TVs & Projectors

A plasma TV has become one of the most desirable items on the planet, and owning one confers a certain amount of social status. Case in point: a friend of mine recently visited the palatial Long Island house of a certain hip-hop star, who had hung more than twenty of the things on his (presumably gold-plated) walls.

They say that "reality TV" programs where people marry someone they just met or jockey for advantage in competitions by playing naked have injected new life into television. But for me, it's high-definition TV that has made tube-watching fun again.

Plasma TVs are hardly new, but for me it didn't register that the technology had "arrived" until I starting seeing ads for them on TV. Yes, thanks to companies like Pioneer, when you sit down to channel-surf there's a chance you'll see new flat-panel sets that make your current model seem old, fat, and downright sad in comparison.

The words "flat-out huge" come to mind when I try to describe Samsung's HPN6339. This massive panel claims the title of the world's largest plasma TV - at least until the Korean electronics giant begins selling its 70-inch model, announced last spring.