One of the most important things you can get for your computer is a good monitor. I remember buying one for my kids to use a couple of years ago. I didn’t want something expensive, because my kids have a nasty habit of being, well, kids, which means they tend to break things. So I went to the local Office Depot and got a no-name-brand LCD monitor on sale for something like $150.

Boy, did I regret that. The screen quality was awful; way too bright (and unable to be properly adjusted, even with the controls),  hard to read, and it died after less than 18 months of use. To be honest, I wasn’t upset at all when that monitor went up in smoke.

All that to say, I wanted to recommend a superior monitor today, one that you should absolutely consider if you’re in the market. It’s the Dell UltraSharp 2405. I got one of these about three years ago for work, and never regretted it.

I use it constantly, and it’s been the best monitor I’ve ever owned, bar none — and that’s saying something, since I’ve owned lots of ‘em over the years. First of all, it’s 24 inches big. That’s a lot of real estate, and you can put a lot on the screen at once. That’s especially important to folks like me, who have lots of windows open at once.

The picture quality, which is the most important part of any monitor, is fantastic. Colors are true, it’s not too bright or dim, and images are exceptionally sharp. It also has lots of connection types and slots for different memory cards. And in three-plus years, I haven’t had a hint of a problem with it, either hardware or software-wise. It always works, and works flawlessly.

It was also more than $800 when I bought it; now you can get it for less than half of that. A small price to pay for one of the best monitors on the market.