Iiyama MA203DT

Iiyama MA203DT

When we contacted them, Iiyama told us that they were no longer producing CRTs. Their production was in fact so low that they didn´t want to speak about it. This is surprising because they keep telling us on their websites great things about this technology. There is even an assistant that helps you to choose the monitor that will meet your requirements. For those who want a monitor to play and watch videos:


If you click on the link at the bottom of the explanation, you found several LCDs and a CRT at the end, the MA203DT. They recommend it for all uses and say that it is the best except for CAD.


As said in the characteristics, this is one of the last DiamondTron tube monitors and it’s easy to see this as soon as it is switched on because of the two permanently visible horizontal grey voltage lines. LCD users could inappropriately think that they are two lines of black dead pixels. We spot them immediately and mainly in lighter backgrounds such as word processing software, web surfing… In the beginning, it is surprising and then as usual we tend to get used to them, until completely forgetting them.


The Iiyama monitor compared to a 20 inch Philips LCD
At the time of their greatest popularity, Iiyama´s monitors were renowned for their "Overclocking" capacities. The Japanese manufacturer gladly tells their users to push the monitor to its limits with very high resolutions, higher than the competition’s, to have a much greater framerate. For example, the A902MT tested in 2001 was capable of displaying 1600 x 1200 at 90 Hz.
The bigger MA203DT displays very similar characteristics to its predecessor with the same bandwidth and maximum resolution. The MA203DT has a higher horizontal frequency, however, you will use slightly lower adjustments and Iiyama recommends working in 1600 x 1200 @ 88 Hz. Whether you are in 88, 60 or 92 Hz (maximum supported) the image is slightly blurred and tiring for your eyes.

So not only does it not hold at the same frequency as the "old monitor" but we also had to work with a lower resolution or else a there is a guaranteed headache. Fortunately, sharpness is perfect in 1280 x 1024 from 60 to 114 Hz.

One point has been strongly improved compared to the manufacturers´ usual products, shielding, which used to be a little light. Now there is nothing to say about it except the monitor’s behaviour is impressive. You can make a phone call next to it without disturbing the displayed image. Those who are in strong magnetic environments due to the bad isolation of surrounding cables will appreciate this monitor. Even a magnet on the side above or below doesn´t disturb the image (only when it’s placed close to the monitor panel and from 5 cm, red, green and blue rings appear). Again, well done Iiyama! If in the past we had to launch a degauss and sometimes adjust parameters to recover a good image, now you just have to remove the magnet for the image to go back to a normal position.


For ergonomics, the monitor is, and it isn´t so surprising without a USB hub or additional functionalities. We can only say that the OSD is very complete.


It’s possible to manually adjust all parameters in all possible convergences, pureness per area and shimmering effects. We haven´t used it, however. The monitor was blurry in 1600 x 1200 and adjustments couldn´t change this fact. It was sharp in 1280 x 1024 and adjustments didn´t make it sharper so we didn´t need it.

Philips 109B60

Philips 109B60

On their website, Philips says funny things about this monitor. We can read that it’s manufactured without lead and so you will be able to fully enjoy your leisure time online. Should we believe that gaming is better without lead? We would be happy to believe them.


As is usual for Philips, the monitor is equipped with a Real Flat tube. This is Shadow Mask technology and the process is close to tube TVs. Where Trinitron monitors use a grid with thin vertical banding, the Real Flat uses a plate with holes.

Where the mask is, there is no light. These monitors’ brightness is generally lower than of the Trinitron and Diamondtron. This is fortunately no longer up to date. The Iiyama was measured at 101 cd/m² in white as compared to 133 cd/m² for the Philips. Shadow Mask mustn´t be considered the darkest anymore.

We also used to say that Shadow Mask monitors were often appreciated for their color rendering, which was more accurate than the others. Again, the scale is set to zero and the Philips provides good results compared to an average LCD, but it isn´t better than any other CRT.


Philips monitor compared to a 20 inch LCD Philips
To continue with reputations, Shadow Mask monitors were often entry level monitors. The electronic components for control weren´t´ necessarily of the best quality and this was the reason why frequencies were below average. The 109B60 sticks to this rule. The maximum horizontal frequency of 97 kHz is rather modest compare to what the best 19” monitors were capable of not so long ago (some used to go up to 117 kHz). This is the reason why we weren´t surprised to see that it only reached 77 Hz for horizontal refreshing frequency with a resolution of 1600 x 1200 pixels. It’s approximately the lowest we can find and a good monitor could go up to 95 Hz.
To be honest, the 77 Hz were just good and not entirely satisfactory as the image was blurred. A CRT fan wouldn’t necessarily see it (we get used to everything, blurred images, or even very blurred images as it is the case here), but those who know LCD monitors won´t be able to stay with this resolution for more than 5 minutes. Your eyes quickly tire. Reducing the frequency, adjusting the OSD parameters doesn´t change anything. Like the Iiyama, you have to reduce the resolution.


