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" Published in the September 2013 issue By now you know most of the acronyms and misleading specs that go into selling you a TV. But what you might not know is which of them are actually important. Or how much you&amp;#039;ll actually need to spend to get a good set. If that&amp;#039;s the case, we&amp;#039;re here to help. For the really nerdy stuff, we even consulted Gary Merson, editor of hdguru.com and one of the few people who gets excited about things like pixel density and refresh rate. With his input, we put together this guide to navigating your shopping experience the best way we know how. PLASMA VERSUS LCD Among plasma, LCD, and LED LCD, your best bet really seems to be plasma (unless you&amp;#039;re looking for something smaller than 42 inches). Although LCD options are still slightly thinner and lighter, the only time you&amp;#039;ll notice is when you&amp;#039;re taking the TV out of the box. With a plasma, you know black levels are generally good. What&amp;#039;s supposed to look dark looks dark \u2014 not gray, green, or slightly purple. And you can watch a plasma from nearly any angle. With some LCDs, when you lay your head down on the couch, a portion of the picture disappears. (This isn&amp;#039;t true for good LCDs, but it&amp;#039;s worth checking before you buy a cheaper model.) PLASMA VERSUS LCD, PART 2 If you watch TV in a room full of windows with no curtains, get an LCD. Plasmas have gotten much better with brightness, but only the highest-end sets truly compete with LCDs. REFRESH RATE The number of times per second a screen refreshes its image, measured in hertz. Very important in LCD sets. (Plasmas don&amp;#039;t suffer from motion blur, so don&amp;#039;t worry about it.) Standard is 60 Hz, 120 Hz is nice, and 240 Hz is probably overkill, but it&amp;#039;s your money. Just look for the words refresh rate. Not scenes per second (SPS) or TruMotion. Refresh rate. THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW BY NOW Cheap HDMI cables are just as good as expensive ones. Seriously. Spend five dollars, max. And ignore the contrast ratio. Instead, cup your hands over a dark section of the screen to block out external light, then peer through the opening. The less light you see, the better your picture will be, in general. A WORD ON 3-D Active glasses are expensive and heavy and use batteries but provide full resolution. Passive glasses are inexpensive, but since each eye sees only half the image, you&amp;#039;re getting only half the resolution. ANOTHER WORD ON 3-D You do not care about 3-D but for one reason: The worst 3-D TV is among the best 2-D TVs. SMART FEATURES You also do not care about smart features. Hulu Plus, Netflix, and HBO Go? All available on a $100 Roku 3 or Apple TV. UHD Ultra HD, also known as 4K TV, provides four times the number of pixels of full HD. This would be wonderful if anything were broadcast in it. Or if you ever planned on sitting close enough to your screen to really tell the difference. Skip it. BUDGET You can get a good 42- to 50-inch TV for $700. You can get a great TV for $1,200 to $1,500. More than $2,000 is for when you want an unusual size \u2014 more than 65 inches \u2014 and/or beautiful design. INPUTS Good TVs have at least four HDMI inputs. If you need fewer \u2014 say you want to hook up only a cable box and a DVD or a Blu-ray player \u2014 this can be an easy way to save some money. TIERS Companies like Samsung, Sony, Panasonic, LG, and Sharp have been around for a while. On the off-chance you need them, they have huge repair networks and easy-to-find parts. Others, not so much. SPEAKERS In general, the thinner and prettier your TV, the worse your speakers will be. There&amp;#039;s just no room. Either get a sound bar or learn to appreciate movies without bass.  "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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