CRT Monitor Aesthetic

CRT monitors have become collector's items among gamers and graphic designers who value the display qualities that modern flat panels eliminated in the transition to LCD. Curved glass, warm color rendering, and 0-millisecond response time create an image quality that looks softer and more organic than the pixel-precise output of a modern display. Fighting game and retro game communities buy old Sony Trinitron and NEC monitors at prices that have tripled in the past 5 years. The games were designed for CRT displays and look wrong on modern screens. Environmental argument against CRTs is real, they weigh 50 to 80 pounds, consume 3 times the electricity of an LCD, and contain lead and mercury that make disposal complicated. But the visual argument for them is also real. A technology abandoned 20 years ago being sought out by a new generation of enthusiasts suggests that the display industry optimized for certain metrics. Thinness, weight, power consumption, at the expense of qualities that some users valued. I watched a friend play Street Fighter on a Trinitron and the colors were richer and the motion was smoother than anything I've seen on a modern gaming monitor. That experience helped me understand that progress isn't always linear, and that some qualities of older technology are lost rather than superseded when a new format takes over.