Panasonic just dropped the price on their 42" plasma. It's a beautiful set, a friend of mine got it last year and paid about $2600, it's $1299 now. This panasonic screen is better than any of the Vizion Maxent, phillips crap at Costco. Although a 50in is only like $1500 at costco.

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As for picking lcd or plasma, you have to ask yourself what kind of things do you watch the most, and if you have controlled lighting or not. If you have the tv in a fairly bright area, then lcd will give you better brightness. If you have a dark theatre room with heavy curtains, then Plasma will give you better blacks and darker shades in general. LCD's do not display standard definition pictures as well as plasmas. Plasmas are heavier the LCDs and more fragile. For computer stuff a LCD is probably a good bet. You may want to look into a 1080p display and "future proof" yourself. 1080p is 1920x1080 at 60fps non-interlaced. Not many HD signals are 1080p currently, only the samsung blueray dvd player outputs in 1080p. Hope this give you some more information. If you got any specific questions just ask.