Admittedly, I'm surprised that there's something of an active market for CRTs in today's age of flat-panel displays. Most of you know that I recently replaced my 19" Emerson CRT TV with a 17" Sony Trinitron, which I'm now using as an HD-capable set along with a colorspace transcoder. Just a few days ago, I managed to sell the 19" TV for $25 on Craigslist to somebody that wanted it for a game room.
Today, my friend and I found a great Craigslist deal: 17" and 19" Dell FD Trinitron monitors, conveniently located just off Storrow Drive in Boston, for $20 and $30, respectively. My friend picked up one of the 19" Trinitrons to create an awesome triple monitor setup on his desk comprising two other 19" FD Trinitrons. I picked up one of the 17" monitors, which I swapped out with my fading 17" Samsung.
Just hours ago I found a 19" TV out on the roadside with a piece of paper taped to it: "Free, works, and comes with remote!" Needless to say, this was picked up and driven home, where it will promptly be placed on Craigslist along with the 17" Samsung that I no longer have use for.
So why, again, am I using CRT monitors? Let's consider that, in the case of HDTV, I'm passing either 640x480, 1280x720, or 1920x1080. Common sub-20" LCD TVs constantly run at 1366x768, meaning that I lose lines at higher resolutions and have to upscale 720p and below to the higher resolution. In the case of a PC monitor, I pass 1400x1050 from my laptop, 1280x960 and 1024x768 over my Linux desktops, and 720x400 over my FreeBSD server. Most 17" LCDs top out at 1280x1024, which isn't even a standard 4:3 resolution, so running 1400x1050 is out of the question while the lower-resolution Linux machine and the FreeBSD would both need to be scaled up. In both cases provided, a CRT can natively display all of the resolutions I've just mentioned without the need for upscaling or line elimination.
I also have yet to find anybody with a TV tuner, TV antenna, IR transmitter, VGA transcoder, and Ethernet hub balanced on top of an LCD.