If you are going to be buying a flat-screen television, you are going to have to decide between a Plasma and an LCD TV. There are a lot of sites that talk about the relative merits of one type of set over another. But I just wanted to point out one important consideration that tends to be ignored because it ended up costing me.

The issue is ambient light. Plasma screen TVs have a glossy screen, LCD TVs tend to have matte screens. When I researched TVs, I ended up buying a Plasma since they are cheaper, have better contrast, and show motion better. While the Plasma looked better at the store, it looked horrible in my house cause I have a lot of windows. All of the ambient light reflected off the glossy screen, and you could hardly see the picture where the reflections were.

I ended up taking the Plasma TV back (minus a 15% restocking charge, ouch!) and got an LCD TV. For me, the LCD is much better because the matte screen reflects much less light, making the picture easier to view.

You won't run into this issue when you are checking out TVs at the store since they have the lighting optimized to make the pictures look good. But if you are buying a flat screen TV and you have a lot of ambient light in your house, save yourself the trouble and get an LCD TV with a matte screen.