A heck of a lot goes into a plasma TV picture. The gas that gets charged to give each cell its illumination, the electrodes that provide that charge, the phosphor array that gives the resulting light colour, the surrounding walls that stop the gas escaping…

LG’s 42LT75 is the UK’s first TV to meet the Freeview Playback standard, offering digital recording, similar to Sky+, but with the Freeview broadcast service. So should Sky be quaking in its boots?

From the perspective of a reviewer, 2007 was like one huge party. New, exciting toys just kept on arriving. The AV performance envelope was not only pushed, it was been sealed up, stamped and sent into the stratosphere.

This screen is comfortably the cheapest 42in plasma we’ve ever seen from Panasonic. Which is great, of course, provided we don’t find that too many corners have had to be cut to reach the sub-£1k price.

Having tended to stick to the upper slopes of the LCD TV market, Toshiba’s C series marks an effort to grab a chunk of the entry-level end of things. And although smaller C models haven’t impressed, the 42C3030 fits the budget bill nicely.

Samsung’s PS42Q97HD is ahead of the game when it comes to connections, offering three HDMIs where most of its rivals can only manage two.

The comely form of LG's 42LF66 is another LCD representative in this epic battle, and it wastes no time in reminding us of one of the technology'skey strengths: resolution. On board is a full HD pixel count of 1,920 x 1,080, something 42in plasma TVs find seriously hard to accomplish.

It’s hard to know where you stand with Sanyo. Just when you think you’ve got the company pegged as the last word in cheap and cheerful kit, it surprises you with something spectacularly ambitious – like the aggressively priced, full HD CE47FD51.

Polaroid, the brand most famous for producing those instant cameras so popular with partygoers and pranksters, has branched out into LCD televisions. The TLU-03723B is an ultra affordable set and looks that way, with a flimsy and unattractive chassis of mattblack plastic, but no-one’s ever won five stars just for being pretty.

Most of this 46in LCD TV’s peers have more advanced features, but who cares when a screen this big is edging its way down to the magic £1,000 mark?

The Aurea is like nothing else on the market. You may have seen Philips' Ambilight backlighting system before, but this, the firm's latest flagship model, takes things to a new level

Just as Full HD televisions are emerging as a mainstream product, Sharp has knocked out a ‘budget version’. However, to keep costs low, this particular screen dispenses with the current buzzword in LCD TV technology, '100Hz processing'

Samsung currently lays claim to a sizeable amount of flatscreen territory. It has planted its flag in the super-continent that is mainstream LCD and has been a pragmatic supplier of populist plasmas. Now it wants a piece of the big-screen plasma pie

Finding a TV with more on-paper appeal than Toshiba's 47WLT66 is a struggle. Aside from the attraction of a 47-inch screen, it employs an HD-loving 1920x1080 pixel count, and comes from the same range as Toshiba's acclaimed 42WLT66.

The smallest Full HD TV in this group test, don't think that Toshiba's 40XF355D is the runt of the litter: it's a work of art in more ways than one. The £1,700 40XF355D boasts the world's slimmest bezel, which makes this 40in LCD TV look like an art exhibit.

LG's largest Full HD LCD TV to date, the 47in 47LY95, is as big on design flourishes as it is on pixel count, but there are some picture issues that are impossible to ignore, even at £1,700.

Those after an all-in-one home entertainment package should look no further than this gas giant. The HD50 is a one stop media shop, comprising a 50in plasma TV, a Media Center PC, and a surround sound amplifier, all costing a cool £6,000.

What's in a letter? The lower case letter at the end of this CI-friendly 50in plasma screen may look insignificant, but it packs one hell of a punch. It signifies that this Fujitsu TV has been tweaked for greatness - a quality that the P50XHA58EBb has in spades.

Sharp wades into this battle of the big boys all guns blazing with this 46-incher - a gem of a Full HD LCD TV. It's made all the more glittering by the two grand pricetag and has only a couple of niggles to its name.

Toshiba has resurrected its slim design for its XF series of LCD TVs where the black gloss bezel measures a mere 23mm. This not only makes it look exceptionally stylish, but also increases the perceived screen size and makes it remarkably compact

Fujitsu has carved itself a unique niche in the bigscreen plasma market. By targeting specialist installers and the custom install trade with highly-tuneable monitors, it has avoided much of the market volatility that has destabilised rival PDP brands like Hitachi and Pioneer.

This 32in LCD set from Taiwanese brand HANNspree caters for those people who don't need (or can't afford) loads of flashy, cutting-edge features. The stripped-down spec means the XV32 retails for just £359

This stunning all-in-one entertainment system from UK company Vivadi comprises a 50in plasma TV (PL5001), a Media Center PC and the AM3100 surround sound amplifier.

It's a tough world in TV land right now, and you need to adapt to survive. Cue Fujitsu taking the relatively unusual step of revisiting one of its existing plasma models, the P50XHA58EB, and adding an extra little 'b' on the end to signify that it's been through the tweaking machine.

The first thing to say about the Philips 32PFL9632D is that really, all the new technology it offers deserves to debut on something rather bigger. But the second thing to say about it is that even at 32in, that technology delivers. In spades.