Need help with buying a new TV.

I'm not going to give you a specific TV, but I will give you a tip. Make sure the ms on the TV is 5 or less.

5 Milliseconds or less will reduce TV lag. If you get a TV with 7 or more, you will start to see lag.

Those are my 2 cents, good luck finding a good TV!

The bottom line is ANY HDTV will look great, especially compared to an SDTV. Size? Depends ... Options? Depends ... Brand? DEPENDS!!!

Ok, I'll try to be more useful here.

SIZE: well ... it, uhh, DOES depend ... How close are you planning on sitting to this TV? Checkhere for the ideal size range for your viewing distance.

OPTIONS: they range from ambient light sensors to automatically brighten or darken your TV, to "game" modes that strip all of the filters out of the processing. There are many, they are varied. I will leave which are important up to you. Have a computer you want to view on the TV? Then get one with an RGB input. Don't have a home theater audio system? Look at TVs with beefy speakers. Click here for an awesome website that helped me decide what options I wanted. Also CNET has awesome tv reviews.

BRAND: I went with a Sharp for a balance of options, picture quality and PRICE. Yes, I would love a Sony or Panasonic with their ultra good picture qualities but I wouldn't love the price tag very much. On the other side of the scale, Vizio or LG make good CHEAP sets but you might get what you paid for in terms of hardware quality or picture quality. This aspect of TV purchase is very personal and depends on what you feel is a minimum standard of quality, so I choose not to recommend a certain brand.

I WOULD recommend an LCD over a Plasma if only for a few reasons. One isthe burn-in effect. Plasmas can get burn-in in the beginning of their lifespan (the first, what, 100 hours of use?? something like that) but after that they should be fine to use. Plasma TVs DO have deeper blacks typically than LCDs but LCDs are quickly gaining ground on that front. Remember that if it's a plasma you use refresh rates but for LCDs you use the response time to determine how "fast" it is. Mine has a 4ms response time and I have NEVER seen any blur. Also, if you go LCD make sure it has a wide viewing angle as you don't want to have that old rear-projector effect as you walk by. LCDs also use less energy than plasmas to run.

Do yourself a huge favor though and shop around. You put two Best Buy links in the post but no others. Whatever TV you decide on check other electronic sites for deals or discounts. You can often find the same TV on sale somewhere else, especially if you don't mind it shipped to you from some online site. That's what I did. My TV came without a hitch, unbroken and has worked great now for about 6 months.

I have a 32 inch in my apartment 2 bed room and it's a a perfect size for my apartment. I want to add to the sopping around comment definetly do this. I got a great deal by going to all the electronc stores. I ended up buying it from a store I never go to but saw it sold LCD TV's they had one on shelf for insanely cheap, cheaper then I could find anywhere at the time.

.I WOULD recommend an LCD over a Plasma if only for a few reasons. One isthe burn-in effect. Plasmas can get burn-in in the beginning of their lifespan (the first, what, 100 hours of use?? something like that)

my_mortal_coil

Okay, great advice from my_mortal_coil, and some great linksbut burn in is negligable. TV channels now move their icons constantly by a few millimetres which the human eye cannot track but its enough to prevent burn in. As for games, well even the fixed display icons on screen like ammo, health and such do not stay on the screen without movement for long enough to cause burn in.

When you play a game, you will hit pause, die, goto a menu, hit a cut scene, any number of things that will prevent one image from staying on screen long enough to cause burn in. Trust me, I had the same concerns when I bought my new plasma about 10 days ago. If you look into it, burn in WAS an issue, but modern plasma screens are good enough for it not to be an issue.

With that out of the way. BUY A PLASMA. Simple. I bought a half decent LCD about 2 years ago and it looks great except for the blacks which look like ****. For all the other stats etc... first work out what inputs you need LONG TERM. Then work out brands that can be trusted. On paper, A LOT of TV's look the same, but you need to stick with a trusted brand name. Also, there is a golden rule in life that will never change YOU GETWHAT YOU PAY FOR, simple. The rest is up to you, and get educated on the tech. I doubt its the last TV you buy, and you need to make your own decision up, and know when someone is talking crap.

PS. Who gives a **** about your cabinet? the bigger the better man. Put the thing on a damn milk crate if it means getting a bigger one. Good luck.

Not long ago I was you ;) After reading through forums, and articles, I bought myself a Samsung LE40A656 (40'') in january. It's the best TV I've ever had. There is a LE32A656 (32''), but it doesn't have 100mhz motion technology (40'' and bigger have).

look up "oled" (organic led) and wait for that otherwise your just wasting your money!

this link should take you to a sony oled

http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/CategoryDisplay?catalogId=10551&storeId=10151&langId=-1&categoryId=8198552921644539854

Two things I can tell you here:

1) You can't go wrong with Samsung.

2) The best place on the web regarding info on what you need is at the AVS Forums.