But LCD's suck... trust me

Big, heavy, old-school CRT monitor's are better than new-fangled flat screen LCD ones in almost every way, so then why the hell is everyone buying LCD's?
Where I work employees have the choice of getting a 17" LCD or a 19" CRT when they order a new system, I am completely baffled by the fact that, time after time, they choose the smaller LCD over the CRT so I've decided to do a little head to head comparison test and see either I am missing something or if I can educate a few people on the facts. I'll give the winner of each category 1 point if it's a stat that matters at all and 1/2 point if it's a moot point. Let's see what we get…

CONTRAST:

Constrast is a measure of the amount of difference between the dark and light parts of the screen. CRT monitors easily have the edge here though LCD's are improving, LCD monitors quote their contrast ratio (250:1, 500:1, 600:1, etc) front and centre and it's usually a key selling point for choosing one LCD over another. CRT's are so much better at contrasting the light and dark portions of the screen that their stats are rarely even quoted. Winner: CRT (easily) 1 point.

BRIGHTNESS:

Brightness is, um, it's brightness. LCD's are signifigantly brighter than old CRT's but it's pretty much a moot point because all that extra brightness is needed to offset the poor contrast ratio's of an LCD, CRT's don't have the same brightness because they don't need it. Winner: LCD, but seeing as it doesn't really matter 1/2 point.

COLOUR:

Both in colour purity and in colour quality the CRT monitor wins again, they are far more acurate (especially in games and video) than any LCD, which is why you'd have to pry that huge old 22" CRT out of the cold, dead hands of 99% of web designers, animators or CAD users before they would consider using an LCD. Winner: CRT, 1 point.

BULK:

Bulk means how big and heavy is it. No getting around this one, the LCD kicks ass, it's lack of bulk is, I think, it's main selling point. CRT's are getting smaller and smaller and new "short-tube" tech will make then less deep but they'll never get to LCD size, not even close. Winner: LCD, 1 point.

SCREEN BURN:

By now everyone has seen old monochrome monitors at their local library or DMV that have the same thing on the screen whether the monitor is on or not. When LCD's first came out it was reported that they were immune to burn but the recent move to LCD tv's and a much wider sampling amount have shown that burn in is possible on any screen. Burn in was a problem for CRT's for a long time but for at least the last 5-10 years pretty much any decent CRT is nearly immune to burn in, not as good as an LCD likely but still below the threshhold of mattering: Winner: LCD, 1/2 point.

VIEWING ANGLE:

The image on an LCD used to disappear as you moved off-axis, (once you were no longer looking at the monitor dead-on) but this problem is nearly gone, LCD's still look best dead-on but the image problems associated with moving off-axis have been reduced a lot. CRT's do not really have this problem. Winner: CRT, 1 point.

RESPONSE TIME:

Response time refers to the time the screen takes to update the colour of each spot on the screen. This is important in gaming and other fast moving images like video watching. A slow response time will leave a 'trailing effect' where certain images seem to lag behind the action. The very best LCD monitors now offer sub 20 millisecond response times, which makes them generally acceptable for gaming. CRTs response time is not noticable. Winner: CRT, 1 point.

SCREEN FLICKER:

The image on a CRT is redrawn a certain number of times per second, the high quality the monitor and video card are the faster this redraw can happen at, but even a low end system allows this setting to be adjusted. Windows XP stupidly sets the default refresh rate to 60Hz, which can be seen by most people as a noticable flicker that is very hard on the eyes after a time, sometimes in just seconds, 60Hz also is the same frequency as power in North American so a 60Hz is just inviting interference. If the refresh rate is set to 85Hz or higher nearly all users will stop notcing the flicker. LCD's do nto have this problem. Winner: LCD, 1/2 point because the problem is fixable with one setting.

INTERFERENCE:

CRT's are suseptable to magnetic interference, just hold your phone's receiver up to the screen. This can make the placement of the montior, speakers, lights, amp, etc tricky. LCD's do not have this problem. Winner: LCD, 1 point.

POWER CONSUMPTION:

No nice way to say this, that big old CRT monitor on my desk that I think looks so lovely is an earth raper of the 1st degree when compared to an LCD. A CRT will use 2-10 times as much electricity as a CRT. Winner: LCD, 1 point.

DEATH OF A PIXEL:

In an LCD monitors each tiny point on the screen (pixel) has an individual light, these lights can burn out, sometimes they are burnt out right out of the box. They then appear as a tiny black dot on the screen. These cannot be repaired, and can be quite annoying if they are in the main viewing area of the monitor, and are especially noticeable in word processing and other applications where the screen background is generally white. CRT displays do not suffer from this issue, but LCD manufacturing has improved to greatly reduce the frequency of this problem. Check the warranty carefully when you are buying an LCD, lots of them don't cover dead pixels unless there are more than a few on the screen. Winner: CRT, 1 point.

PRICE:

LCD = $$$, CRT = $. Winner: CRT, 1 point.

AND YOUR WINNER IS.... THE CRT!!!

CRT = 5 points to LCD = 4.5 points, it looks like a closer score than it is because most of the points that the CRT scores are in the catagories that have to do with actual image quality, needless to say I'll be sticking with CRT's for a long while yet.

Still... None of this explains the fact that I can tell someone 'Look, you can get a bigger screen for less money with a nicer display.' and having then still choose the LCD...