, like 480i or 480p, while CRT monitors usually can do 1600p.)

[Kuscheln_Hammer92]

Off the top of my head:

Perfect geometry (CRTs can have varying amounts of distortion.)
Less power consumption.
Sharper image (but only at native resolution.)
They are lighter (CRTs feel like they weigh a ton.)
Bigger screen size (good luck trying to find a CRT monitor that's larger than 21".)

I still find the image a CRT produces more pleasing though. Not only due to motion clarity, but also the smoothness of it. It almost looks like you're using DRS/VRS downsampling. Also, the image looks good on a CRT regardless of resolution. CRTs do not really have a native resolution like LCD and OLED have. They are pretty much resolution independent and everything will look good.

(Note that I'm only talking about CRT computer monitors. CRT TVs look like crap since they're very low resolution, like 480i or 480p, while CRT monitors usually can do 1600p.)

It's so nice how crisp any res could look on a CRT. Not many can reach 1600p while 60hz. Maybe with interlaced modes, but you need some decent horizontal headroom.

[Dalek]

Yes and no.

CRT monitors were better at
-motion handling
-motion blur
-colour vibrancy
-able to scale better at various resolutions (to an extent)

Older games like 8-bit, 16-bit etc. especially look better on them because that's what the games themselves were also made on. This also applies to games in the 90s and early 2000s too.

CRTs were not easy on the eyes, caused more eyestrain and discomfort.

Also, the image looks good on a CRT regardless of resolution. CRTs do not really have a native resolution like LCD and OLED have. They are pretty much resolution independent and everything will look good.

For TVs, maybe. But for monitors? no. Every CRT monitor has a native resolution you can set them to. I remember lowering resolutions of CRTs and finding that everything looked way too 'big'. If a resolution is too high, everything looks too small. It was easy to tell for me personally if a CRT wasn't at it's native res.

[RealNC]

Also, the image looks good on a CRT regardless of resolution. CRTs do not really have a native resolution like LCD and OLED have. They are pretty much resolution independent and everything will look good.

For TVs, maybe. But for monitors? no. Every CRT monitor has a native resolution you can set them to. I remember lowering resolutions of CRTs and finding that everything looked way too 'big'. If a resolution is too high, everything looks too small. It was easy to tell for me personally if a CRT wasn't at it's native res.

That's the UI scaling setting in the OS. Has nothing to do with the monitor. If you buy a 27" 4K LCD today and set it to its native res, everything will look way too small and unusable, unless you enable UI scaling in the OS.

Same for games that don't scale their UI with the resolution. Try playing Dragon Age Origins for example at 4K without a UI size mod. You can't even read the text any longer.

[Dalek]

Also, the image looks good on a CRT regardless of resolution. CRTs do not really have a native resolution like LCD and OLED have. They are pretty much resolution independent and everything will look good.

For TVs, maybe. But for monitors? no. Every CRT monitor has a native resolution you can set them to. I remember lowering resolutions of CRTs and finding that everything looked way too 'big'. If a resolution is too high, everything looks too small. It was easy to tell for me personally if a CRT wasn't at it's native res.

That's the UI scaling setting in the OS. Has nothing to do with the monitor. If you buy a 27" 4K LCD today and set it to its native res, everything will look way too small and unusable, unless you enable UI scaling in the OS.

Same for games that don't scale their UI with the resolution. Try playing Dragon Age Origins for example at 4K without a UI size mod. You can't even read the text any longer.

That's a fair point, I am talking about Windows XP scaling as well

[Supermodel_Evelynn]

Yes CRT monitors were far better than any modern LCD or OLED in everything but weight, contrast and brightness.

CRT themselves were exactly like OLED but far better for gaming, could turn on and off each pixel individually by use of an electron gun and had no such thing as motion blur and they could even do 0ms input delay at 60HZ aswell which was quite impressive the best modern OLED and LCD still has like 10ms input delay at 60HZ

CRT monitors were extremely UGLY tho and an eyesore in terms of their bulky design

But want to know the best thing about CRT? they were all glossy there was noway to make it permanently matte like these nasty vomit inducing OLED and LCD monitors because CRT by it's very nature had to be made of glass and anything you paste on glass could easily be cleaned off.

You cannot peel off the Vaseline smeared shit matte coating on monitors these days since they have polarizer built in

CRT has gone the way of the dodo because of how toxic it was to make certain aspects of it and the extremely heavy weight.

However if Sony decided to make limited edition Trinitron CRT TVs it would still sell like hot bread as those are the prized ones people hunt for. I am still holding out hope one day they will bring it back as the demand grows

[Kurse00]

I have 2 crt sitting on my living room that I got recently but still need the adapter to play some real games on it with my main pc, I can tell straight away that crt for normal use the text is weird and brightness is very dim compared to standard lcd nowadays.
Need to play some modern games that I know how it behaves compared to good 240hz monitors on the recent market.

[i_apocalypseon]

So with strobed lcds and bfi oleds are we there? Close? Half way?
I ask because theres the possibility of acquiring a big ass hd crt locally.

[Chief Blur Buster]

So with strobed lcds and bfi oleds are we there? Close? Half way?
I ask because theres the possibility of acquiring a big ass hd crt locally.

[Focussing only on motion clarity aka motion resolution, not other metrics like blacks, brightness, retro-friendly CRT texture, etc]

More than halfway.
Actually beyond.
Some LCD panels have surpassed CRT in motion clarity:'

1. Oculus Quest 2 VR LCD and newer (Quest 3, Quest Pro)
2. Valve Index VR LCD
3. ViewSonic XG2431 with user calibrations (underclocked to 120Hz + Strobe Utility + PureXP Custom + Large Vertical Total tweak)

No reviewer tested XG2431 to the maximal capability of user calibrations, just so you know.

You can get less motion blur than a CRT with these specially optimized settings.

However, as far as I know, there's no 34" LCD that beats CRT in motion clarity. Only smaller LCDs.

The HD CRT is a sweet deal if you run it at 720p and you want the retro textures and such. But you may wish to use a lagless scaler (Retrotink 4K even) if you want low-lag treatment of NTSC/PAL material. The internal scan converter in HD CRTs are very primitive and laggy, so use an external modern scaler.