“No matter what you end up buying, it’s going to be a lot better than your old TV. Relax.”

That will not be true for the HUGE number of people that buy a huge HDTV (Plasma, LCD, DLP, you name it) get it home, hook it up, and then watch nothing but SD programming. They will think their new tv’s picture is HORRIBLE compared to their old CRT TV. This (amount of SD programming you plan to watch) is one of many factors that different HDTVs will handle differently.

Off the top of my head, I’d consider a few things before buying:

1. Do you still watch a lot of SD programming? If so, look for a TV that shoes a SD signal well — if in the store, ask them to put a SD channel on — if they “can’t” be suspicious and/or shop elsewhere.

2. Will you use the TV to watch a lot of sports or fast action (action movies, etc.) If so, the response speed will be more important to you than it would be for someone who just wants to watch Primetime network TV in HD. Some of the “cheaper” HDTVs have horrible refresh rates, and thus the picture will look like crap if you are trying to watch any fast moving activity (Basketball, Football, etc.) Note that Bestbuy doesn’t even give you this info on their TVs, but others do:

[url]http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=7867338&type=product&productCategoryId=pcmcat95100050006&id=1142301899352[/url]

[url]http://www.onecall.com/ProductDetails.aspx?id=33556[/url]

In short — resolution is important, contrast is important, but keep an eye on response speed if you like fast action — bring a dvd of something fast moving to play on TVs in the store — you will see a difference.

3. Anti-glare or not? If you are going to have it in a sunny room, you might want a TV with some kind of anti-glare coating on the screen. Problem with that is you can then have a reduced field a view, especially on the vertical plane — ie if you have the tv mounted 6 feet off the ground, but your eyeballs are only 4 feet off the ground when seated (I am making thes numbers up) the pic may look worse with TV with an Anti-glare coating

4. Got kids? Think about the stability of a big tv, the fragility of a flat TV (esp plasma), and your kids hyperactivity before you buy.

Those are my initial thoughts.

I find myself in this exact situation now, so the tip is rather timely. I am looking to make my first HDTV purchase and had all but decided on a Panasonic plasma. Then, I started to overthink. What about the resolution, what if I want to hook up a media PC to it, what about video games, etc. etc. etc.

Now I’m leaning towards an LCD flat panel. I’ve been agonizing over reliability, features, size, etc. and it’s made the whole experience entirely distasteful. I think this is very good advice.

Now, let’s see if I can just heed that advice.

Thanks!