Everyone's talking about power companies, but unfortunately not because they take such good care of their customers; rather, it's because the prices just go up and up and up.

It can be worthwhile, therefore, to keep your new TV's power consumption in mind. There can be massive differences from one device to another, and TV manufactures are increasingly trying to bring low-consumption devices to the market.

Economical, thanks to Local Dimming: Samsung's 32-inch UE 32 B 7000.

How to choose an LCD or Plasma TV based on
power consumption

Adjustable Backlight:

An adjustable backlight, for example, can save up to 50 percent of a TV's power. Such a TV would then need just 100 watts instead of 200. Scale the extra cost up for the year, and you could afford to treat the family to a pizza and a Blu-ray movie.

At the time of writing (autumn 2009), LCD TVs with Local Dimming technology - the Samsung UE 32 B 7000, for example - achieve the lowest power consumption. Here, economical light-emitting diodes are used as a backlight - read more in our background article LCD: The Dominator. The higher price of these TVs will, of course, reduce your overall saving - but at least you're on the safe (and politically correct) side in terms of the environment.

Our next recommendation is less politically correct: Given today's miniscule values for standby-mode power consumption, it's barely worth your while switching the TV off completely. But it'll also do you no harm - unless your TV has a built-in satellite tuner, in which case you might lose comfort-features, such as the clock synchronization, since these tuners update themselves at night. If you switch the power off altogether before going to bed, therefore, the update won't take place. The same also often applies to the Electronic Program Guide (EPG).