In the interests of accuracy, the cost of medium size IPS LED LCD (wow, that’s a lot of alphabet soup) monitors has come down quite a bit in the last few months, with good quality ones in the 22”-23” class now being available in the $200-$250 range. Here’s a good example from ASUS:
http://www.compuplus.com/ASUS-ASUS-23-IPS-LED-1183977.html
Still, when you assemble top quality parts (and Apple pays extra to buy the top 10% of the production from their suppliers) into an all-in-one computer, with an excellent suite of software, you will be in the same price range as an iMac... and the iMac customer service will beat your assemblage in all ways... and will not have the various suppliers arguing about who is causing the problems: software or hardware. I assure you the parts you buy from the bargain companies are not from the top 10% of the production runs...
Well how about this -— Across the Apple line-up you have monitors, laptops, iPads. How many are LCD and how many are LED? I have been using LCD monitors since 1999 (first one I got was a 14” Princeton) and have seen how much they have improved over the years. Today’s improved LCDs seem to be very good for 85% of users. Are LED monitors better for gamers and graphics artists? You tell me but they are elite computer users.
The way I see it a good solid Acer, Asus or Samsung LCD monitor of 21-24 inches is what 90% of computer users will be quite happy with