The PY2DR series: high-def meets hard drive

Buying a flat-screen TV can be a bumpy journey -- all these different formats and connections seem specifically designed to make you upgrade every two years. Luckily, Crave's here to act as your GPS system, to help you avoid all the potholes, wrong turns and crazy axe-wielding maniacs on the road to a perfect plasma.

Our Crave news hounds have caught the whiff of a pretty amazing new plasma from LG. While most manufacturers are happy just to get their televisions high-definition approved, LG has set out to make the PY2DR series record high-definition TV as well, with an integrated 160GB hard drive as standard. Even though those lucky Americans can pick them up as we speak, we're going to have to wait till the beginning of 2006, meaning it won't even make the Crave Christmas list.

The new PY2DR series comes in 50-inch and 60-inch varieties, and both models will feature a 160-gigabyte HD-DVR built into the ultra-thin cabinet. However, the hard drive is only big enough to hold around 13 hours of high-definition programming -- in comparison, Toshiba's RD-XS34 can hold about 70 hours of standard-definition material at high quality. Looks like it might be time to invest in that new 500GB Maxtor hard drive.

But straddling the cutting edge of technology is never going to be painless, and the 50-inch model costs $7,999 (£4,400) in the US. Even worse, the 60-inch model is nearly double that, at $14,999 (£8,200). Crave is already hounding LG for the first models -- by the time they arrive, our high definition dreams should finally be turning into reality... -GC

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• LG Electronics,
• plasma,
• televisions,
• GPS,
• Christmas