In 1280 x 1024, the image is sharper and a little more stable. This time the frequency goes up to 96 Hz but from my point of view this result isn´t satisfactory because the image is still blurred. We reduced it once again to 1024 x 768 and the monitor is more comfortable, reaching 119 Hz and the image is finally partly sharp in areas. Most of the image is satisfactory, but the top left corner lacks visibility. You have to manually intervene on shimmering, without great hope of improving it because it has an influence on the entire image. Pureness adjustment per area, like with the Iiyama, is missing.


The last hope for those who must have sharpness is to work in 800 x 600. With this resolution it’s sharp, the refreshing frequency is 149 Hz, but letters on the monitors are very big. We are far from the 1600 x 1200 @ 75 Hz recommended by the manufacturer. We think that they lack a little humility concerning their monitor.

ViewSonic P227FB

ViewSonic P227FB

Memories, memories…Back in 2001 ViewSonic won our CRT roundup with the P95f. 5 years later the competition is less fierce but quality is still there. We preferred the ViewSonic monitor out of the 5 products tested here. Five and not three, because as reported in the previous pages, we haven´t detailed the results obtained with two other models, one no name and a second-hand Mitsubishi monitor.

Its characteristics are much better that the two others previously tested. We could only suppose that the quality of electronic components was better, which was indeed the case. The P227FB stands frequencies that the competition would dream of reaching and with sharp images.



ViewSonic mentions the use of PerfectFlat technology, but actually that only means tube monitors made by ViewSonic. Depending on the period we could find a Trinitron or a Shadow Mask tube. For this new P227FB, it’s logically the latter. We say this, because "tron" production has stopped. This doesn´t prevent them from displaying a nice brightness of 106 cd/m². There are quality electronic components that make it possible to display rather sharp images in 1600 x 1200 @ 103 Hz. This is much sharper than the Iiyama and Philips at the same resolution. For office use, however, nothing is better than LCD sharpness, if you drastically reduce their brightness which is generally initially completely delirious. For those who prefer working in 1280 x 960 with this ViewSonic monitor, they will be able to do it with a vertical frequency of 126 Hz.


ViewSonic´s monitor compared to a 20 inches LCD Philips
ViewSonic talks about a variable mask step, a pitch, between the center and the side of the image. Don´t think that there will be a possible deformation as there is none and we verified this. The only real problem noticed on this monitor is the presence of a dark green spot in the top right corner. ViewSonic put the blame not on a possible production problem but on the transport company. They said that it was scrupulously checked over before it was sent. Such damage could have occurred between England (where it was stored) and here.

A word about shielding. It’s good but less impressive than the Iiyama. It was more sensible to the magnetic field induced by our magnet than the Japanese monitor. To defend it, we have to say that it’s a little lighter and Iiyama was probably a little more generous on isolating components. But here again, you only have to take the magnet away for the image to recover the original natural colors.

Homogeneity, color quality

Brightness homogeneity

CRTs are revered for their graphic qualities while LCDs are rejected because of overly flattering rendering, far from the result on paper. All of this isn´t necessarily true. Gaps measured between color requested and the one displayed are as significant as with LCD monitors. The only difference is in brightness gaps between the two technologies. CRTs are at 100 cd/m² and LCDs are often at 250 cd/m². 100 candelas is good for graphic designers and office. 250 cd/m² is rather better for games and movies.

Another misconception is that CRT brightness homogeneity is perfect while LCD´s is terrible. This is wrong. CRTs aren´t necessarily better. For example, we found 14% gaps with ViewSonic´s Shadow Mask monitor and 20% for the Iiyama (Diamondtron tube).

IiyamaMA203DT : up to 19 % gap.
Philips 109B60 : up to 16 % gap.
ViewSonic P227FB : up to 14 % gap.

Brightness differences are important, but we don´t see them on the displayed image. There is no white halo, no area that is clearly much brighter. The loss is on a decreasing sliding scale. We only realise this when we take on object, move it from one corner to the other and we see colors vary.

Color quality

And still another generally accepted idea is that CRT color quality is incomparable to an LCDs. CRTs are said to be more accurate from the beginning, closer to paper quality, less saturated…

Another small deception is that CRT manufacturers ship their monitors with as random adjustments as LCDs.

Reminder: The deltaE is a measure between the color requested and the one really displayed on the monitor. The result obtained is also counter-balanced for human eye color sensitivity.

Delta E > 3 the desired color is noticeably different from the one on the screen.
2 < Delta E < 3 color quality is satisfying but a graphic designer wouldn´t probably be happy with that
1< Delta E <2 colors are accurate.
Delta E < 1, the result is perfect

IiyamaMA203DT
Philips 109B60
ViewSonic P227FB
Our first observation is a double let down. Before the calibration, the result isn´t extraordinary, but it isn´t great after either. The improvements of the Iiyama weren´t perfect. Two of the 18 colors still had a DeltaE superior to 4 and four are around 3. Five of the 18 basic colors have DeltaE < 2, or less than half of them.

