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Comment by stusmith1977 | Hacker News Reader

stusmith1977·

Sorry, didn't really clarify what I meant by mainstream: easily available to purchase, by non-techie consumers, from a high-street shop.

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Sony multiscan trinitrons weren't exotic - you could purchase them in any reasonable electronics store. I have several that go up to 2048x1536 @ 75hz. Viewsonic had monitors that did the same. While I look forward to higher resolution LCDs becoming a standard option, LCD's set us back resolution wise for quite a long time. LCD does have other advantages over CRT of course.

I had and loved a similar NEC CRT. But 2048x1536 on a 22" display is ~116ppi. Apple's non-retina laptops have been higher than that for years (with the MacBook Air being highest, at ~135ppi), and Sony, at least, has offered configurable 1080p displays in 13" laptops (~165ppi) for some time.

It was pretty nice a decade ago, when everyone was moving to LCD monitors that were vastly inferior in every measure beyond size or weight, but, at least in terms of ppi (and on consumer grade equipment), display technology eclipsed the CRT quite a while ago.

edit: I'd forgotten that CRTs were measured with the bezel included, so at 20" viewable, the display is 128ppi. So closer, but still pretty far behind.

Viewsonic had a 19" display (with 18" viewable) that did 2048x1536. I think that was the smallest size that the 2048x1536 CRT's came in.

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