I would say, go to the store and look a monitors playing the same content, and pick the best looking one to you, in your budget.
The resolution doesn't matter. If you can't see the diffence, is it really there???(yes!!but you cant see it!so....)
I am a big audiophile , and I held out for many years because I prefered my 42" 720p rear projection, until it went bad.
In small apartment living, sitting closer, I never noticed I need to upgrade to 1080p. Hook my computer to it? it looks like total crap!
In my house I sit back a couple feet more than in all of my apartments because the living room is way larger . I needed a sound upgrade to fill the extra space.
The 42" wasn't cutting it anymore because of the increaced viewing distance and sound it was being over powered, so off the the store.(increasing the distance requires less resolution, by the way)
Well in my budget I had a choice really big and cheap, same size ultra deluxe top end, or something in the middle. I ended up getting a 52" better than mid grade set on sale for cheaper than a 55" middle of the road set that I found perfectly fine for the job.
1080p is standard at that size, but I do notice, 2 foot away when changing disc I am blown away by the picture quality and detail which is wasted sitting on the sofa. If I could have afforded it, I would of got up to a 60". At 70" I notice the pixels at my viewing distance.
Computer monitors are different animals, veiwing distance is less, and content is mostly higher Quality. If your only using low quality content, small screen size, or longer than average viewing angle you might not see the extra detail of 1080.
I would like to have a 27" 1080 screen on my computer(fills more of my field of vision). 23/24" fit my budget and at that size 1080 is pretty much standard now. I wouldn't go any smaller to save a few dollars.
One more point, the better the screen you have,the higher definition content you need. The lower the resolution the worse stuff will look. On my 23" 1080 screen there is a slight differance beween 1080p and 720p video( which indicates I barely need a 1080 screen), but anything lower looks like crap. On a 720 screen, you will notice 480p looks worse than 720p but not by as much as I do. You won't need any high end graphics upgrades ever, as most modern mid range cards can easily drive a monitor at lower than console resolutions.
