frankie's Journal: How to buy an HDTV?

With the scary switchover fast approaching, L has expressed interest in replacing our 15yo tube. We are not big TV watchers, somewhere about halfway between typical well-educated suburbanites and annoying no-TV guy. We only buy limited basic cable, and mainly use the TV for DVDs and Wii (which I luckily scored on eBay).

My requirements:

• 1080p - we plan to keep this set a long while, eventually need the rez
• 40+" - so it provides as much SD visual area as our old 32"
• decent contrast & speed - for DVDs & Wii respectively
• well under $1k - we're not trying to build a stadium theater with popcorn holders

This one looks promising, but I wonder if I should just ignore it and wait for big sales later in the year. Perhaps Black Friday? Suggestions would be appreciated.

p.s. Just a funny thing I ran across while researching HDTV.

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Arigato, Squiggle-san

[frankie]

Score: 5, Informative. Many thanks for the advice.

Expanding the search to 768 models lowers the price point by a lot.