"At this year's E3, Sony and Microsoft both wantonly tossed about the terms 720p, 1080i, and 1080p. Both companies promised that their upcoming consoles would support HDTV standards. Without a doubt, most of us salivate at the prospect of seeing our favorite games at such ridiculously high resolutions. After wiping the drool-sicle away, reality sets in. How many of us actually own TVs capable of displaying the staggering 2 million pixels required for resolutions like 1920x1080?

Fortunately, HDTVs have started to come down in price considerably. As of the past year or so, HDTVs for less than $1,000 have been easier to find on the market. Granted, they don't have the largest screens and you can't hang them on a wall like a plasma display, but when it comes to image quality, a $1,000 HDTV will handily beat (to a pulp) the 480i TVs that are sitting in most living rooms.

The sheer variety of HDTVs available in the sub-$1,000 category is rather surprising, as there's something here for practically everyone. If you need something small and light, you might consider an LCD HDTV. If you're after image quality, a heavyweight CRT HDTV won't disappoint. And if you're looking for a very large paperweight with marginal HDTV functionality, well, you can find that too. In short, you can find a lot of HDTV options in the sub-$1,000 category, but quality can vary." [more]