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In the site:
I picked up the older, smaller Sony to see how the displays had held up against each other and whether or not the 19" monitor would offer increased visual quality over its smaller 15" cousin.
Warranty Service: The Sony G420 carries a three year warranty on parts, labor and CRT from date of service.
If, however, you're a buyer who is willing to spend good money for a great product, or to whom visual quality is more important than price, the Sony G420 is a great solution.
If you want Sony quality at a lower cost, the company does offer a line of 17" monitors-and many companies such as NEC, KDS, and Samsung have 19" solutions you might want to consider as well.
I also evaluated all three monitors with multiple video cards, including a GeForce3, a Voodoo5 5500, and a Radeon 7500.
Now, I want to make this clear: Neither Sony, VHJ, or this reviewer has made or intent to make any claims about the medical benefits of Sony monitors in relieving eye strain.
A really high quality LCD will set you back quite a bit more than this monitor, but the trade-off in desk space may be worth it.
Even its price, while admittedly higher than any other 19" monitor I'm aware of, is not truly a negative.
One caveat, however, is that it's generally better to buy a smaller, high quality monitor than a larger one with only mediocre display quality.
In low resolutions (640x480 and 800x600) in fact, the two Sony displays were surprisingly close in terms of visual and color quality.
Nevertheless, they are important considerations, and CRT's will remain viable purchases for the next few years at least.
The G420 is not huge, but it is quite a bulky 19" monitor and, at about 60 lbs, requires a fair amount of muscle to move around.
This is not a feature everyone will need, certainly, but if you do find yourself in a situation where you need both two systems and two monitors sitting side by side, a single G420 can eliminate the problem.
Sony's 17" LCD (same desktop size as a 19" CRT) is $800-almost twice as expensive as their 19" CRT models).
While using a G420 monitor I was able to hook two different test beds up to it and manipulate first one and then the other without needing to bring in a second monitor or move my current one.
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Conclusion: An Excellent Monitor for the Right Person
If you're a buyer whose desk space is at a premium, an LCD is likely a better choice.
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The Single Caveat: Mediocre Sound
I was very interested to test out the Sony G420's onboard speakers, but ultimately found them a disappointment.
Though its 17" size was a benefit for Word Processing or Excel work when measured against the 15" Sony, its faded-looking color and noticeably-blurrier text put it firmly in third place in terms of overall visual quality.
This is particularly noticeable when looking at black text on a white background-the Zenith 'white' is distinctly yellowish, while both Sony monitors-even the four-year old 100SX-have much crisper color definition.
When I got the chance to review the
Sony G420 I wanted to see how much a difference the monitor could make, so I rounded up two other monitors to compare it too-a 17" Zenith 1740 from around 1996 and a 15" Sony 100SX from 1997.
Also, if you're a cost-conscious buyer who is on a tight budget, the G420 is likely not a monitor you'll want to purchase.
The monitors were evaluated in day-to-day work, such as surfing the web, playing 3D games, writing office documents or using Microsoft Excel, reading large amounts of text off of the screen, and other such tests.
Moreover, some retailers demand that as many as 20 pixels be defective before they accept a returned LCD monitor - this many dead pixels would make your image look like Swiss Cheese.
Western Digital, etc, but relatively little time discussing the merits and pitfalls of various types of monitors.
The Sony embedded speaker will output decent enough sound to avoid desktop speakers, if you need to save space on your desk.
At first I had no problems, but the nature of the work itself combined with the low-quality monitor I was using caused increasingly large levels of eye strain.
This monitor allows for two system's to both be plugged into it simultaneously, and has two output jacks in the rear of the monitor for this purpose.
VHJ: Worth Every Penny: The Sony G420 19" CRT
Still, for a four-year 15" monitor, the 100SX surprised us with its still-excellent picture quality.
Given the difficulty of putting powerful speakers NEXT to a monitor (where the speaker's may well cause interference) its not fair to fault Sony for not building a powerful speaker set inside a monitor.
An old, flickery monitor can cause headaches for both the hardcore gamer and the corporate worker, while a monitor with rich, vibrant color and a good display can greatly enhance the computing experience of both.
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The Results: The G420 Pulls Ahead-but the Sony 100SX Surprises.
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Personal Experience: Monitor Quality Matters
I debated whether or not to include this part of the review, but decided it was an important enough development in my experience with the Sony monitor to warrant inclusion.
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