After reading a lot of discussions on the topic, plus watching my own experience, I finally got an LCD monitor, just came in today, the Samsung was by far the best buy I found for 17 inch monitors. If you've never used an LCD monitor, a 17 inch LCD is almost as big as a 19 inch CRT, because you get all the screen width as useable.

I was a little concerned that the quality might not be up to parr, but it's really good.

I got mine at zipzoomfly.com, the price was right, so were the specs, 1280x1024 max resolution, 600 to 1 contrast ration, a 12 millisecond refresh rate, this one is a good deal. The view from sides and top is excellent, they claim a viewing angle of 160/160, which is much better than most I checked out.

Now I'll see if these things really are that much easier on the eyes. First thing I noticed immediately is that there is no glare, a desklamp just makes light, no harsh glare off the screen. Very nice.

Yoper Linux running KDE desktop looks great too, better than on a CRT for some reason, maybe the way the fonts work.

Now the only question is what to do with all this screen space, it's too big to run browsers full screen.
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I found it for even less, $325 [newegg.com], didn't have free shipping though. But the monitor is as good as you said, I really like it, it's a really nice looking piece of machinery. And really easy on the eyes. Don't subject yourself to that glare and eye torture of a crt any longer than necessary.
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