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.