Soney CPD-G500 Review

The setup of the CPD-G500 went pretty smooth. The biggest problem was the monitor's size and weight. This sucker is heavy! It's best to setup with the help of a friend, unless you're use to lifting 70 pound monitors all day long. The CPD-G500 comes with standard monitor plug and BNC connectors. Since my GeForce 256 didn't have BNC connectors, I made do with the monitor plug.

For such a big monitor, the CPD-G500 is not very deep. The monitor extends back no further than most 19" monitors. This makes placement on small desk a lot easier. I also like the round base and very clean front. The only thing visible on the front of the monitor is an off and on switch. The DisplayMouse is located under the monitor. The DisplayMouse itself is very easy to use. You push up on it to turn it on and then use it like a joystick to move around the display menu.

So what you get when you spend $1,200 for a monitor? The first thing you get is a flat screen. There are no 21" screens out there that is as flat as this one. And if there is, it's because they're using a Sony tube. This thing is so flat and big it looks concave at first. The flat screen does wonders for reducing glare and washout. There is no distortion at the corners and no bowing effect.

$1,200 gets you a Trinitron tube with a .24 dot pitch. Trinitron displays can get a lot brighter than normal shadow mask displays and the contrast between light and dark is also much greater with a Trinitron. This was made perfectly clear in a game of Quake 3. The darkness of space in the space level maps were rendered so black that it look like the monitor was turned off!

When you buy a 21" monitor, you want to run at high resolution. 1600x1200 is ideal for a 21 incher. However, cheap 21" monitor really can't run this high. Oh yes, the specs will say it can but it'll be running at 60Hz. Believe me you don't want to be in front of a big monitor running at 60Hz. Not only can the CPD-G500 run at 1600x1200 and do it at a very comfortable 85Hz, the big Sony can run at resolutions as high as 2048x1536! And the refresh rate is still a nice eye strain free 75Hz.

Running at 2048x1536 is an option. Text look very small at that res but it was totally readable. You can thank the Trinitron tube and .24 dot pitch for that. I didn't run at 2048x1536 for long. It's really too high a resolution for what I do. However I found 1600x1200 and 1920x1440 ideal. With these resolutions I can run two web pages side by side and have ICQ docked to one side and no windows overlap!

The big Sony has improved my Quake game.  It's so much easier to rail someone when you can see them without zooming in. Unreal looks amazing on the Sony. The game was rendered beautifully at 1600x1200x32 bit color. How fast does it run at this res? Over 50 frames per second. An Athlon 850 and overclocked GeForce 256 DDR will do that for ya. Just for the hell of it, I ran Quake 3 at 2048x1536. The game was totally unplayable but boy did it look good! Hopefully the NV15 or Voodoo 5 will allow me to run at this bleeding edge resolution.

The picture quality of the CPD-G500 is the best I've ever seen in any monitor. The thing that really stands out is small text. Even 6pt text is super sharp and totally readable. By contrast, all the shadow mask monitors we compared it to look blurry and out of focus. Colors were bright and saturation was perfect. The rendering of black was deeper than anything a shadow mask monitor can achieve. Thanks to its flat tube, there was no distortion of any kind near the corners of the monitor.

The CPD-G500 is not without fault. The main problem I have with it are the two damper wires used in the making of the Trinitron tube. These two wires are visible when a white background is shown. It's not that distracting but once you notice it, you tend to keep looking at it. The other problem I experienced with the CPD-G500 is once you get use to it, looking at any other monitors is like looking at a fish bowl! I had no idea my old Optiquest was that curved!

Spending $1,200 on a monitor doesn't make much sense at first, but when you look at it from a long term point of view, it's really not a bad investment. The monitor is normally the last thing anyone upgrades, so the money spent is spread over a longer period of time. The only thing still remaining from my original Project 504 is the case and monitor. Everything else has been upgraded or changed. The other thing you have to consider is this is your eyes we're talking about. If you sit in front of the computer all day long like I do, It makes sense to get the best monitor you can afford. And the Sony CPD-G500 ranks right there with the very best.

The Goods

The Bads

Rating: 9.5/10

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