If you're not tied to Apple, with my Air I use a Dell U2713HM -- an excellent display of the same size and without the annoying glass screen. Also plugs into the Thunderbolt port.
Just one anecdote -- I went through 5 of these before giving up and going down to the 24" model. Horrible image burn-in -- literally 5 minutes of screen appearance would leave a residual image sharp enough to read text off of for 30+ minutes.
(These were bought through 3 different Amazon sellers [well, Amazon and 2 different marketplace sellers], so the likelihood of a bad batch was reduced.)
I just bought the U2413 (replaced a 2006 24" UltraSharp - not a bad lifetime!). At first I thought it had a stuck pixel because of a red dot in the center of the screen ("Why oh why did it have to be in the middle??"), but it turned out to be some joker mods on Reddit that had put in some CSS to turn those dots red.
On the whole, I like the monitor. Non-glare screen, menu controls are pretty responsive. USB hub. But I wish it still had a legacy VGA port. If I ever have to reload some of my older machines, I'm going to be stuck since I won't be able to SSH/RDP in.
Ah, wow, that sounds lousy. Sorry it didn't work out for you. Didn't see this with either of two of mine. Buying Dell (as opposed to a no-name brand) should ensure a higher-quality LCD panel[1], but apparently YMMV...
I'm still convinced it was an aberration, but yes, a lousy one :-) I've purchased 5 of the Dell Ultrasharp 24" models (and a handful of older Dell monitors) and been happy with all of them. In a way of bringing the convo back at least somewhat on-topic, supposedly the Dell panels are from the same manufacturer as the Apple display / iMac panels, so take that how you will.
Newer batches of Dell monitors at our workplace have a brown tint that one can't get rid of. The new REV A00 is noticeably different to old A04 or so. Quick googling revealed that warranty won't cover that, as Dell's calibration policy is quite loose. Tough luck. Otherwise they're great.
Hmmm, a matte screen might be nicer, but I like the idea of the Apple displays having a built in magsafe, USB and FireWire (I see that the Dell has USB, but I need the FW more)
It might not be important to you, but the cinema display also has built in 2.1 speakers and iSight camera. As someone who uses my laptop speakers for most things, this tends to be an upgrade for me.
(These were bought through 3 different Amazon sellers [well, Amazon and 2 different marketplace sellers], so the likelihood of a bad batch was reduced.)