It's been two years since CRT last met LCD for a dust-up. The result: I handed off a brand-new, $350 Viewsonic VX910 to someone else, and bought a $65 21" CRT second-hand.

Now, CRT has grown even older and weaker, and LCD is back for revenge. It's time for the Battle on the Desktop.

In the Shiny Black trunks, weighing in at approximately seven kilogrammes, hailing from the far reaches of the People's Republic of China, the Samsung 206BW LCD monitor.

In the Magenta and Grey trunks, weighing in at aproximately thirty-five kilos, from the old hood of the Arizona State University Surplus Store, the Sun GDM-5410 CRT monitor.

The bookmakers have considered this one a bloodbath. Why are we pitting a $260, basic-line consumer LCD against a high-end CRT that probably cost over $1,000 new?

First, the market has decided there is no longer a significant niche for high-quality CRTs. If you visit a site like Newegg, you'll be able to count the number of new 21" CRT monitors on one hand. Obviously, if they don't sell CRTs, it must be because LCDs have surpassed them. Yes, there was sarcasm involved in this matchmaking.

Second, these monitors represent the options in the price field: if you want twenty viewable inches, and your budget is $300, you have the choice between a used premium 21" CRT (and $200 worth of beer or manga), or a basic 20" LCD.

Finally, my GDM-5410 was showing early signs of failure (an irritating intermittent buzz which I could only make occur when the monitor was on, and that died when I powered it off), so I chose to be proactive in finding a replacement while I had the spare funds. They were offering it for 200.- after rebates at Fry's last Friday, and so I figured I'd at least be able to inspect one prior to purchase.

Round Zero: The widescreen scam.

Before we compare the two monitors, let's get a little something off my chest. Widescreen is a spectacular scam.

A conventional (4:3) 20" monitor has a viewable area of dimensions 12" x 16", or 192 square inches.

A widescreen (16:10) 20" has dimensions of about 10.6" x 16.8", or about 178 square inches. A standard screen has almost 8 percent more space.

The situation gets even worse when you look at the common resolutions for 4:3 and 16:9 monitors.

1680x1050 = 1.764 million pixels. 1600x1200 = 1.92 million pixels. The standard display will actually accomodate almost 9 percent more data.

Another interesting twist has recently appeared in the LCD market: 1400x1050. Yes, it's still 4:3, but it's even fewer pixels. I suspect many of these compromises have come from the fact that 20" has become a popular everyday choice, with 24" and even 30" monitors pitched for high-resolution work. However, 20" is probably as large as will fit comfortably in people's fields of vision and desks, so it should offer as large a resolution as possible. (I'd personally favour a 1920x1200 20")

Round 1: Initial experiences.

The Sun had to be dragged home in a passenger seat. It simply won't fit into the trunk of a Sonata. It required being shuttled on a chair with castors to its final location, two people pushing it on a slider to move it up the stairs. It came with only the soldered-on 13W3 cable, and a spare VGA cable had to be scavenged. Admittedly, that's what you get if you buy used, but it WAS the experience.

In contrast, the Samsung fit neatly in the centre of the trunk, and could be tipped out and assembled by a single out-of-shape nerd. It provided both DVI and VGA cables, and a simple-to-assemble base which screwed in position to ensure good locking.

However, the most notable difference was in the sheer bulk. The Sun casts a menacing profile, being taller than the ordinary Skyhawk MSR4620 midtower it's placed against, while the Samsung doesn't even clear its removable side-panels. If you didn't know it was a 20" monitor, you'd be tempted to guess 17. This is clearly a subjective opinion, but since a monitor is a visual peripheral, it should look impressive.

The ease of setting the LCD up was significantly offset by its lack of impact, however, it's still a winner compared to brusing inner arms trying to heft a 35kg brick.

Round 2: Resolution compatibility.

People often sing happily of the CRT's resolution flexibility. I was one of these people. However, that does come with some fairly vast caveats.

Extremely low resolutions lead to individual lines being visible, and extremely high ones are only offered at headache-inducing refresh rates. The GDM-5410 is far better than most, doing its highest resolution, 2048x1536, at 75Hz, but it still discourages the use of the highest resolutions.

The 206BW does happily run every resolution with a flicker-free nature, but that comes with the caveat of the few resolutions that it supports.

