Dell P1130 CRT Review

“I love crt”. Words I haven’t heard since watching steins gate.

Man, LCDs were a mistake. A stopgap technology giving people what they thought they wanted. I remember my first LCD, in 2008, was such a disappointment.

this is one of the best videos I have watched that discusses the pros and cons between cathode ray tubes and flat panel displays

I'm a 15 year old that loves CRT TVs and I think they look cooler and more high-definition in my perspective than the LCD screens.

I purchased one of these new in 2003-2004 for $100 with shipping. Loved it dearly and it made me postpone switching to LCD until at least 2009-10! I never knew the obscurity or true power of it (one of the highest end consumer CRTs) and wound up giving it to a scrapyard after a few issues that likely could've been remedied with a couple cap replacements. I have missed it ever since.

What a nice screen. I used to have one myself, it unfortunately died few years ago, after 15+ years of service. Unfortunately in my case the CRT itself died, it developed internal short and the power from the green gun started to leak in to the red one. As a result, over time I had to tone up the green and town down the red to keep the image color balanced, right before death I had green at 100%, blue about 70% gain and red at 20%. It also started to suffer from the common issue of being "too bright before warm-up", and in last years in those bright periods it started to have red flashes which sometimes resulted by the power supply's self shutdown. I have measured the voltages and they were all fine, all guns were powered equally, so the issue was in the CRT itself. Well, thankfully for it to die it took years so it was not a "sudden surprise". By death I mark the point the red flashes became constant and did not go away after warmup. I have other CRTs of almost equal quality tho, my daily used one is IBM P260. Nice and very bright, high contrast and gamut, but it has developed a flaw of the screen being too bright (and even more so before warmup), so I had to dig in and add manual potentiometers to control the brightness. After this fix it keeps working fine and ironically "thanks" to it I can drive it very hard to the point I sometimes have to lower the contrast. Other two are NEC FE1250+, two units, one stored as backup one used. The one being used has also developed a flaw, before warmup the image can be horizontally a bit shorter, by about 0,5cm on each side, it stretches slowly as it warms up. I consider this not a serious issue, probably just a capacitor, this screen is noticeably sharper than the IBM P260 at high resolutions, but less bright. Overall, they are all veterans that are starting to show old age, but as long as the CRT is fine, everything else can be repaired. Iv so far had to retire 2 CRTs, the Dell, and IBM P200, which was my first high-end model, and I ran that thing to the ground, I ran so many hours on it that the CRT gun became tired over the years and lost most of its contrast/brightness, but otherwise it still worked fine. That thing was a trooper.

wow, such a quality in-depth review and tutorial, it answered the pvm hyped broadcast monitors demand for retro all in one gaming crt monitor. you saved me from buying that expensive crt and opted to med quality average consumer PC monitors, for such having capability of that pvm with more affordable price. sir, you deserved a sub!

By far the best in-depth look at modern CRT use! Thank You!!

This is the the BEST CRT explanation video on YouTube. This guy tells you everything. Excellent job. I’m looking for one of these crt monitors now.

Absolutely brilliant video sir, like others have said I think you covered everything that everyone should know about CRTs and how they compare to LCDs, you went the extra mile with all the explanations too. I will be sure to link to this video to people when I explain why CRTs are still very relevant to this day.

I have a P1130, used it for a while, then got a FW900 (which I use as my main monitor). The P1130 has an intermittent short in the tube which I think I managed to almost-fix (it still sometimes happens but only briefly and only when the tube is cold, there is no reasonable way to fix that unless it gets worse). Then did the white point calibration and it looks nice now. It is not as bright as the FW900, but I do not need that much light (some LCDs are a bit too bright for me even at the lowest setting). So, now I have a working P1130 and some skills in repairing CRTs. I still hope to find a FW900 to keep as a spare though. It's a shame CRT monitors are not made anymore.

Shadow mask CRT monitors made in the late 90s and early 2000s really did catch up to Trinitrons when it came to dot pitch (also brightness). These P1130 have a horizontal dot pitch of .24 mm. I actually own a ViewSonic A90-2 shadow mask with a horizontal dot pitch of .22mm. I also had a Dell trinitron 1000hs and the Viewsonic was noticeably much sharper and brighter then the Trinitron to the degree that I replaced my Trinitron with it and gave the Dell to my buddy to enjoy. Shadow mask viewsonics from that time really were something special I recommend keeping an eye out for one and grabbing it if you ever come across one.

I'm in love with your channel and I am binge-watching your videos

you are an amazing narrator, thanks a lot for this work. My P1130 waits for a recap, need to prepare myself for that mentally), but even now the experience is great.

This video brought good old memories :D awesome review, keep it up!

This is a great video showing some amazing comparisons.

Just saw you link this on the monitors subreddit. What an excellent video! You got a new subscriber.

story time: back in 2005 i bought a dell dimension and the retailer was literally begging me to get a flat 17" screen over the 19" crt that i wanted and offered me a discount of nearly 150$ on a digital camera (big deal lol) and i said no because i hated how lcd screen looks on laptops back then, since 2010 the whole pc was sitting in the closet with a bunch of useless things because it was so heavy to carry it to my place, until a saw the Digital Foundry video, i was so happy that the monitor was still there nearly intact.

These reviews are incredilby informative, well scripted, and well edited too. I also really like how you talk like patrick bateman explaining huey lewis and the news when talking about what a monitor does well.

just checked for new videos yesterday hoping for more of the excellent monitor reviews you make x) (by far the best on youtube). guess I was a day to early to get my wish fulfilled o: