Sony GDM-FW900 - worth it?

Ashratt · February 2, 2013

So i recnetly read about the FW900 (it's an old 16:10 CRT monitor). There currently is one on ebay, ritght now still at 1â‚¬ and 1 more day to go and i'm really tempted to buy it altough i can't complain about my SyncMaster 223BW.

The seller doesn't want to ship it so i would have to pick it up and thats about 300km 1-way, so i had to pay around 100â‚¬ for gas. Does anyone here have one and can tell me if it is worth buying it? After all i'm using a TN panel and it doesn't bother me. The seller says it's in good condition and no faults like unsharp spots, scratches only a greenish tint when showing white at the left edge (maybe a calibration problem?). I am also a bit worried that VGA may reduce the quality too much.

Konn · February 2, 2013

I wouldn't say it's worth it, you could buy a brand new decent LED monitor for that price.

GoodBytes · February 2, 2013

Yes! You should get an LED monitor like Konn suggest. Then we can have out own favorite messages display with wacky effects!

So much fun!

On a serious note

It is a very nice monitor the Sony one. CRT will always crush LCD panels, even professional grade (I am not saying that a budget CRT monitor is equal to a professional grade LCD monitor, no of course not, I am talking about for the same market target segment). However, the problem that CRT have, (beside being big and heavy), is that the magnets wears out over time. So image will shift and lose it's geometry (it also loses brightness and colors shifts, but this is the same for LCD monitors). Normally, I would say get a high end consumer grade monitor (assuming you are not doing color critical work, else go professional grade monitor).

Now I don't know how much s 100 Euro (yes I know I can convert the currency, but it doesn't work that way, example in Taiwan many products are 200-300$ more than Canada, tax not included on both, but food is a fraction of the price than here... go figure)

Assuming 100 Euros is a good price and you can't get a reasonable monitor for that price, then I say go for it, if you have the space. It's worth a shot, if you trust the seller.

Ashratt · February 2, 2013

Thanks for you reply GoodBytes.

Well, i am not planing on buying it because i don't have enough money and need a new one (i may sell mine to a friend and wanted to buy a dell u2412m, altough i am not sure if it is good enough for gaming, but i hate glossy 16:9 tn panel monitors). I was just curious because everyone who owns this crt loves it and says it is amazing. Especially the color acuracy/reproduction, contrast and black levels must be awesome plus the 0ms response time because its an crt. I just don't want to spent money on something which in the end will fail after a few months or isn't as good as ppl say it is and i would still keep on using my lcd.

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