I am looking to upgrade my monitor very soon, and was hoping to get some professional opinions on what to look for.

Thanks in advance.

Make sure you shop around, there are many sizes and prices available. I use a 20" wide.

Originally Posted by Douglife

Make sure you shop around, there are many sizes and prices available. I use a 20" wide.

Not quite the detail I was hoping for.

It's actually not that bad a start, though. The problem is that you have certain aspects that you have to consider, and Doug realized that (although he didn't explicitly state as such).

1) Budget.
2) The size of a monitor you can fit on your desk.
3) Quality of your video card (certain video cards are "too fast" for certain monitors).
4) Whether or not you still want to find one of the few CRTs left or whether you want to (or are forced to) go LCD.

I didn't list brand name on purpose, since they're all pretty much the same and manufactured by a few companies that you and I haven't heard of (and brand names are stuck on them). This is the same with most consumer-grade electronics; get something generic made, slap a logo on it, charge 3-4 times as much. If you look hard enough, there are cases where you can see identical products (specs and everything) with a price difference of 20-30% or more just because a different logo is on it.

If you do go LCD, the key figure (besides resolution) is contrast ratio. The higher the contrast ratio, the greater the difference between "the whitest white" and "the blackest black", which in turn generates a higher quality picture. Personally, I use a 19" LG-194WTX that I bought last year (although it probably isn't sold anymore) with a 2000:1 contrast ratio.

You all have missed the mark of what I was hoping for. I'm looking to buy one of my employees a badass monitor. I don't really care how much, I was just wondering what a graphic designer would want in a monitor/how big.

Its also down to personal preferance. Me personally would go for a shiny x-black coated screen rather than a matt looking one.

Vicky made a good point. What works for her may or may not work for the rest of us.

The reason we missed your point is because you never made it. You didn't outline any parameters. If you want us to name our monitors, then say so. If you want us to name what we like/don't like, then say so. But give us something to work with, and don't tell us we're wrong when we guess at it because you didn't give any guidelines.