Eizo and a couple of other brands *may* have better options and setup, but I can guarantee that everyone else is just a matter of a few basic differences. Samsung, NEC, Sony, Viewsonic, HP - they're all the same, pretty much, or close enough that you'd need a pro to tell the difference.
I beg to differ and it all has to do with context. This forum has an interesting mix of professionals and extremely talented enthusiasts (who can often easily outshoot a lot of pros) and that requires two very different approaches with regards to advice and what is or is not worth buying. I own a Dell 20" (about 4 or 5 years old now... haven't used it in several years aside from the odd non-photo edited application here and there... I never used it for critical editing but I have compared it to my better monitors), and HP LP3065, a Samsung 213T, and an NEC2690. The Dell is the worst of the bunch. The Samsung was nice for its time but much better options have come along since then, specifically it misrepresents reds (they're a bit orange) and it can't be profiled out. The HP is impressive for a consumer model. When I bought it the options were the Apple 30" ACD, the 30" Dell and of course the HP. The HP at the time was the best performing display (if I were to buy right now it would be an NEC 3090).
For professional applications "a few basic differences" can mean the difference between smooth sailing and hours of lost time. For example, if you're producing a print and it contains a smooth gradient like what you would see in a scene with the sky slightly after sunset, a less expensive monitor (of which many tend to have luminance issues... they are too bright and require hacks to work around) in order to bring it down to acceptable luminance levels will require a destructive change to the profile loaded to the video LUT which is only 8 bits. Most of the time 8 bits works for us but with critical applications (especially if you're working in a wider gamut color space) there is very little margin for error. A display that has to be coaxed down to the proper luminance level via the video LUT may display posterization. When you're charging hundreds of dollars for a print you don't want to deliver something with posterization in it so you might start chasing a ghost in Photoshop that may not be there to begin with in the first place. You might find this out when you run a print which is not such a big deal if you own a large format printer but if you don't it's a slow process if you can't rely on your monitor for accurate soft proofing.
For a pro I always say that your monitor is your most used piece of gear in your studio. You're ammortizing its cost over a period of 3 to 4 years and you're doing to stare at the thing for anywhere from 40 to 70 hours per week all year. It makes sense to get the highest quality monitor you can afford. Yes you might save $500 by going with a less expensive model but it only takes one picky or unhappy customer or problem with the lab output and that imagined savings instantly goes away in the form of wasted time trying to trouble shoot problems.
Now for an enthusiast I would say it's more a matter of budget and priority. You could go with something like an NEC P221W or an HP LP2475 and get yourself a very nice display and that will probably serve you quite well. Spending more is met with the rule of diminishing returns and if you don't place a really heavy demand on your monitor (it's not a tool you use every day to make a living with, at least not for making color and density judgments... spreadsheets don't require anything fancy) and the occasional inaccuracy and the time required to fix the problem isn't a big deal then I'd have a hard time recommending that such a user spend twice the amount of money on a more accurate model.
Now to be fair, I know a ton of pros who don't have high end screens and for the most part they do fine but what I often see is that at some point in say, a 3 year period they will run into an issue where the output they get from the lab doesn't match what they see on their screen and when that happens the amount of time you have to put into trouble shooting pretty much negates any money you may have saved. In a professional environment everyone has to consider the ROI of everything they purchase and weigh the risks if they decide to make a compromise and go for something a little less expensive. We all have different needs, I just think it's silly though to skimp on a monitor and maybe try to save $500 when you spend tens of thousands of dollars on top quality glass and camera bodies... what's the point of buying expensive glass and camera bodies if you don't have a tool capable of displaying the nuances that these other tools are capable of capturing? Well... that's my opinion on the subject at least.
So shop for the panel and features instead of having any attachment to a specific brand.
This I agree with 100% Eizo can produce some real clunkers as does NEC. A brand name doesn't necessarily mean guaranteed quality or accuracy. Case in point... lots of people think Bose speakers produce high quality sound but if people were in a blind listening test comparing Bose products to other products of similar cost without knowing what they were listening to NOBODY would ever come to the conclusion that Bose speakers sounded good at all. Bose - Better sound through marketing! :-) And what about Dell? Dell has a terrible reputation when it comes to monitors but what if one day they produce a real winner? It would be silly to dismiss a good product if it can deliver the goods just because historically the results have been poor.
Cheers, Joe