Dinny: I am not saying you should get an Apple cinema display but...
I always thought that the Dell Ultrasharp displays were as good as the Apple Cinema displays. (My husband has a recent 23" or 24" Dell ultrasharp at home and I have an older 20" Apple Cinema display.) However, the other day I was looking at some pictures of our trip on his monitor and they just didn't look as nice as they did on mine. I didn't really pay attention to why this was. Maybe his wasn't calibrated correctly, maybe it was the difference in size? Just sayin' that there could be a real difference. You should go look at a monitor in person (maybe hook it up to your laptop) before buying it. That said, the 27" Apple displays are pretty pricey. I wish I had one.