What's The best Flat Screen / Home Theater Deal?

I'm in the market to buy but honestly would not know the difference at all between one make and model or another. 

Well a good start would be to ask yourself...

Samsung is very good.   I used to be a Sony guy, but started to hear about how good Samsung was so I started with a tablet, now I have 2 TV's, chromebook, blu-ray, computer monitor all from them.   I have not had a single issue with any of them, some going on 4 years old.  Any TV's in the 5000 or 6000 series are very good.  Those are your 32" and bigger.    

I like Samsung's too. In my opinion, they have the best picture quality, but they aren't necessarily the most reliable. They had a lot of issues with failing capacitors a few years back, but they've probably fixed that by now.

For a main TV, I wouldn't go smaller than 46". The best deals these days are on 55", and that's enough for most to not have to upgrade for a while.

A 55" Samsung TV will set you back around $700 for the base model in that size. Don't get anything other than the 32", 40", 46", and 55" as the other sizes don't contain Samsung panels and are outsourced to some Chinese company. The 60" might be Samsung now though.

Any TV in HD looks good though. Even the cheap brands.

4k is a newer technology and is becoming more affordable, but there isn't much content to take advantage of it. Picture might be a little sharper on your regular broadcasts, but the entry level 4k Samsung TV gets bad reviews because of motion blurring. You don't want that since you watch a lot of sports.

Since you're from Virginia like I am, Micro Center frequently has a deal on a 55" LG TV for $499 which is a solid deal they advertise often for. It's a better value than the Samsung at $700, which may have a little sharper picture.

Black Friday is in a month though, so if you can wait, every store is gonna have a doorbuster 55" for probably around $600.

Oh yeah, don't buy Sony anymore. They were losing too much money trying to compete for low price TVs that they sold their TV division to some Chinese company that's allowed to use the name.

That's why Wal Mart has all these cheap Sony TVs that surprises people by the price, but they're not really Sony anymore.

They may still own their higher end XBR series, but all the cheap stuff is Chinese now. Not that it's a crappy TV, as I said everything looks good in HD, but it's not the same quality as before.

I have a 42" Samsung plasma screen bought way back in 2008.  I'm still watching it today after about 18 hours of use per day.  I would definitely buy another Samsung when I decide I want a new screen.

Slamspurs has some good info.

 Unfortunately, plasma TV's are no longer readily available in the U.S., so your really limited to just an LED-LCD tv (they call em "LED" tv's but they're really not), unless you want to spend a ton on an OLED set. If you stick with the bigger brand names (Samsung, Sharp, LG, etc.) you should be fine. The one thing you want to look for is the refresh rate. If you watch a lot of sports or play games, you're going to want to get a set with at least 240Hz refresh rate. Some will say they have no issues with a 120Hz RR, but I can still see blur on most of those...........& yes, get the biggest one you can afford.

Thanks guys!