Standard JHD 204A LCDs are useful for creating standalone projects.
20 characters wide, 4 rows
Black text on green background
Connection port is 0.1" pitch, single row for easy breadboarding and wiring
Single LED backlight with a resistor included, you can power it directly from 5V. If it's too bright for you, it can be dimmed easily with a resistor or PWM.
Can be fully controlled with only 6 digital lines!
Up to 8 extra characters can be created for custom glyphs or 'foreign' language support (like special accents)
Comes with necessary contrast potentiometer and strip of header
