Which one is better: CRT or LCD?

For many of us it is difficult to decide the priority between CRT monitors and LCD monitors. We often face situations where we don't know which one to choose. Both of them has their advantages and drawbacks. Now-a-days most desktop computer systems are sold with LCD monitors by default. But it will be good to know the difference and which they would be better off purchasing.

Cathode Ray Tubes (CRT)
The most obvious benefit that CRT monitors held over LCDs was their color rendering. CRT monitors have better contrast ratios and depths of colors display than LCDs. But this isn't true for all cases because many strides have been made in LCDs to narrow this gap. The color ability of CRT monitors degrade over time as the phosphors in the tube break down. CRT monitor's ability to easily scale to various resolutions is one of its important advantages. The screen can easily be adjusted to lower resolutions by adjusting the electron beam in the tube. The picture clarity remain intact.

Along with these advantages, there are disadvantages as well. The size and weight of the CRT monitors are its biggest drawbacks. A LCD monitor of same size as CRT monitor weights 80% lesser. With the increase in screen size, the difference increases too. Power consumption is the other major disadvantages. CRT monitors consumer and generate a lot more heat than the LCD monitors.

Liquid Crystal Displays (LCD)
Its biggest advantage is size and weight. Due to the lightweight LCD screens it have been possible to have larger screens. LCD screens also tend to produce less eye fatigue to the user. The CRT tube tend to cause strain on heavy computer users due to its constant light barrage and scan lines. The constant screen display of pixels along with lower intensity of the LCD monitors produces less fatigue for the user.

The main drawback of the LCD screens is their fixed or native resolution. The LCD screens are only able to display the number of pixels in its matrix and no more or less. Due to lower response times video was a problem with early LCD monitors. However many improvements have been done but still some of them have low response times.