Another question for the LCD industry brains-trust: when PCs have traditionally supported a 1024-line display mode, and HDTVs support a 1080-line one, how did you decide on 1050 lines for 20" to 22" widescreen LCDs? It satisfies nobody exactly. In addition, no common modes scale perfectly to it. Even with 720-line HDTV modes, each line must be mapped to 1.5 lines on the screen, or more realistically, either one or two lines.

Instead of flicker, you get either clumsy scaling (and the loss of proportion), or huge black bars. Some tradeoff.

Although the CRT does have compatibility issues at the low and high end of the resolution table, it has an excellent range of usable modes-- everything from 1024x768 to 1600x1200 is entirely usable and very solid. The fact the 640x400 BIOS screen looks weak is a small tradeoff for not having to force a 7600 into playing every game at 1680x1050.

Advantage: CRT.

Round 3: Image Quality.

I'm going to try and be tolerant here. I've grown to believe that a CRT and an LCD have different image-rendering characteristics. The LCD is, in my opinion, much more like reading a sheet of paper illuminated by an external light, because the polarization tends to produce tightly directional light. Since the CRT generates light at six million phospor dots on its surface, the light is going to be more omnidirectional, and there may be more eyestrain. The LCD is less straining to read when tired.

When you don't force the LCD to scale, it produces extremely sharp images, with perfect convergence and no need for adjustment for distortion. This is its strong suit.

However, the wheels fall off at that point. Let's stop playing games with viewing angle. Many times, vendors quote viewing angle based on absurd standards like "contrast drops to 5:1 or below". Considering the spec sheet quotes either 800:1 or 3000:1 contrast when viewed spot on, I'd say 5:1, or even 100:1 will cause a discernable loss of image quality. The display is only really presentable in a 45 to 60 degree range of perpendicular. Meanwhile, the CRT has a true, no gimmicks, viewing angle of 88 degrees from head-on, only because any further over, the bezel blocks the glass.

The 206BW also suffers from mild backlight bleed at the top and bottom. This is a common LCD complaint, but the GDM-5410 doesn't reach its full blackness for quite a while after power-on, and that's not perfect full black either. I'll call it a draw, but remain convinced there must be a way to dispose of the spare light rather than have it bleed through.

Since I use the monitor as a TV, and watch it from off angles, off-angle viewing is a vital feature, and the CRT takes another round.

Round 4: Connectivity.

Both monitors offer two inputs.

The Sun provides an ordinary VGA connector and the famous non-standard 13W3 plug which requires an adaptor for VGA, so it may as well be one.

With the Samsung, I have the choice of VGA and DVI. Although this combination works well on a 20" LCD, I've heard that DVI is an utter fiasco for displays larger than 1600x1200. Who exactly decided that we needed a video standard incapable of handling the modes which an ordinary VGA cable can satisfactorily deliver to a seven-year-old CRT?

However, neither manufacturer has taken two inputs to a logical conclusion: If I can hook two PCs to the monitor, I still need two keyboards and mice. Someone build a KVM switch into the monitor, already!

Considering that even the Sun computer I own (an Ultra 10) doesn't use the 13W3 plug, I can safely award this round to the LCD.

Round 5: Supportability.

I could have gone on Craigslist, laid out somewhere betweeen $50 and $100, and taken home another GDM-5410 or the same tube with a Dell or HP badge and two VGA ports. But it would come with-- at best-- a shop-provided "six months exchange-only" warranty and limited spares availability. With the LCD, it's warranted three years, so I don't need to worry about the cost or complexity of replacing it until 2010-- if it blows, I can RMA it, and if it blows after 2010, hopefully OLED will be ready.

Give it to the LCD.

In Total:

The LCD manages to pull ahead three to two. However, there are several significant catches. First, image quality was not given the disproportionate weight it probably deserves in the analysis of a monitor. Furthermore, it's competing against a product that basically stagnated. The GDM-5410 represents the upper echelon of the last generation of good CRT monitors. Compare the LCDs of the time with today's, and imagine if they had put the same R&D effort into enhancing those CRTs. We'd probably have DVI CRTs (Apple did it!) with 2048x1536 resolution at 100Hz refresh.

In conclusion, I'm giving the Samsung 206BW the legendary Hak Foo "Remedial School Spelling Bee" award. You may have won, but it's hardly against great competition.