If you are spending $200 then you are in budget LCD terrority, at this end of the scale, CRT {a conventional style monitor} will indeed give more bang for buck feature wise, if you ignore the 'coolness' factor {though I think space saving is an important practical consideration so more than cool }..

So you need to know what to look for in 'budget' LCDs as you need to be careful still buying these as many are old models which are really pretty poor performance wise, with things like 'lag & blurr' {all monitors rely on a thing called persistence of vision based on refresh rate, LCD's don't really have this measure directly, but if they did many budget LCD monitors would come out 'piss poor' - some can be good, but others ... !}

The 'magic numbers' are 'response time' (think of this as refresh rate, it isn't, but its an equivalent measure) & you want a number of 16ms or less here (16 is 'ok', 12 is 'good' 8 or less 'brill'), contrast ratio (how bright it can make one thing against another, not the 'luminosity', at least 300:1 for 15", 400:1 for 17", 600 for 19" & 'lots' for 21"+) & whether the LCD is analogue or digital (how its connected & to what {analogue or digital video card?} comes into play also) - this is a wide subject, warranty & whatnot comes into play also ! - Try reading This or 'highlights' ..

This is a 'vfm' question, if its worth $200 to your mother then it is, & if it isn't, then it isn't ! - I don't think you can 'see' the difference for the money generally ..