My current system includes a positively ancient Samtron CRT monitor, a 14-incher that dates back to when 486's were considered advanced home machines. it's not even listed on the devices that Mandrake 10.1 supports. Fortunately, the generic driver seems to do the job.

Being so ancient, it's getting close to the time it will cease functioning, so I'm looking at monitors.

To the utter frustration of salesbots at retailers selling computer hardware, I've been monitoring prices of monitors, and they're getting quite reasonable - but there's still quite a range for each size.

I know this is a hazardous question as I'll be tempting those wo prefer or hate a particular manufacturer to promote or slag them, but does anyone have any suggestions as to what I should be looking for in a flatscreen monitor?

The computer is mostly used in text-type situations, although I do watch the occasional video file on it.

-Number of inches. 15 should do the trick, 17 preferred.
-Good response time, preferred =< 20ms
-Good contrast, preferred >= 1:450
-Good brightness, preferred >= 350 cd/m2
The Benq FP591 is the cheapest monitor that complies to that characteristics, in my country (E279). But it my be different in other countries.
For other solutions which comply to this characteristics, look at
http://www.pricewatch.info/cat/71?it...450&maxcrit99=
The site is Dutch, but at the green bottom table you'll find some other LCD screens that comply, and you can change the charasteristics the named screens should comply to. The values are as I said here.