Panasonic PT-44LCX65 44-Inch Widescreen HD-Ready LCD Projection TV
9 months (now years!) of happy ownership and going strong
I did a lot of research on this TV before I bought it, and I'm glad I looked around.  For the most part, reviews have been very good on this TV, and the complaints I do see are usually about the black levels (how dark is the screen when it's supposed to be pitch black) and indications that a plasma TV would have a better picture.  My experience with the TV brings me to shoot both of those criticisms down in flames.  I notice no &#34;blue&#34; or &#34;dark blue&#34; or whatever it is people ar complaining about regarding the screen when it is showing me &#34;black&#34;.  Also, I wouldn't dare buy a plasma TV no matter what the price, since I like many people play videogames and watch sports on TV and with a plasma, you're going to get permanent &#34;burn in&#34; of images that are on screen for a lengthy duration (such as videogame life bars or sports scores).  My wife and I love this TV to pieces, and thus far we've had no troubles at all with it.  Though we do have a good surround stereo, we're incredibly impressed with the simulated surround that the TV provides.  It has a very nice anti-glare screen that really makes a big difference day in and day out.  It has a lot of HD inputs, such that I run Xbox, Playstation 2 and GameCube all easily through it and they all look great.  It has a feature that allows me to split the screen, so my wife can watch TV on one half of the screen while I play Halo on the other side.  I bought my TV from Best Buy in person.  I wouldn't say the experience was all bad, but I would recommend buying one from Amazon.com or another online source.  I did get the &#34;salesman&#34; treatment when I got the TV, and wound up buying and returning over $250 worth of pointless cables and cords that I really didn't need.  I bought and extended warranty on the set just in case the LCD projection lamp starts to go out, but thus far ours has gone strong the whole time and hasn't needed to be replaced.  All this and we probably use the set 4-6 hours per day.  All in all, a great TV, stylish, affordable and no worries about Plasma TV burn-in.  Pointless Update 3/15/2010: 4 and a half years in, we still love this set to pieces and _have yet to have to replace the lamp_.  The pundits love to scare people away with horror stories about LCD / DLP projection TVs needing a new $400 lamp every 6 months, but it's not true at all.  I did order a replacement lamp last night as we finally just got a warning light saying we'd need a new one.  However, the price of the lamps is currently $115, and they're completely user replaceable.  In addition, our current lamp still looks great and I probably won't put in the new one until the old one gives out...and who knows how long that will be?  Great TV.  If you see a used one in good shape for sale, don't hesitate - $115 every 5 years is not a bad operating cost compared to most big TVs!  Additional Update 5/24/11: I put in the replacement lamp in August 2010, and two nights ago it literally exploded with a &#34;POW!&#34; to my great distress.  Ack!  I've put the old lamp back in and it's working like a champ still, but I am horribly disappointed in only getting 8-9 months out of the replacement lamp.  From what I have read, you HAVE to make sure you get either a Phillips brand lamp or an Osram brand lamp, the others are not likely to last very long.  So I've ordered a Phillips lamp for $105 through a seller on here, and am hoping that will last me a few years.  If not, I'll be buying a lamp from Panasonic directly for $250.  Further pointless update 6/27/2015: I _still_ love this TV.  The last lamp I bought in 2011 is still going strong, the picture looks fantastic.  I have been shopping for new TVs as this one doesn't do 1080p, only has one HDMI input, and I don't want to have to find a good seller with a good lamp every few years.  But I have been really disappointed in the new TVs from most every brand, how flimsily built they are, how cheap they look with their glossy plastic,how awful they sound without any space for speakers (yes I use a stereo but still, it's nice to not -have- to turn it on always).  I'd love to get another Panasonic as this has been a magnificent product, but all their TVs these days seem to have only a couple of HDMI inputs (one of the reasons I got this one back in 2006 was the 3 component inputs, the big deal at the time) whereas most have 3 or 4.  So chances are I'll hang onto this for another long while, and continue to enjoy it even if it is only 720p.  If you see a good condition one used somewhere, or on craigslist because someone didn't need theirs, I STRONGLY recommend grabbing it.