They’re hot, they’re getting cheaper and more powerful. The picture tubes are excellent. What am I talking about? That’s right. The LCD TV. We’ve been looking for quite a while for a replacement for our CRT 29″ Philips TV. But the unit is so reliable, and so fuss-free that it hardly seems worthwhile to throw it out, just to get a new LCD TV!
That doesn’t stop me drooling every time I go to Costco’s or Carrefour’s Electronic departments. But the one thing holding me back is the terminology for LCD TVs. For example, what is a Dynamic Contrast Ratio? or a Response Time? And all the ways to input or output signals are quite perplexing. For example, the Samsung model I looked at had no less than 12 (yes, 12!) sockets, and that didn’t include S-video!
But my one concern with the panel TVs has to be the electricity. Our current CRT is rated at 125 watts. But many of the panels seem to require quite high electricity usage compared to traditional CRTs. For example, the 37″ panels averaged nearly 200 watts in onstate. Of course, since TVs sit idle most of the time, it would be wise to look at the total energy ownership cost over a longer period of time.
In the meantime our traditional CRT still has good sound and picture quality, so it’s really H-A-R-D to justify the expense of a new set! But I’ll try!