LCD Flat screen tv's

You cant judge a picture in a store, the floor help (if thats what you want to call them) dont pay close attention to properly setting up all models and may infact show models they really want to sell in the best way they can.
When shopping see if you can grab a remote or some models you can do this from the front panel and if you have a nack for understanding set-up menu's within a few minutes you could do some adjustments on a model you are thinking of buying and know what its piture is truely capable of. I also agree at $700 you shouldnt be too optimistic on getting anything of great quality.

To my eyes the Sony and Panosonic LCDs were the best looking ones at about 26" or 32". You should be able to do 26" for your budget. Samsung and Toshiba came next. After that I wouldn't bother. I'd save my money.

I bought a Sylvania 27" TV from amazon.com for 499.00 shipped a couple of months ago and I like it as well as most of the more expensive models I looked at. LCD TVs aren't great yet but tolerable. But, it looks amazingly good on high quality sources.

Tough call. The "unknown" brands can perform pretty well, but a lot depends on set up, etc. I think you might explore a Sony CRT, if you can find one in your preferred screen size; the last model Sony put out with the old technology got pretty good reviews. I bought a Sony LCD 40 inch and have been happy, although I paid more than your figure. Good luck.
BerkBob

I have a Viewsonic 27" LCD TV that I bought because I saw one at around $500 and I'd had very good experience over the years buying their computer monitors for my departments at work. I think it's really good right out of the box, as good as anything from other brands I'd seen in the stores, and my experience with the reliability of their other products makes me think it will last awhile.