Everyone I know has a flat screen TV. My FIL has 2 of them. I still have the big old school TV’s. Now I don’t mean the ones from the '80’s that were made of wood and looked like a piece of furniture but the ones they were still making before the flat screens were introduced.
They still work fine and I just can’t bring myself to spend money on the plasma/lcd tv’s. Anyone else feel the same way?
I admit I kind of feel embarrassed when guests come over and see my TV.
One 32" and one 27".
They still work so we haven’t replaced them. We were close to buying a flat screen last year but we couldn’t decide which kind and now we really can’t afford one. I have vision issues that would make a larger TV extra nice. We don’t have HD either. The longer we wait, the cheaper they’ll get.
I have a 21" old school RCA T.V. in my bedroom from circa 2000, and a 31" 1996 old school RCA T.V. in my living room. At the time I considered the living room T.V. to be a “big screen.” I will replace my big screen T.V. when it stops working, which might be soon, because it now occasionally distorts the picture, particularly when it is first turned on.
It never occurred to me to be embarassed by my T.V.s. OTOH, I wasn’t exactly impressed by my brother’s giant flatscreen HD T.V. that is his pride and joy. Of course, my home computer is a 1998 Compaq running Windows 2000 on dialup, so I’m not exactly cutting edge.
I have a 31-inch CRT that I bought in 2005. It looks fine to me and only cost $150 or $200 at the time.
I also had a crappy tiny TV for the bedroom that finally crapped out on me a few months ago. I went to Best Buy to buy the cheapest television they sell. Turns out they no longer sell CRTs, only LCDs. The cheapest TV in the store was a 15-inch Dynex that ran me $150. I’m dreading the day my big TV goes kaput.
I still have a bulky old CRT television that I inherited from my brother when he got his big flatscreen. Since I don’t watch television much if at all anymore I haven’t bothered getting anything newer. In fact, I inherited my TV before that as well; I’ve never actually bought a new TV.
Nope, you’re not the only one. I have a 32" Panasonic and don’t feel the need to replace it while it works. If it breaks–maybe, but I spend too much on cable anyway and most of my screen time is devoted to my laptop. I’m saving up for a cool trip–why would I spend money on a new TV when my present one works fine?
(I do love the look of HD TVs, but not enough to spend the money.)
The CRT TV that I won at the office Christmas party in 2002 just died. So a flat screen is in the near future for me.
I’ve got a 32" flat-screen HD CRT tv. Works fine. In my opinion, the clarity is better than my parents’ plasma tv.
I still have my big Sony CRT TV. It cost my $850 in the mid-90’s. It still has a beautiful picture. It will be replaced this year.
I still have one of these. It’s in my daughter’s room, along with a 1995ish model that sits on top of it, since she can’t hook a DVD player up to the 80s one. 
Of course, those are in her room because I finally broke down and bought a 40" LCD for the living room. No regrets there.
We have one TV and it’s an oldie. We had to get a converter for it to pick up any tv stations, but that thing went out a few months back so we just use it for the PS2. IIRC we had to get something special to hook up between the converter and the tv because it only had one of those single screw in outlet things and the converter needed the three prong kind, so I know it’s got to be pretty old.
Ours is a 27" TV that dates from about 1996. My BIL bought it as a graduation present to himself, and then promptly got a job in Japan, so he gave it to us. We were newlyweds at the time, and so neither of us has ever gone out and actually bought a TV. Yeah, most of our friends have flat screens by now, but I don’t care and I doubt they do.
shrug We’ll replace it when it dies. Or not, depending on whether we can afford it!
The other day I nervously watched as my friend’s little kids careered around her living room, inches from the huge flat-screen TV. I asked her if she wasn’t nervous that someone would crash into it. She replied, “Sometimes I wish somebody would–it would solve a lot of my problems!”
I don’t know if they have Goodwill or other thrift stores where you live, but here they always have several on shelves. We got ours there at least five years ago for less than twenty dollars and it’s still working. We just need a new digital converter but I just don’t watch TV anymore so I’m not wasting the money.
points and laughs
I read in the late 1990s, when we still had our Sony Trinitron, that in 10 years’ time it would be an embarrassment still to have a cathode-ray set. We finally upgraded to a Bravia, but not out of embarrassment. It was because the Trinitron died after 15 years or so of use.
But I’d keep an old one like yours around for the novelty value if nothing else. Maybe it’ll be worth some serious money someday.
I just replaced my 25" CRT Magnavox tonight with a 42" flat screen. The old one still works fine. The 1988 19" Sony the Magnavox replaced still works fine, too.
I also have a 2.2" pocket TV and a 5" B&W CRT TV/radio setup.
Of all the electronics, I’ve never seen old televisions in antique shops or heard of them being valuable at all.
We still have the 25" console CRT TV I bought in 1989, but it’s in the basement. I don’t think that counts. Now if it was our primary TV, then you’d have something.
I still have a 19" CRT, bought around 1998, in my living room. It replaced another 19" that died in a lightning strike. I haven’t really watched TV since then-- mostly busy with school and work-- and I use it mostly as a monitor for watching laserdiscs and DVDs, neither of which would benefit from an HD monitor. When I want to watch HD content, I load it up on my computer.
I have a few CRT televisions and monitors in storage for use with older video game systems and computers.
We have two 32" tvs and no flat screen.
I’ve got a 20 inch CRT that I will soon be replacing with my parents larger CRT once they get a flat screen. That’ll be my third TV that I haven’t paid for, so until they start giving out free flatscreens, I probably won’t get one.
No flat screens here, either. All of our TVs have been hand me downs, and the last monitor I bought was in 1998.
Unfortunately, that means I’m now down to my 17 inch displays that don’t even have a flat screen. I have to run everything at 800x600.
Oh, and my sister’s TV is also old enough that you can’t hook a DVD player up to it. So she got one of those boxes so she could.