24" widescreen crt, Sun GDM-90w10, any good?

S

saber07

Limp Gawd
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Looks like they played football with it.

You could probably buy a used football cheaper.
 
The FW900s are more expensive (but still ridiculously cheap for what you get), but there are reputable sellers that guarantee the glass is unscratched and unchipped, and that there are only casing defects at worst.
 
well, that one is in kind of bad shape. But there is another guy selling one in Oklahoma City, and I live near there, so I might be able to get a better one and not pay shipping. So if they are pretty much the same as the fw900, I guess I'll go ahead and get one. Think it should hold me over till SED monitors come out. Don't want to compromise for my gaming rig, heh.
 
But are the specs of this and sony the same? Because I can get a better condition one of these for less than a sony
 
I had a hard time finding specs, but it looks to be an inferior tube to the FW900.

Dot Pitch on the FW900 is .23-.27
On the Sun it is .26-.29

Max resolution on the FW900 is 2304x1440 @ 80hz
Max res on the Sun is 1920x1200 @ not sure.

And, maybe its the pictures, but for some reason the Sun doesn't look like a Flat Screen tube.

EDIT: No, its definitely not a flat screen. It has an older Sony tube most likely.
 
I thought I'd resurrect an old thread rather than starting a new one here. This month marks the 10 year anniversary since the manufacture of my Sony GDM90W10. I've ran it as a desktop for most of this time, so I have some decent observations on this monitor.

Most of its life, it has run at 1920x1200 @70-75hz. I had it running for a few years at 2048x1280, but I ended up going down in resolution in order to pick up a faster refresh. (There is a trade-off resolution vs refresh rate at the high end of its capabilities.)

This monitor was absolutely awe inspiring 10 years ago. (As in... massive OMGs to anyone who walked into the room.) It has aged very well, and today it probably does well as a mid-high range consumer monitor. Sure, no HDMI or DVI, or USB ports. But it makes up for it with incredible color reproduction, apparent smooth scaling (vs lcd) at all resolutions and refresh rates, power user OSD, and everyone's favorite, no dead pixels.

Of course, you've got your usual downsides with CRT. Size/weight, power, heat being the most obvious. But at least you know that nobody is going to walk off with it. :D

Sadly, after 10 years of heavy use, this monitor it approaching the end of its life... for me, at least. No burn-in at all, but the screen has dimmed over the years to a very noticeable extent. For a starting point, putting the brightness and contrast at 100% just isn't bright enough anymore.

I'm no monitor expert. But what worked for me was this:

Going 1920x1200 @75hz to get a high resolution with a faster refresh (faster refresh = more apparent brightness, from my observations).

I set the color temperature at 9300k. Yes. 9300k. But it was still far, far more red than it was supposed to be. Trying to adjust it from a lower color temperature only results in less brightness.

So, from there, I went into the OSD and boosted the blue and the green gain from 50% [default] to 100%. I also gave the red a slight boost from 50% to 76%. (The effect I was aiming for was increased overall brightness, but less red.) I didn't touch the bias (left at 50% default).

I came at the 76% gain for the red by pulling up a web page with black text on a white background (like a typical Google search result page) at 1920x1200. I started the red at 100%, and there was red bleed inside of the letters. I turned it down until the bleed disappeared, and there was a decent white purity (by eyeball).

Improved, but not perfect. Dark areas were completely lost (black crush, I believe is the term?). After playing around with various graphic utilities, I found that the final step that worked best was to leave the contrast and brightness compensation (inside Windows) alone, but to up the software gamma to 1.4 in order to hit a real target of 2.2.

I checked against a number of charts and programs, and that seems to be close enough to perfect as my non-Pantone eyes can muster.

So, from a technology standpoint, this monitor is still just great with me. It does all I need to do (Windows PC monitor, no home theater or USB hub action). But time has aged the screen, and rather than try find someone to blast a tube rejuvenator at it, I'm probably going to go LCD. I'm sure I won't like the transition.

I'm currently focusing in on the Soyo 24" 24DYLM24D6 as a great blend of performance and cost. I don't want to spend anything ridiculous with LCD technology still being very much in flux (but well improved over the years). I don't expect my next monitor to last 10 years, but I'm hoping it'll last until the technology settles a bit.
 
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