For those that are hyped up about replacing their cathode ray tubes with flat panel or LCD monitors, here is a frank and earnest assessment of the disadvantages of LCD flat panel monitors and displays.

Firstly, if you decide to use a larger screen resolution than the native resolution, things can appear to be blockier and unbalanced. The picture quality will not be as good in other words.

If you are a heavy duty gamer, than flat panel monitors generally do not have the required response rates in terms of pixel response times compared with cathode ray tubes. This also applies to anything that requires similar capacities as gaming such as high end video and graphics editing.

LCD flat panel monitors generally do not last as long as cathode ray tubes. In practice, this means you can't leave on a flat panel monitor the same way you would do so for a cathode ray tube. If you do so there is a chance that it will lose it's brightness over time. Therefore it's necessary to shut off the LCD monitor every now and then to prevent this from happening, otherwise you will probably need to replace your LCD flat panel monitor every one to two years.

So after listing these disadvantages, is the verdict simply to not purchase an LCD flat panel monitor. Of course not. No solution is perfect from everyone's perspective because everyone has different needs. If you feel the disadvantages listed above do not affect you in any dramatic way, then it's definitely advantageous to get a flat panel monitor for everyday purposes such as surfing the internet and perhaps basic image and video editing if necessary.