I thought they were (essentially) worthless. We had an old Sony 30" CRT set, that we didn’t use anymore. So I called the city trash disposal dept. and arranged a pickup-standard stuff-put out on the curb by 7:00 AM, and the trash service will pick it up. I had previously tried to give to the Goodwill Store-they didn’t want it.
So I put it out, and 16 minutes later, it was gone (a trash scavenger had taken it).
So are these things worth something? Why would someone pick one up from the trash?
It was worth it for someone to take for free for whatever reason. It’s not worth it for Goodwill to take it because they don’t think that they can sell it for a price that it is worth their trouble.
So somewhere between those two things.
Copper or to sale. You can still get $10 to $15 for one. I pick some up now and then on my way to/from work and sale them on Craig’s list and at my local flea market. There’s still a lot of poor folks out there who want TVs but can’t yet afford to replace them with flat screens.
Dunno about TV, but last week tragedy struck and my darling LaCie Electron Blue 22 CRT monitor died. Tears were steaming down my face for *ages.
*
I’m now desperately trying to get another duplicate off eBay for about a third of what I paid in 2005 from eBay: everything about CRTs is better from colours to blacks to response to resolution, and I have to get away from the awful flatscreen temporary LCD I had to buy as a fast replacement.
People don’t like the space they take: people are weak.
They still work fine for watching DVDS and videotapes, so long as you don’t need HD or widescreen, and maybe even then if you’ve got good eyes. If they’re actually monitors rather than TV sets, then they should still work for security systems, provided you can accept the electricity requirements & heat generation.
Have you tried a quality LCD? One with an IPS panel? I used to have pro-quality CRT’s and my 24" Dell Ultrasharps are most definitely superior in every way. They’re not even close to the nicest LCDs you can buy these days.
Most cheap LCD’s use TN panels, and I agree they’re just trash.
Where do you get your steam car serviced ?
Is your cultlery made from bronze ?
You need them to play videogames
Blacks? Seriously? I am not believing that. I have seen CRTs go into decline, their phosphors fading, the image getting fuzzy, it is not pretty. This from someone who thinks vinyl sounds better than CDs.
Most thrift stores no longer take “fat” TVs, even if they work, because they can’t resell them. People mostly want flat screens for a multitude of reasons.
That said, lots of people will take those TVs for free, or even a nominal cost, for parts, scrap, or even just to watch programs or play video games.
My esteemed colleague is right. You need them for your retro gaming, and your Wii.
But they are heavy and hard to carry. I’ve been tasked with getting rid of about 6 of them as my family replaces theirs with LCDs. I’ve given away 4 but the other 2 I had to recycle.
They’re not worthless/useless but they’re only worth the time and effort you spend moving them, know what I mean?
Mine is on right now in the living room. It’s a Sony tv that I bought in 1994. It won’t be replaced until it stops working.
I have a LCD on the wall in my bedroom. Very inferior imho. But it is convenient in a bedroom because it’s lightweight and easily wall mounted.
CRT sets are indeed good in their place. if they are working then find a home for them.
They’re also immune to game controllers/phones being thrown at them?
A LaCie ElectronBlue V is an astounding display device. This is not a normal monitor like one thinks. Not even an excellent monitor, it’s an amazing monitor. I’ll have to check but the majority of LCD monitors, even now, do not support the full SRGB gamut. Mine mostly does, but, it was a $800 monitor that I bought, and, that was while it was on sale. You’d have to get something around $1200, MSRP, to get full SRGB. Which is about 1/4 the price of 2005 for plasma screens. I give it another 3, maybe 5, years until a ~$800 LCD can do SRGB faithfully, as in, independently measured and not by manufacturer specs.
That LaCie met and surpassed the SRGB, Adobe RGB, or whatever gamut. It’s a sight to behold when you shoot a pic in RAW and view it on such a monitor. It’s just mind boggling.
To the average consumer, they’re worth next to nothing. As in you can’t sell them for $5 at garage sales, and probably will have trouble giving them away.
To people in my industry, LCD monitors (not so much TVs) are worth their weight in gold*. LCDs do not have the ability to reproduce color nor the timing (and fixed refresh rates) to show an image the same way each time and from every angle.
*ETA by which I mean they can still sell in the hundreds of dollars, for certain models. Especially large CRTs with esoteric things like BNC connections.
CRT TVs still have their place in the world, probably because they’ve become so cheap that theyre as utilitarian as disposable paint brushes.
As a current example, my own flat screen recently took a fatal dump. Not having a spare $800 laying around to replace it, I went to the local Salvation Army and bought a quite nice 26" stereo CRT TV for the princely sum of $19.99.
End of day, it doesnt have the cachet of the flat screen, but it’s identical in that it sits in the corner glowing and blaring away, happily piping in all the feckless propaganda and Lowest Common Denominator “entertainment” that the networks care to dole out.
Maybe I’ll get a new 50" flat screen. On the other hand, maybe I won’t.
The latest model wide-screen CRT television sets were fine pieces of technology. Nothing wrong with them. Bulky yes but given we happily lived with that for 50 years, its not really a problem. Besides, many tv sets live in the corner of a room which isn’t a useful space and it disguises the size of the set.
I have a 32" Sony with a high refresh rate which I’ve donated to a tenant (American doctor in NZ) and he has no complaints.
Personally because I enjoy tv I have a 46" Panasonic HD plasma and a CRT at that size would be a mammoth. However if the lounge was smaller the 32 CRT would have done exactly the same job.
Yeah, Pong just doesn’t look right on a flat screen TV.
We have two CRTs in our house, and two flat screens. The CRTs are hooked up to various game consoles, and the flat screens are used for watching TV. In addition, I have a flat screen monitor for my desktop, and an old, old CRT monitor for the C64. So I’d say that the CRTs have a small amount of value to us.