Monitor Not Merry, Mac

[robotech_master]

So. I checked out the used monitor place, and this is more or less what they have that I would be interested in. Brands are mostly Dells, with the odd Hitachi or Gateway sprinkled here and there:

19" ordinary (curved screen) CRTs—$65 (and some cheaper that have defects)

17" flat-panel (Trinitron or equivalent) CRTs—$75

21" ordinary CRT—$125.

Which leaves me in a bit of a quandary as to what to get. I mean, I want to have something that's at least 19", but I also want a flat panel because those are the sharpest and clearest displays, and least likely to cause eyestrain in gaming. I wouldn't mind maybe having one of those curved CRTs as a secondary display (particularly that 21" for watching DVDs), but not for my primary. I kind of feel like if I'm going to spend that much money anyway, maybe I should just spend it on a brand new monitor. Keeping my present monitor just isn't an option...it's causing me more and more eyestrain just to look at it, and I'm serously considering moving to my laptop for the remainder of the evening.

Edit: And an LCD is pretty much out of the question at the moment, too...it's about 4 times as expensive.

I'd kind of like advice...sooo, since I'm currently subscribed to LJ, I'm going to take advantage of these spiffy-keen paid-for features and post a poll on the matter so that all three of you folks who read my LJ can chime in. I'm not going to commit to doing "whatever wins" but it would be nice to see what people think and why. So, if you have any opinion at all, please take the poll, okay?

[Poll #334602]

Comments

[mrbankies.livejournal.com]

I picked to buy the brand new 19" from best buy, for the following:

1) It's what you want.
2) It's your primary display. Used is cheaper, but you never know when it might fail on you.
3) Instant gratification.

If you have the time and inclination, it might be worth checking the internet, but shipping will be a bear unless someone offers you free ground, which has the disadvantage of taking forever and a day.

[ninjarat.livejournal.com]

You need to answer one very important question: what resolution do you need (or want). Now look for a monitor that can handle that resolution and has a dot pitch less than 0.25mm. Dot pitch is the size of the individual pixels. Smaller is better.

I would elminiate the 19" 1280x1024 LCD panel right off. Dot pitch is 0.294mm. Too much eye strain for me. A 17" LCD panel at 1280x1024, 0.20mm dot pitch, will generally offer a much sharper picture.

[robotech-master.livejournal.com]

The one I'll probably end up getting is a new 19" w/ .20 mm dot pitch, similar to the one I have now.