Years ago, an elder colleague of mine used to refer to the conventional tube-based television set as the glass bottle. He had no patience for the cathode ray tubes that have been used in TVs since the 1940s. You could almost see a light shining in his eyes as he predicted that big, bulky, heavy tubes would someday go the way of dinosaurs — to be replaced with sleek, flat, wall-hangable displays using non-tube technologies. Had he lived long enough, I know he would have been tickled to watch me fire up the Samsung LTN325W.

The Samsung 32" LCD TV is sleek and gorgeous to look at, even before you turn it on.

This 32-inch widescreen flat-panel television is a liquid crystal display — basically, a larger and more video-oriented version of your laptop screen. An LCD uses thin-film transistors to control the movements of liquid crystals. The colored crystals open and close, acting as light valves, though the light itself comes from a lamp (rated at 60,000 hours). This allows a much flatter design than a tube TV, which relies on a bulky back-mounted gun to spray electrons at color phosphors on the front surface of a heavy glass tube.

LCD is one of several display technologies — like plasma and DLP — that produces a picture using a grid of pixels, or dots. This model has 1280 horizontal dots by 768 vertical dots. That makes it perfect for HDTV (high-definition television) in the 1280 by 720 (720p) format as long as you've got a set-top box to decode HDTV from broadcast, satellite, or cable. The set can also convert the 1920 by 1080 (1080i) HDTV format to its own native resolution. And its internal tuner is fully compatible with lower-resolution analog TV channels, with the added attraction of PIP (picture-in-picture insets).

Even on a stand, this slim Samsung LCD TV is only about a quarter as deep as a tube television with the same size screen.

The diagonally measured 32-inch widescreen picture is actually 16-3/8 inches high by 27-1/8 inches wide in a frame that's 2-1/2 inches around (and five at bottom). The stand is only 6.5 inches deep. Ditch the stand, mount the set on the wall, and it's only 3.25 inches deep. Now that's entertainment!

High-definition TV can enter the set in two ways. The back panel includes a DVI-HDCP input — a high-quality digital connection with the copy protection needed to bolster Hollywood's acceptance of HDTV — plus two HD-worthy component video inputs and lower-quality composite and S-video inputs. An RF input accesses the set's analog tuner.

The LTN325W's back panel offers plenty of hookup options.

There's also an optical digital audio input and five sets of speaker terminals. These jacks, along with built-in surround processing, enable the Samsung to act as a surround processor, providing 5.1-channel Dolby Digital and DTS surround sound for DVD and DTV viewing, as well as Dolby Pro Logic II for videotapes and other analog sources. However, to get surround sound, you'll need to add a center speaker, two surrounds, and a powered subwoofer to supplement the supplied flat stereo speakers which attach to the side of the set. The set's internal amps supply 10 watts times five channels; for something more powerful, consider substituting a surround receiver.

Delicate details are well within the reach of the LTN325W's high-res processing.

I set up the Samsung using the AVIA test DVD and made three significant changes to picture parameters. Like most TVs in general, this one is shipped with sharpness cranked too high, resulting in an unnatural edge. It looked far smoother, without sacrificing any resolution, at the 25th increment out of 100. Color saturation dropped to 36, and brightness to 47. When I was done the picture had gone from very good to drop-dead fabulous.

The first thing to hit the screen was The Italian Job on rented DVD. During the opening action scene, set in Venice, the brightness of outdoor shots was stunning, like staring into a real-life blue sky on a sunny day. Samsung claims a 600:1 contrast ratio and I believe it. Shadow detail on indoor scenes was somewhat murky, though. LCDs reproduce black as dark grey — that's the only area in which tubes still excel. But as far as I'm concerned, let tubes excel in someone else's livingroom.

One thing a DVD can't show you is the full resolution of a high-definition display like this one. The DVD format simply can't support HDTV, at least not yet. But my trusty cable box did provide HDTV through its component video outputs and I spent hours watching the HD eye-candy reels that my PBS affiliate shows during the day. The headdress of a Native American dancer was delicately feathery. Discrete strands of grass surrounded a sun-dappled tombstone — and the grass was vividly green, despite my having knocked back the color-saturation control. A butterfly's wing almost made me gasp at its subtly furred texture. The Samsung was actually converting a 1920 x 1080 (1080i) HDTV signal to its native 1280 x 760 format — but the conversion was extremely clean.

Another aspect of video performance is reproduction of motion. The set might benefit from a separate video processor but it performed fairly well by itself. Fast-moving diagonal objects like hockey sticks and the stripes on a wind-blown American flag were just smooth enough to avoid becoming visually jarring.

After a certain point, which came early on, I must confess that professional considerations took a backseat to selfish pleasure. I stopped being a reviewer and became merely a viewer as more DVDs and various HDTV (and other) programs whizzed by. The LTN325W's suggested manufacturer's retail price of $3999 prompted dark ruminations about the low economic status of freelance writers in our consumerist society — how come doctors and lawyers can afford a gorgeous 32-inch LCD and I can't? Oh, well. I'll just have to wait for the next review sample.