A 17" monitor will more likely be 15.8" to 16.0" viewable inches, and has slowly become the standard CRT size. CRT's have been one of the slowest price dropping items, but over the last two years have finally become reasonable. A good 17" such as the Sony I'm writing this on will set up back roughly $300 at the time of writing. The shift to 17" as a standard has also caused a shift in GUI design and webpage layout -- most webpages and software today expect 800x600 if not 1024x768 as your viewing resolution.