I second the comment that TN panels are junk, but it’s getting harder to find an IPS panel that actually is true color also. A fake color IPS panel will still have a wide viewing angle but will drive you nuts for photo editing. (I finally found out the Samsung S24A650s were, so I bought two, one as a monitor and one as a TV, though I had to do a hack to get SD content [like Comcast’s On-Demand menu or the TeenNick channel my sister watches] to work on it)
I wanted to get an IPS panel in my laptop, but the only 15" one made for them can’t produce “CNN Red”, it turns out a burnt orange.
My church has started a “TV ministry”, where anyone who needs a TV can get one from us. We’re an informal neighborhood dropoff point for a charity thrift store, but that store doesn’t take furniture or electronics at all. If we get those items, we keep them at the church. Most of them people who came to us for this are furnishing a house after a fire or leaving prison.
p.s. No, we don’t give them tracts or anything like that, unless they request it.
[Beavis & Butthead mode]
Huh-huh, that would be cool!
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If they still work ok you can usually find someone who will take it. Leave it on the curb with a big FREE! WORKS! sign on it and I’ll bet it’ll be gone before the end of the day. If it no longer works, well, then they’re worth a *negative *amount! IOW you’ll have to pay somebody to dispose of it. Or toss it in a dumpster when nobody’s looking…
We had a spare lying around and ended up taking it to our nursery at church. The TV stand is fairly low to the ground so that the kids can watch sitting on the floor. A flat screen would be too easy for a small child to tip over. The heavy CRT type won’t budge when a toddler bumps into it.
We use one as a TV for the youngest kids, with a DVD player and Roku hooked up to it. If it died, I would want to replace it cheaply, so if I could get a CRT for $25 or less, I would do it.
Anyone know, just out of curiosity, when they last sold new CRTs at big box stores like Wal-Mart or Target, and how much they cost at the end?
If you’re running a Wii on an LCD (most likely 720p or 1080p), the LCD needs to upscale the image from 480p or whatever, which will blur it a little. A CRT can match the pixels 1:1 because CRT resolution is flexible. Other modern consoles can just draw right to 720p so they don’t have the problem.
That’s my impression. People are comparing CRTs to cheap LCDs, which, really, is not a fair comparison.
I will say CRTs generally have better blacks and lag time than LCDs.
I do like with all of this LCD vs. CRT stuff everyone is completely ignoring Plasma, which, by the way, produce great picture, and are still available in stores.
This is something that I learned recently: the best fighting game tournaments use CRT because of the lack of input lag. Newer TVs will have a noticeable lab between the input of a command the response of the character.
Actually now you mention it, I have found Rock Band totally unplayable on my new HD tv due to lag. Even in “game mode” there is about a quarter of a second between hitting a drum and hearing the sound, even after calibrating to the laggiest possible setting.
I know some guys who did that to a poodle, so they probably would have obliged you. But what would happen to the CRT when it hit the blades? I’m trying to picture it in my head, but I’m drawing a blank. Everything else would just zip right through, but would the CRT just implode/explode, or would it jam the blades, or would it just be effortlessly ground to shards?
I think that it would crush just fine but might let off a cloud of toxic dust. Also, out there they would pay a cheaper dumping fee for green waste. A tv in the mix and it wouldn’t be green.
A few years ago I was moving a bunch of CRT monitors at work. I dropped one on a concrete floor and it hit screen first. There was a cloud of black dust and a lot of small pieces of glass. It was not pretty.
We have ewaste for free to but it’s like once a month and you have to drive it to them. Every thing else is picked up curbside. Now there is where you can get some free CRTs. Just hang out at the parking lot where people are taking their ewaste.
Oh, mine is open is Monday-Saturday, on half-days. They also have a pick up program, but I’ve never tried it, as there is a fee attached to that. At least, there was when I called, and asked about picking up VHS tapes a couple of years ago.
Personally, I’ve always just went to the location myself.
I do not think I have ever physically broken a CRT screen. However, I’ve had plenty of CRTs where the picture died, or developed weird picture issues.
With that being said, about 14 years ago, my step brother accidentally thew a soda can at the back of a old CRT monitor, which literally caused sparks to happen.
And why shouldn’t they expect even the cheapest high def tv they bought should be better then something that can commonly be found on the curb for free?