Customer Reviews

Sony GDM-F520 21" FD Trinitron CRT Monitor

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I purchased three of these for my firm, and all had severe focus problems that plagued them within three months. When new, they were beautifully sharp, but they started to "drift" in and out of focus, so badly that text at higher resolutiuons was a mere gray blur.

Sony service has been very reluctant to cure the problem, returning the monitors with the same problem after claiming they were repaired . I would recommend the NEC units instead; we have had good luck with all 5 of the flat 21 inch units we have.

FYI, Sony service is extremely difficult to contact. Plan on spending hours on hold queues, often to be transferred to busy signals or dead lines. This has been consistent over my two months of experience with them. Very dissappointing for such a large company.

By the way, nobody at service can give you a direct line, so you must wade through endless (and changing) teleprompt menus and wait through multiple hold queues (each one at risk of killing you with the busy or dead line) every time you call just to get an intelligent update on your repair orders.

I posted this review at other sites as well. I feel obligated to do so. I hope it helps to "warn" consumers a bit. Here goes:

I recently bought a Sony GDM F520. Right after it arrived, I had it returned.It had bad geometry, bad convergence, yellow "stains" at the right side of the screen. So did the second I got. And so did the third I got. Only the third now also has about 15 bad subpixels and an effect at the right side of the screen that looks like condensed water, I dont now how else to describe it. I have tested the screens on multiple systems, so the problem isnt caused by the videocard (tested on 3 systems containing a matrox g400, a Radeon, an asus geforce2 gts ) Sony (The Netherlands) doesn't "see" the things I point out, and say the screens were perfect. Allthough they obviously were not. I am very disappointed about it all. I now still have a faulty screen and no service. Not a screen I would recommend to others. Next time it will be an Eizo for me, or a Mitsubishi / Nec.

With kind regards, Rick (the Netherlands)

Had it for a year. Perfect and problem free, and it's on almost all the time. Rock solid, sharp, even color. Flawless.

This monitor has one the best CRT monitor award in more than one magazine. is grille pitch is yet to be challenged and it has good refresh rates at high resolutions. one problem is that there are 2 wavy lines that go down the screen but only some people notice them and most people just ignore them. I recommend that you at least try this out if you are going for a high end CRT.

Re two of the above comments, the OSD shows the current refresh rate when you press "menu." And any yellowish areas ("stains") in the corners can be fixed by tweaking the LANDING controls.

...only when it has been new.

I bought mine in the end of 2001. The superb technical data and the extremely positive reviews you could find in that time were the reasons for spending that much money (about US$ 1600). And indeed, the picture quality was just great (using 1600x1200 at 85 Hz and working mainly with text based applications), I was very contented with it.

But at the beginning of the year 2005 (i.e. only a few months after the expiring of the 3-year warranty!) the problems began:

- Whenever the CRT is cold, it flickers extremly bright red and sometimes also blue, but no problem when it has once warmed up itsself (that means after about one minute or so).

- This phenomenon has at first started only a little bit but has gotten worse day after day. Now it sometimes even powers off due to self-protection (so I have to repower it a few times) during its "warm-up phase" because it flashes up too bright.

- For a few weeks now the picture has been getting blurrier every day. Reading small letters for a few minutes is now causing me a headache. I have to switch the resolution down to 1280x1024. Also the edges are now sometimes in strange colors instead of white.

I've also looked into the device, cleaned it from dust and it seems very much that the tube itsself is the cause of the problems (perhaps sparkover between cathode and the heating?). But due to the blurry picture repairing will most probably mean to exchange the tube which I cannot do at home. So it's too expensive and therefore not whorthwhile anymore.

After only about four and a half years it seems that I have to dispose it - I just can't use it any longer, mainly because of its blur that I don't want to expose my eyes to.

Now I am planning to buy a TFT screen very soon. I am thinking about a Samsung 214T (21") or 204Ts (20").

In conclusion I can say: As long as it functioned it was really a great monitor, great picture, great colors, great focus. But I am very, very disappointed by its low lifespan. I've used it about four and a half years, about 10 hours per day which makes about 16500 power-on hours (up to now). The problems began the first time after about 11000 power-on hours.

Although I have used it a lot - in my optionion this just may not have happened with a device that expensive. To have an ultra focussed high quality device for at least the next six or seven years was one of my main considerations before buying it.

I don't know if Sony is manufacturing this monitor anymore. But if you think about buying one you should also take these negative quality and lifespan aspects (and meanwhile there are quite a lot of negative reviews of this monitor throughout the internet) into your considerations, not only the very impressive technical data.

After 5 years of owning a 21" Viewsonic P-815 which I was very pleased with, it burnt out. I opted to try this Sony GDM-F520. I am definatly not used to the 2 horizontal lines (wires) that Sony uses to support the APGrill. They are very annoying and look like defects, probably the worst thing about this monitor. It really bugs me. The text also has a slightly blury effect at the 1600x1200 resolution that I am running at, even after trying to fix it with the controlls. It's not too bad, but not great eaither. The price is really high too. The good things about this monitor are that it's brighter than my viewsonic, has more and better controlls, flat screen, and a smaller depth and footprint. Was it worth twice the price? I would say yes if I couldn't see the horizontal wire shadows and the text were sharper, otherwise, I wish I would have just paid to fix my viewsonic. Yet I give this monitor 4 stars because it's graphics and colors are the best I've ever seen, and I love the high bandwidth (2048x1536 @85Hz!!) This is the first monitor that outperforms my video card, rather than the other way around. High refresh rates are good! I wish it came in standard beige color. I also wish it had an onscreen display of the current refresh rate.

I bought my GDM F500 in 1999, well over 10 years ago. I'm a graphic designer and it was pretty much the best monitor available at the time, without going overboard on something with hardware calibration gizmos. I still prefer CRT monitors to LCD screens for richer blacks and sharpness.

Anyway, this beast still works well enough. After a decade of heavy daily use it's never gone wrong. If it does start to look less than sharp, I hit the ASC control on the front panel, resize to fit my favorite resolution, and I'm back in business.

With two sets of inputs, it's also very convenient for switching between two computers, a laptop and a desktop for example.

Anyway, it's no longer offered for sale, I was just looking for information about it (can't find my user manual), saw it was still up on the Amazon site, and had to put in a plug for it since some of the others were dissing it bad.

Have had the monitor for 5 years. Excellent up to a month ago....after being on for 5 minutes, blurry to the point where text is unreadable. For $2000 USD, I was hoping it would last longer....the issue I'm sure exists with the 520 model....

GR, Windsor, Ontario, Canada

If any review written gives the impression that this monitor is otherwise than perfect, there must be something like a bad monday or a bad computer behind it. Connect, turn it on and feel the experience of being in a new world. Super sharp (even text), steady with brilliant colors of any contrast you like. Absolutely perfect flat screen without detectable distortion anywhere on the screen area (if any, very easy to adjust by the complete control system). Using this monitor as the window toward the "real" world, for example outside the cockpit of an airplane in a flight sim, gives you a fantastic sensation of being included in the game. With one single word: PERFECT!!! There is no reason for a price discussion. You get what you pay for! This monitor may represent the upper quality limit for a CRT-type monitor!