Wanted

My quest began a couple of days ago for a new 19" CRT monitor to replace an old Samsung SyncMaster 700. It is having serious problems displaying anything now - images are enlarged and screen is darker than what it should be. It then goes through a stage where the image will start to go to "normal" size and then slowly fade to black. So its time to replace it.

I chose a CRT instead of LCD flat panel for life, clarity, and of course price. I know LCDs have a tendency to have individual pixels go out leaving annoying dots on the screen after some use (they are probably trying to remedy this problem quickly). While they are improving, I can not afford a high quality one (about $700 - $800 currently).

After some searches, a few were found to be "top notch".
PC World recommended the NEC MultiSync FP912SB and Samsung SyncMaster 957mb.
Toms Hardware recommended the Samsung SyncMaster 957mb also, along with the ViewSonic P95f+.

Bestbuy has a ViewSonic A90f+ and Samsung SyncMaster 997df. I have read positive and negative things about each one on ePinions.com ~ and it seems if you look hard enough you can find negative comments on just about everything. I have also read some people had serious problems with the NEC monitor breaking after a couple of months and receiving refurbished monitors as replacements (so in my opinion that all but eliminates the NEC from contention despite its review on PCWorld).

The problem is finding one of these in a local store, and one can only hope that they are displaying more than some repeating animation or commercials. I know I know, having a screen of text displayed on a screen will not draw people over, but alas this is what will be displayed most often, be it a document, webpage, code, or just about anything else that isn't a game.