Fortunately, I saved this from before the big DB crash at SR. I wrote this back in spring of 2001, so it's a bit out of date, but I guess you could use this as a starting point:
There are only a few manufacturers of CRT's these days, and most of them come from the big 3 of Hitachi, Mitsubishi, and Sony. Many models of monitors use the same tube -- therefore, many of them are pretty much the same quality, as it's the picture tube that is the main factor in picture quality. As far as I'm concerned, get whichever monitor that happens to be the cheapest out of the group that uses the same tube. [* - please see addendum for a counterpoint]
1. The Mitsubishi DiamondPro 900u, DiamondPlus 91, NEC FP950 and FE950, Samsung SyncMaster 900NF, iiYama VisionMaster Pro i90a, 450 and 451, ViewSonic A95f, PF77, PF790, and PF795, Acer P911, and Princeton AGF900 all use the same Mitsubishi DiamondTron NF 0.25-0.27 mm stripe pitch flat aperture grill CRT.
2. The Sony CPD-E400 and G400, Dell UltraScan P991, HP P910, Priceton AGF900, KDS AV-195TF, Nokia 446 Pro, CTX PR960F, Mag 810FD, ADI Microscan G910, EIZO T761, and Compaq P900 all use Sony's FD Trinitron 0.24-0.25 mm stripe pitch flat aperture grill CRT.
3. The LG StudioWorks 995E, Cornerstone p1401, Mag Innovision XJ810 and 800v, Eizo F730, and Hitachi CM751, 752, 753, and 715, and others all use Hitachi's 0.26 mm (.22 mm horizontal) dot pitch invar shadow mask FST CRT.
Yes, there are many factors that can influence the picture quality, like video amplifier quality, and regulation of the monitor's power supply, among other things, but one variable I think people don't realize is the natural variance between two different monitors of the same brand and model. I don't see how PC magazines can rate monitors so differently when they're based on the same picture tube. CNet, PC Magazine / ZDNet, and PC World are the worst offenders. They only test one sample (or rarely, two if you're really lucky) against each other and have the gall to assign ratings and rank the monitors in precise order as if monitors had little to no quality variance as most other computer components. That is simply not the case.
The only way to really be sure that the monitor looks good is to see it for yourself at high resolution settings with a variety of text and applications to judge the quality. If that can be done in the store, I would be surprised, because they usually have a video wall where all the monitors are hooked up to a poor quality signal splitter and run at low resolutions with graphics that really are not that hard to display and make most monitors look good. The best is to buy it from a store that has a good return policy. If you want to save money and don't mind "rolling the dice", you can save a lot of money ordering online from places that offer free shipping like onvia.com.
I have done a review of the
Samsung SyncMaster 900NF and
NEC MultiSync FE950 on epinions.com if you want to take a look at them. Just a disclaimer, I get paid a few cents every time people look at them, so don't look at them if you feel I'm spamming and scamming (I personally hate people insidiously posting links to their banner filled webpages or trying to get people to sign up for alladvantage.com or something by posting in newsgroups or forums, so I'm letting you know up front. I usually don't do this sort of thing, but I'll make an exception in this case because those reviews might be useful here...)
[* - Addendum, July 2002: electronics like video amplifier quality and bandwidth and screen power regulation should not be forgotten, either, but a quick look at the "dot clock" or pixel frequency spec measured in MHz should give you an idea of the theoretical video bandwidth of the amplifiers. If you trust this sort of measurement, the higher the better, as the concept is if the monitor can handle a maximum of 235 MHz, when you run it at 160 MHz, it should be perfectly clear given the wide safety margin]
I thought they were the best... :-? 