For a graphic designer, it is best to avoid this DiamondTron tube and rather choose Philips and ViewSonic´s Shadow Mask. But here again some of the values are close to DeltaE = 2.
Here is the comparison with a well calibrated LCD monitor.

The Samsung SyncMaster 970P calibrated
To more easily interpret results, we can use an average of the DeltaE found for the 17 colors previously reported in addition to level of black that isn´t included in the above graph. We find:


The Philips monitor has the best initial adjustments. Rendering is correct. The two other CRTs do not provide better results than the LCD except in terms of brightness. They are less bright at 110 cd/m², have mat panels, compared to the very trendy glossy LCD panels that sometimes reach up to 450 cd/m². So even if average DeltaE is equivalent, the rendering of this tube monitor is much closer than what we will have on paper after printing (if the printer is calibrated as well of course).

Game quality

Game quality

If some gamers remain faithful to CRTs, it’s because they feel they provide better reaction time because of the following reasons:

They aren´t subject to afterglow

They display more images per second

Let´s begin with the second point, the rate of sequences. LCDs work at 60 to 75 Hz, ideally with vertical synchronisation activated on the graphic card. 60 to 75 "full" images are displayed.

We remind you that when vertical synchronisation is activated, the graphic card will wait for the image to be read and then send it to the monitor via RAMDAC or TDMS before writing in the front buffer the one that has been temporary calculated and written in the back buffer. If you chose to deactivate this synchronisation, the passing from the back buffer to the front buffer will be made at anytime: The image sent and displayed by the monitor will be partly divided, or depending on the framerate images will be calculated by the GPU. This will lead to images freezing and breaks in the continuity seen on the screen. It is preferable to play with the synchronisation activated.

So a LCD monitor at 60 HZ will display 60 images per second. This frequency is a turn-off for most hardcore gamers.
They would be inclined to use a CRT that will allow much higher frequencies at 120 Hz or above.


We placed one of our three CRTs in clone mode with an LCD and the latter takes a severe beating. We didn’t try to be nice as this test is extremely severe for current flat monitors. The result is so different that even our colleagues that don´t see afterglow on a 25ms monitor see it here. Going back to an LCD after this is really difficult. On CRTs, even if the phosphorus sometimes shows a persistence of images and even if in office mode we find them blurred at certain frequencies, games are superb.

Reaction test

A car moves from left to right at high speed.

Movement isn’t perfectly fluid. Depending on its speed, the car is shown in several successive positions. If the car goes very fast, the positions are very close and the eye perceives a flowing movement.
Perfect monitor monitor with 3 ghost images
A monitor without ghosting effects would have previous images completely fading away when a new one appears. This is the theory and in practice, it´s often not the case as images fade progressively. Sometimes up to 5 afterglow images remain on the monitor and represent the visible white trail behind objects. Some monitors have strong overdrives in addition to image anticipation algorithms. In this case, an image can appear in front of the main object, creating a white halo in front of objects in motion.

With the CRTs we captured afterglow with a camera at a shutter speed of 1/60 seconds as compared to 1/1000 s for LCD. We take 50 pictures per test. We then can see a monitor´s ghosting effects, or all the car´s positions in the entire process. The most important image is the one on the left, the better one. It will be the most displayed on the monitor, while the one on the right is in transition. Why 1/60 Hz? Becase it is the monitor refreshing rate. Beyond his figure, we capture black areas that are due to the monitor screening.

Here are the two extremes states with each monitor as afterglow oscillates.

Iiyama MA203DT
Philips 109B60
ViewSonic P227FB
Here is the comparison with one of the fastest LCD on the market:

ViewSonic VX922, TN 2 ms panel
Not only is it obvious that the LCD monitor has a higher level of afterglow, but there is something else. For the CRT, images are drawn by a beam that screens the monitor. They are only affected for a few nanoseconds. After the passage of the beam, the image doesn’t immediately fade away because of the phosphorus persistence, whose role is to capture light and restore it in a few milliseconds. Nevertheless, the image turns to black and this is so fast that our eye doesn´t see it. It can´t be perceived but it sometimes causes visual tiredness (this is a separate problem).

With LCDs, manufacturers have now enabled the display of full images without transitions. Our eye is subject to a small persistence of images, however, that last a few milliseconds. Fast liquid crystals aren´t enough. According to the latest manufacturer studies, our eyes add some afterglow by keeping in memory the previous image. This afterglow isn´t captured with our camera. This phenomenon explains the gap between what we sees on LCD monitors when we launch PixPerAn and the sharpness of objects captured by our camera.
This is the reason why BenQ, Samsung, LG-Philips and CMO work on an artificial reproduction of the screening on the fastest LCD to clean our eyes from the previous image. This is what we gathered from the CeBIT in inquiring about BFI, MPA, and 120 Hz.