I loaned money from my parents, went to Costco and bought 42" Sharp Aquos. I'm glad I rented an SUV, it just fit in there.
Anyways, Sharp is very conscious about their reputation, so they produce high end models, higher resolution and fast response time (of course high price somewhat naturally follows as well)
My model is LC42D62U, which has 6ms response time, there's LC42D72U which is same size screen but has better contrast ratio and 4ms response time. (I'm not aware of other differences, but are you willing to spend $200 for those 2 upgrades? Some people sure do)
To compare this with Sony, Samsung 40" panels this is about $100 more expensive considering this is 42". (IMO, 42"-40"-37" each gap is about $100 worth if other specs are the same) Absolute money wise, Aquos IS expensive, but I have to say it's worth the buck.
Futureshop is currently having a promotion on 62U,
http://www.futureshop.ca/catalog/proddetai...ogon=&langid=EN
If you can't get it before sale ends (July 26th) try Costco for $1899.99 (of course plus tax and crap) I wouldn't get it for anything over $2k though, $1999.99 is like the final line of defense.
Basically, I did go through some time consuming tweaking to make the screen suit for me, it tends to get dark when there are a lot of black things on screen (for example PS3 XMB at night) by setting minimum OPC level to 0 fixed it. (Didn't have problem except PS3 XMB at night, wathcing a dark night scene in the movie was represented fine)
I rented and watched Ghost Rider on DVD (Not BD, this movie isn't worth buying =P) and I was satisfied, can't wait for 300 BD.
I know I pushed you way overbudget, but man I got a loan too, and I think it was the right move. 40~42" is the current borderline of "price jump" companies now have the technology to produce 40~42" LCD at similar price per pixel as smaller size panels, go above 42" to say 46" you see a gigantic price jump (well, gigantic screen size jump too but that's not the point)
I know some guys who play PS3 on 2x" CRT. I see no problem with that. I'm sort of an AV maniac, I got two sets of 7.1 channel speaker systems, and I really really wanted a TV to match the audio, now I do and hope this TV last decades, I can afford $100 per year for some good visual.
I will probably buy 300 BD, but other BDs like Underworld will have to wait till I pay off some chunk of my loan.
Oh wow I suck at organizing, must be the sugar kicking in I shouldn't have written this much =P
I'm going downtown to buy used God of War 2, let me see how upscaled 480p(PS2) looks on my TV.
P.S. Don't force yourself to limiting choices, bigger isn't always better. Take into account distance from sofa (or where your main place of TV related entertainments take place) to TV, close distance and big TV can and will hurt you. Consider lighting around the TV, LCD TVs look good under bright environment. Only if picking a TV was as easy as picking a console.
P.S.2. Avoid HD "built-in" TVs, it's better to have HD decoders do the decoding, and they can easily be upgraded at less cost than buying a new TV. HD "ready" TVs are better choice. I'm not sure wether they got rid of the difference some point, but if they haven't HD ready FTW.
