My wife and I have both been using higher end 17" CRT monitors for a couple of years. Hers was a Sony, mine is a NEC, both splendid, high rez CRT monitors.
I bought her this LCD monitor for Christmas. It really knocked her socks off. This thing is clean and crisp and incredible.
One hint here, Amazon ships this monitor in the original factory box which has pictures and lots of clearly identifying typography. If it's for a present, have it shipped someplace besides where the gift recipient lives! Luckily, I had to go to UPS to pick it up so my wife's surprize was not ruined.
After reading some of the other reviews, let me offer a couple of hints. Use this device at full rez. You may have to readjust some of your defaults such as Icon Size - make it the biggest available, because at full rez they will still be small. There may be lots of screen defaults you may have to adjust and that may be a real pain. Live with the pain, you'll be glad you did. If you try to treat this device like your good old 14" EGA monitor that you used on your 286, you will be disappointed. Give it the respect it deserves and use it like the superb hardware gem that it is. If it doesn't thrill you, you are doing something wrong! Run a hot video card or suffer the consequences. If you feed this beast right, it will reward you handsomely.
Keep in mind that this 17" LCD and a 17" CRT are apples and oranges. Aside from the obvious differences, the display size is different. The CRT useable area is usually about 16.1" diagonally while the LCD is 17.0" - really, check it out.
In many of the reviews for cheaper competing models I read comments like, "Just as good as the NEC 1700M+! There were a few dead pixels, but they were barely noticable." If you want to compromise, then compromise. If you don't want to compormise, go with this one.