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Just as 15-inch LCD monitors became a hot item last summer thanks to a precipitous price drop, 17- and 18-inch LCD monitors are now available at prices that demand a second look, although they still represent a hefty investment. What's the difference between an $800 economy display and a $1300 deluxe monitor? We tested 15 flat panels--eight 17-inch and seven 18-inch models--to find out.

Our test group included monitors from Benq, Compaq, CTX, Dell, Eizo Nanao, Iiyama, NEC-Mitsubishi, Planar, Samsung, and ViewSonic. The contenders ranged from an $1899 luxury model that made our 18-inch chart on the strength of its outstanding features and unbeatable image quality to a $629 monitor that couldn't compete on graphics quality or features, and failed to earn a place on the 17-inch chart.

Our choices for the Best Buys occupy a middle ground that combines reasonable price with image quality good enough for daylong, everyday work. Remarkably, one company took both the 17- and 18-inch Best Buy spots. In the 17-inch category, the $769 ViewSonic VG171 augments the best overall image quality in its class with a low price. Among the 18-inchers, the $949 ViewSonic VG181's solid features, under-$1000 price, and strong image quality give it the edge over the competition. Both models benefit from ViewSonic's top-notch support, too.

What to Look For

Because they still cost as much as some PCs, big LCDs require you to do some careful comparison shopping before plunking down your cash. Here's a quick tutorial on what to consider when you're shopping for these displays.

An LCD monitor's diagonal screen size as listed on the vendor's spec sheet is unambiguously what you get--unlike with CRT monitors, which have a viewable screen size about an inch less than the stated diagonal measurement of the tube.

Unlike with CRTs, support for multiple screen resolutions is not especially useful with LCDs. In our experience, all LCDs look best at their native (and maximum) resolution; in the case of our 17- and 18-inch models, it's 1280 by 1024 pixels. To display lower resolutions, LCDs use only a portion of the pixels they contain and then scale up the resulting image, with varying degrees of success. Typically, nonnative resolutions are so blurry as to be intolerable in daily use. The greater detail provided by a high-resolution screen is rarely a disadvantage, though. If 1280 by 1024 makes text and icons too small for your liking, you can increase their size by using either Windows' Display Properties control panel or a utility such as Portrait Displays' LiquidView.

Having dual video interfaces--both analog (VGA-style) and all-digital (DVI) inputs--is desirable. In our testing, we've seen that an all-digital connection generally produces a better-quality image: DVI doesn't require the signal conversion (from digital to analog, and then back to digital) that an analog interface does. But to use the digital input, your PC must have a digital-capable graphics card, and these range in price from about $150 to $300.

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