Flat Chance

Lower pricing is only one factor driving consumers toward flat TVs. More and more television programming is offered in high-definition, or HDTV, format, which should boost LCD TV sales. (Traditional TVs can show HDTV programming, but sometimes not as crisply as LCD TVs, which are almost all HDTV ready in larger sizes.) In the not-too-distant future, flat TVs will be hooked up to PCs, which will record movies on a hard-disc drive. And then there's the get-the-neighbors-talking factor. Ritch Wheeler, 33, a sales manager for DaimlerChrysler from Denton, Texas, recently bought a 42-in. plasma TV on the Internet from Gateway for $3,000 and has got an instant popularity boost. "Everybody who walks into the house comments on the TV," he boasts. "They look at it like the piece of wall-mounted art that it's supposed to be. It really does look cool." Wheeler eventually wants to cover his living-room walls with three huge flat TVs. "It'll be like living in a sports bar," he says.

The advice from technology experts: suppress the urge to splurge, ideally until late 2005 or 2006. But in the end, it looks as though it will be only a matter of time before your old TV is as obsolete as a VCR or cassette player. "In 10 years' time, it'll be embarrassing to have a regular, old-fashioned TV set," says Martin Reynolds, an analyst at technology-consulting company Gartner in Stamford, Conn. If the Asian glut continues, chances are you'll be able to have a flat TV hanging in your living room long before that.