Photograph: Marc Simon Despite the hype surrounding them, gargantuan flat-panel televisions are not for everyone. People with smaller rooms and tighter budgets need a unit that will fit their resources. A 32-inch LCD TV is one good option. With a manageable price and size, it is a great entrée into the world of wide-screen high-definition TV.
A 32-inch set can be a nice fit for rooms that lack the optimal viewing distance for 42-inch and bigger televisions, which is at least 7 feet (or about twice the diagonal measurement of the screen). In small rooms, you're more likely to be seated so close to the TV that individual pixels become noticeable on larger sets, making the images look grainy.
LCD TVs are wall mountable, as well, potentially saving considerable space over a bulky CRT. Another factor to be aware of with any wide-screen television is the height of the display--which in the case of these 32-inch models is equivalent to that of a 26-inch screen having a conventional 4:3 aspect ratio.
LCD TVs are also getting cheaper, fast. Riddhi Patel, principal analyst of research firm iSuppli, says that the average cost of 32-inch LCD TVs dropped to about $850 in the last quarter of 2006, with some sets priced as low as $599. The net result of these cuts is that 32-inch LCD models now cost only a small percentage more than similarly sized CRTs but are still significantly cheaper than their 37-inch LCD siblings, whose price averaged about $1400 in the last quarter of 2006.
Ad Choices