on most models it's very easy. the hardest part is usually getting the plastic bezel off the laptop itself. some of them try and be "pretty" and hid the screws in stupid places that are hard to reach.
once you get it off you'll unscrew the sides of the lcd, unplug the invertor from below the screen and remove the broken panel. then you'll look up the model number on the back of the panel and look for a panel online that's teh same size. MOST of the widescreens out there use teh same internal connector, but there are a variety of sizes and shapes, and it has to be an exact match.
with any luck you'll find a panel at a good price that's a higher resolution. I swapped a 1336x768 panel in a cheaper laptop with a 1080p panel i pulled from a broken high-end laptop with no issues.