What you want in HDTV

Menu, please.  If you think trying to set up an HDTV can be confusing, so can navigating the television’s menu system once it’s plugged in.

When you’re in a store browsing, you may want to ask the salesperson for a set’s remote so you can check out the menu to see if you’re comfortable with it.

Sony recently introduced a menu system on its sets, “a graphic user interface with icons that make it very easy to wade through” choices, unlike “archaic TV menus,” said Greg Belloni, company spokesman.

The menu, he said, is a “cross-media bar interface, similar to that on the PlayStation 3.”

Wireless HDTV. Laptop users love their wireless, and apartment dwellers might like it, too, for HDTV.

Expect to pay more for such an option. At Samsung, “the price premium is around $400,” said Schinasi.

“Wireless is cleaner, simpler and you don’t have to run a cable through the wall,” he said. “The only people who don’t like it are those who sell the very long cables and the installers.”

It is a tech couch potato’s dream to have “all of your connections couch-side,” he said.

“It’s great when you have a digital or video camera, or even a PC. You can connect and disconnect those easily” to the set. 

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