The most important investment you can make when purchasing computer hardware is to invest in a good quality monitor. With so many to choose from, we thought we can give you some inside information that could help you decide which one best suits your needs and budget. Monitors run at various resolutions, 640x480 is the default resolution for the Windows operating systems. 640x480 just means that 640 pixels are fit across the top of your monitor and 480 up and down. The more expensive monitors come with higher resolutions such as 800x600 or 1024x768 all the way up to 1600x1200. The higher resolutions make objects smaller, but clearer because more pixels are fit in the screen. You can fit more objects on a screen when it is in a higher resolution. Larger monitors are better for running at the higher resolutions. If you run a high resolution on a small monitor, the text may be hard to read because of its small size, despite the clarity. The price for computer monitors today range anywhere from $300.00 for a 15" CRT to an advance flat screen LCD that would run you easily into the thousands of dollars. For an average 17" to 19" flat screen monitor, you should expect to pay anywhere from $400.00 to $800.00.

        Flat Panel Monitors, (Liquid Crystal Display) - If you look around, you will notice an increase in production of flat screen LCD's monitors and a decrease in CRT monitors. The reason is because they offer an advantage over the traditional CRT monitors and they also save space. They are significantly thinner, taking up much less (as much as 80% less) desk space. Virtually 100 percent of the LCD size is available as viewing area. The picture quality however is not as good as that of a traditional CRT monitor, and they are much more expensive.