Good luck finding one, I know nothing about that stuff as well.

Thanks XD Hopefuly someone amoung my watchers is a hardware buff.

Depends on how much you're looking to spend. You can get a great 20-22" flat screen for about 120.00. What are you looking for?

I honestly dont know ^^;
I'm willing to spend a decent amount of money, but I dont know what 'makes a good monitor'.
my problem is that I dont know what 20-22 inches is in terms of what I'm looking for ^^; likewise, I dont even know what the units are for mesuring colour depth or colour range.

these days you don't need to worry about color depth, all monitors and tv's with monitor inputs assume a minimum of 32m colors. there are a few that have 64m colors, and 72m colors (holo projection) but those are out of most non lotto winners price ranges.

What you'll want to look for is "Native Resolution" and "Max Resolution".

if you run a monitor at Max resolution for too long it will fri(trust me, I hope my grandma can afford the one I like instead of the wally whirld one she promised, $10 difference+taxes)

for instance the native resolution of a 12" black and white is 320x180 with 16b color(greyscale), a monochrome is a 640x480 with a 2b color, and vga is 640x480 with 16 bit color.

EVGA(1996) and better support 16-32 million colors and have resolutions running from 640x480 to 1680x1430(4:3) and 1990x1280(5:3).

So the only real question is, How big do you need your work space to be?

yes, also depends on what you do with it.

you can get a new off the shelf tv, flat screen, 22" or bigger and it'll be vga compatible(or you can buy a dvi-hdmi cable and get better resolution) This will negate the need to run out into the front room, if you get bored and need some tv time.

I would check the popular web delivery sites, like newegg and Gadgets.com for a monitor or tv with the native digital resolution you need to do your work with.

(tv's will be widescreen, monitors still availible in 4:3)

If you are looking for something that can work as a TV and a monitor (viewing one at a time of course), then I'd go with Shnurui's idea here. Happy to suggest some things for you if you're looking for a certain size or $$. And the inches (like 20-22) is the measurement from one corner to the opposite corner. Doing the TV split does mean your computer needs a certain connection, but if you were already using a screen, you likely have it. If it's big enough, a long cable too, for it being farther.

Honestly i would suggest looking for the surplus store at your local college campus, they will often have really good deals on electronic equipment and most of the stuff is really quite good. Btw you dont even have to be a student to shop there. Just an idea for ya.