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First off, Let's get a few things straight. Plasmas cost more in almost every case, this is because the general public is under the impression that Plasmas are better in every case then LCD's which isn't entirely true, therefore the manufacturers and retailers can mark them up to take advantage of all the high demand err..dummies out there.

Size: Finding a large LCD can become very expensive, beyond 42" they price begins to rise very fast. So if you are planning on going large and want to save so green plasma wins in that respect. But if your looking in the 27" to 32" range your best prices are going to be on the LCDs.

Life of the set: This can range a lot from manufactures when it comes to plasma sets, most people seem to have trouble keeping it alive for more than 4 years and the picture can degrade before the set totally gives out. Plasmas can be very expensive to fix and with a handful of retailers, such as Sony, it can be impossible for you to get it fixed at all, leading you to buy another which is beyond ridiculous. LCDs usually have a 50,000 to 60,000 our lamp life. Which when you think of it is a long time, even if you left it on 24 hours a day 365 days a year, that still comes out to 5.7 years, and who the hell is going to have it on 24/7.
But both are prone to dead cells or pixels, if you don't know what that is its when one of the tiny tiny cells on the screen that are filled with different pigmented gels ruptures and becomes a static color. So when you watch the set there will be a very small dot that is always yellow or red, or some other random color. They are very tiny and hardly noticeable from a distance of 3 feet, but if you pay for any kind of video display over 100 dollars don't put up with that crap, take it back to the store.

Video Quality: this is the big part that confuses many people, I am sure you have heard of the different video resolutions such as 780p, 1080i and all that junk. Well usually the bigger the number the better right?, well not always the case here the i and p's matter too. Well allow me to briefly explain...

First what i and p are, remember, I am no engineer so I will try my best to explain with my average person vocabulary.

i = interlace, nice smooth picture with slower rate of light sent to the screen.

p= progressive, as in progressive scan, more light sent faster and more constant to the screen allowing for better picture when the image on the screen is moving very quick.

420i = normal TV you watch everyday

420p = about the quality of DVDs, looks much nicer right. This is also the resolution those infamous EDTVs are made for. I'll explain EDTVs ripoffs later.

780p = there is no 780i. This is the first real resolution that can is usually considered HD. Most LCDs cap out at this resolution and never make it to the next, therefore a lot of people look towards Plasmas to reach the next level 1080i, which can be dangerous if not understood.

1080i = sweet a big old number most be loads better than 780p right. Well yes and no. It is a much higher resolution, so clearer, crisper, sexier, all that good stuff. But most HDTVs can only perform interlace (i) at the 1080 level and not progressive (p) which I will explain later. So the deal with interlace is it can look absolutely gorgeous, with movies, games, and all that stuff. But when the action on the screen gets moving really fast the interlaced method of putting light on the screen cant keep up with the signal of fast moving lights, tones, shades, colors, and etc. and the image can tend to blur at fast moments like these, until the set catches up. So if your in to action movies, porn, or video games (which all move fast pretty much) 1080i isn't going to look great when the colors blur for those intense moments. But lots of 1080i HDTVs can be set down to 780p for your fast action shows/games and back up to 1080i so you can watch less intense things, like Dawson's Creek, you know you watch it!

1080p = sweet sexy HD heaven. This is the highest resolution, and its progressive so everything is going to look gorgeous like 1080i but with no blur in those fast moving intense sequences.

One final note, the refresh rate is important and can differ between manufactures. So one companies 1080p can be pretty lame and blur as if it was set to play at 1080i.

Salesmen trickery: This is the most annoying thing ever. In stores, because retailers know the masses will buy up most junk based on brand name, first impression, and price, they will make the cheaper HDTV's, or HDTV's that aren't Sony, Panasonic, or Samsung look inferior by messing with the control panel. My best friend works at Best Buy and told me of this crappy tactic which he thinks is hilarious mainly because it works and gets the more expensive Sony's sold before the lesser. In many cases when I was shopping for a HDTV for myself would see a HDTV that I had saw at another store, look terrible when at the other store it was decent or at least not that bad. This happened a lot with the Westinghouse brand. While not as nice as the Sony Brava LCDs or the Samsung L series, they still are pretty nice pictures, and for a really low price, even at the 32" size. I was really interested in these but every time I went to visit my friend at Best buy I would see the TV looking like trash. So one day I went over and messed with the menu, and they had the brightness almost all the way up sitting next to the Sony costing 500 bucks more and looking as if a pro had adjusted all the options flawlessly. Late that week i came back and it looked like trash! AGAIN! crafty jerks. So don't assume a set looks bad compared to another with out messing around with it for a few minutes. On top of that right out of the box you have to adjust the set yourself, which can be a pain in the ***.But apparently some new sets have built in tools that you select in menu and it sets it to recommended settings for whatever you are doing; games, movies, TV, ect.

So in the end I ended up buying, well nothing. But I am highly interested in the Sony BRAVIA 32" Flat-Panel LCD HDTV, Model: KDL32S2010. Gorgeous TV looks fantastic performing in various styles, only thing is it cant hit 1080p, and being the video game junky I am I would like to use the PS3 to its fullest potential. A friend of mine that works at a Magnolia Hi-Fi store (they sell HDTVs home entertainment systems, that kind of junk says that Sony is producing more 1080p sets later, hopefully driving the existing ones on the market now to a lower price, much lower.

Best advice I have is to shop around look for something you want and find the brand and model that matches and that you like. From there just watch the Newspaper ads and the internet for deals and then pounce on it. But also keep an eye out on manufacture's, retailers, and techie websites about any upcoming technologies, it would suck to buy your dream set, only to find out a better one for slightly more is coming out next month, happens with technology all the time, but if your careful, vigilant, and well informed you can avoid getting completely screwed.

Oh yeah EDTVs! They are not true HDTVs, they look nice and all, much better than regular sets, but they basically are really nice regular sets and can only perform 480p, which is DVD quality.