A good LCD monitor

Forgive me if this is outside the scope of this forum, but I'm hoping someone could enlighten me as to how to choose an external LCD monitor. I'd like to get a widescreen monitor to hook up to my laptop; I've been wanting one for a while, but every time I start doing a little research on the topic it gets overwhelming quick

Any recommendations or helpful hints would be greatly appreciated. I think 19" would be big enough, but I wouldn't mind bigger! Hoping I can find something under $200.

Thanks!

This may not be the help you are looking for, but I would recommend looking online at amazon/buy/newegg dot com and ordering one of the largest displays that fits your budget. Adjustability of the stand is an issue you might want to pay attention to. If you don't trust online reviews/purchasing, then visit your local bestbuy, fry's, etc, and go with your senses.

There are some differences in quality, but I think it is hard to shop based on that, as most displays are adequate for basic text and web activities. Many of the panels offered by company X are sourced from other companies like AU Optronics so its tricky to shop based just on brand names.

One of the keys is what you will be doing with the laptop. Some monitors are better suited to gaming, others multi-media and others that are better suited for office applications. DPI, brilliance and refresh rate all play into it. A good computer store can really help, but you also want to read reviews before you buy. I've had great luck with viewsonic, but I'm not doing a lot of gaming or videos.

Can't go wrong with Samsung, I love the company.
Also best bet would be to go with an LED over LCD, that way blacks are true black. Way more vibrant yet has the same performance as an LCD.
Anything more specific and we would need more info like dfennewald said.

Hey, thanks for the advice guys. I'm mostly interested in something that'll be good for watching movies and doing some photo editing. I was thinking about heading over to Best Buy to see what they've got. I suspect it'd be good to buy at a brick & mortar store so if I have any problems I can just go there.

RaisingTheBar- I read something about how there are LCD monitors that use LED backlight, and then there are monitors that are all LED technology. Do you know anything about that?

I believe the LED vs LCD discussion is just about the back-lighting, that both are LCD displays, but one uses LED as the back-light source while the earlier generation used fluorescent.

http://www.lcdtvbuyingguide.com/hdtv/led-vs-lcd.html
http://www.cnet.com.au/led-vs-lcd-which-is-better-339295938.htm
http://www.rytbrothers.com/2011/04/led-vs-lcd-monitor-review/

yep LED mean the technology to create the back-lighting. Since it's easier to create whites that last with a led than with fluorescent tube , the gamut of color obtainable with a LED back lighting is bigger, meaning deeper color.

The technology which uses a microscopic light source for each pixel is called OLED. This is the real deal and the one that has real totally black blacks. But I don't think there are any consumer size monitor available that uses it yet. Ive seen OLED tv in the 14" size and they were priced over 10 k$.

Well that's about $10k more than I'm ready to spend
I've been looking at some 22-inchers for under $150, and some w/LED backlighting for under $200. Thanks again for all the info guys!

If it's for picture editing, which this forum suggest you certainly want an IPS monitor. Dell and HP have nice offers in the form of the U2410, U2311H, U2711 (Dell) and HP Zr24w

In general you don't want a TN panel (LED or LCD it doesn't matter, it's just the backlight) and you certainly want to look into Eizo or NEC monitors, but they will likely cost you an arm or leg. Just like with shaving stuff, research the matter and read alot of reviews. There's alot of information about such monitors to be found.

I'm using a Hanns-G HG216D widescreen LCD that I got as a hand-me down from a friend when he upgraded to a 28" widescreen. If you Google the model number, you'll come up with a lukewarm PC Magazine review. However, I'm pretty picky about my displays and I've found the monitor to be perfectly acceptable on my Mac Mini for photo editing and general use.

Eizo makes a great monitor. Great quality and they hold calibration well. I would also recommend a calibration system for color critical work x-rite and color munki are excellent.