Samsung HP-S5053 50-Inch Plasma HDTV
Bang for the buck is definitely with this one
I bought this model in June from a local appliance store.  I did lots of shopping... well over 4 weeks of going to stores and playing with the settings in a lot of them; and there are a couple of issues to be aware of.  One is that when you are using the 4:3 mode on the TV to view 4:3 content the sidebars are silver... which is annoying and cant be changed... HOWEVER, if you use an HD-upconverter type DVD player with HDMI that goes away since aspect is changed by the DVD player.  The other issue is that its only 1080i, which frankly is not a big deal, especially considering most HDTV this large under $5000 are as well.  I was borrowing a 42\\" 3rd generation Dell plasma with about a 4000:1 contrast ratio from my company while i was shopping, and was really unhappy with the muddiness of darker onscreen areas of that tv, but I have to say this one looks GREAT.  You can notice some muddiness if you have your contrast set too low and the picture quality of the DVD is poorly lit, buuuut honestly I keep mine set around 55% and it looks awesome.  Of course with a plasma you dont want the contrast set to high if you want it to last longer and always avoid falling asleep to a dvd menu if you want to avoid burn in, but if you accidentally fall asleep (i did), it comes with a burn in erasing rolling pattern which is a really big comfort to the mind.  Not to mention its a very sexy piece of furniture when not on.  I can't speak for its sound system, because if you are spending 3 grand on a tv, you really should have a nice sound system and mute the tv anyway.  I would recommend buying a plasma from a local appliance store for quite a few reasons... but chief among them people on here seem to be getting them smashed in transit frequently, which a local store is not going to let happen, and if it DID happen, you would avoid the nightmare I'm sure that has got to be.  The only TV I saw that compared to this one was a Panasonic that was running over $1500 more expensive, and it did look nicer... but only about 100 dollars nicer.  Of course there is a certain subjectivity to this, but if you read about non-defeatable DNIE or whatever and are nervous about this set, simply go out to somewhere they have them and play with the features and settings.  The people that complain about this seem to not be going through the options.  All you have to do is see it side by side with about any other plasma and it'll win you over.