Top 10 best 42-inch HDTVs in the world today

Top 10 best 40-42-inch LCD TVs in the world today

Once known simply as 'plasma screens' in the collective consciousness, the 42-inch size is where the flatscreen dream started in the late 1990s – and where it's still at its best.

Now a lot more varied, with plasmas rubbing shoulders with (and quickly being outnumbered by) LCD TVs and their ultra-modern LED TV spin-offs, 42 inches is still the sweet spot for anyone not overly concerned with ruining the interior design of their living room.

They're also great value. Serious home cinema addicts have moved on to 50-inch and bigger screens, leaving this category a swarm of slashed prices.

Arguably the minimum size where Full HD makes most sense and where a Blu-ray player is a must, the 42-inch size hasn't lost its allure despite becoming affordable.

LCD domination

Fine, but why are there so few plasmas in a size category the gas tech used to dominate?

It's largely down to the boring business reality that LCD TVs are cheaper to produce, though that's not the case for Panasonic, which has achieved economies of scale by making squillions of plasmas.

The big brands think you just want a big screen and haven't always been concerned about LCD's problem with reproducing believable black, and blurring whenever the camera moves quickly.

A Full HD screen that blurs away all that extra hi-def detail? That would be pointless, but happily the makers of LCD TVs have got their game together at last and put a stop to the tech's general ropey-ness.

So much so that, for the first time we can present a line-up of the finest 42-inchers on the market without caring whether they contain liquid crystal diodes or gas-driven cells.

So here they are, in order of price, starting with the cheapest...