Answer: CRT Monitors

If you are looking for another entry in your list of reasons to love your LCD-based monitor, you can add “At least it doesn’t have to be calibrated for the hemisphere I live in” to the list. CRT monitors, on the other hand, the bulky cathode-ray tube driven displays most computer users sat in front of during the last several decades, require specific tuning based on where they will be sold and used.

Specifically, monitors manufactured for use in the Northern or Southern hemisphere have to be calibrated for the strength and orientation of the magnetic field in that hemisphere. If you were to say, move from New York City to Brisbane, Australia and haul your hefty CRT monitor around the globe with you, the images and colors on the monitor would display incorrectly. It is possible to correct for such globe-trotting disturbances, but the process is so specialized and expensive that outside of extremely unique industrial and commercial applications on difficult-to-replace equipment, it’s rarely considered.