Even with the best intentions, these factors are impossible to separate - the price of a TV depends directly on its size and resolution. In turn, the same factors also determine the optimum viewing distance.

Now that's big: Panasonic's TX-P 50 G 10, a 50-inch plasma, won't suit every living room.

The testers at Televisions.com prefer to watch huge screens that make a room look like a movie theater, but very few homes can accommodate that kind of setup - for example, a 50-inch plasma such as the Panasonic TX-P 50 G 10 makes very little sense in a 12-square-meter room.

Sony's 32-inch LCD TV KDL-32 V 5500.

Conversely, you shouldn't put a 32-inch LCD TV such as the Sony KDL-32 V 5500 in a huge, 30-square-meter living room - it'll just look lost. The consumer market provides solutions to meet the most varied requirements, and our TV Shopping Wizard can help you filter out the sizes that don't fit your needs.

Size and how it's measured:

Borderline: 42-inch TVs such as this LG 42 LH 7000 are already almost too small.

The size of modern flat-panel TVs, which are virtually all in 16:9 format, refers to the diagonal measurement of the screen, and is generally quoted in inches (one inch = 2.54 centimeters). In a normal-sized living room, you should have a screen-diagonal of at least 32 inches (around 81 centimeters). There's little to be gained by buying a smaller screen, since these negate the effect of the high-definition picture.

The other common sizes are 37 inches (94 cm), 40 inches (102 cm), 42 inches (107 cm), 46 inches (117 cm), 50 inches (127 cm), and 52 inches (132 cm), and ever more customers now tend toward the larger screens. That's something we totally understand - you quickly get used to a large TV picture.

The aforementioned 32-inch screens are on the limit of watchability for us, and are meant for TV programs. We feel that you need a screen-diagonal of at least 42 inches to enjoy a proper, easy-to-watch Blu-ray movie image.

In fact, a screen can never be big enough, given you've got space for it: In our test theater, we often sit in front of screens of galactic proportions, and it doesn't bother us in the slightest. The only problem is that they make the 42-incher in the living room back home look pathetic.

Viewing Distance:
The size of your new TV depends not only on your budget, but also on how much space you have available. A 50-incher will look huge in a 15-square-meter living room, and that's not the only reason why it doesn't make sense: Much more importantly, you'll struggle to sit far enough away from the screen - viewing distances should be at least twice the width of the screen for high-definition TV programs and movies, meaning a distance of around 2.5 meters for a 50-inch picture. With less-crisp material, such as conventional PAL broadcasts, you should sit even further away.

Resolution:
The price also depends directly on the resolution, which itself can vary significantly: The higher the resolution, the sharper the image. In the year 2005, the industry agreed on the "HD ready" logo. This indicates a minimum standard for all TVs that carry the logo - 16:9 aspect ratio and a minimum resolution of 720 lines. It's intended to make buying-decisions easier for the customer, since they can see at a glance which TVs are suitable for high-definition pictures. The logo was heavily publicized in the run-up to the 2006 soccer World Cup.

Already a bit old-fashioned: the HD ready logo.

These days, HD ready is old news; more and more current TVs carry the logos "HD ready 1080p" or "Full HD". In both cases, the resolution is even higher, consisting of 1080 lines or, to put it another way, of 1,920 x 1,080 individual dots (pixels). This allows the viewer to enjoy HDTV in all its glory - read more about this in our article First Steps to HDTV. This could be an HDTV documentary, a Blu-ray movie, or a state-of-the-art game on a console. Even most DVDs visibly gain quality when watched on a Full HD-resolution TV.

Ideally, you should go for actual Full HD over HD ready 1080p.

HD ready or Full HD?
So, which do you choose: HD ready or Full HD? We prefer Full HD, no doubt about it, and we can thoroughly recommend you do the same. Admittedly, these TVs are always significantly more expensive. While it's currently possible (as of autumn 2009) to buy a 32-inch HD-ready TV for around 300 GBP in the United Kingdom, a Full HD set of the same size will cost at least 130 GBP extra.

But, in the long run, you'll enjoy Full HD more, since Blu-ray movies or modern video games will produce truly breathtaking pictures on these displays. Such crisp, detailed, and captivating images have so far been the preserve of movie theaters - if they even existed at all!

And that's exactly the point: After all, the new TV is not a technological end in itself; rather, it's supposed to excite and entertain you with never-before-seen picture quality. With a Full HD TV, you're on the best path to a top picture.