With so many holiday sales and cheap LCD televisions being offered by major retailers and top ecommerce sites, it's becoming more difficult to purchase a low priced LCD TV without sacrificing quality.

I've put together this little guide to help make sure you get a quality TV and still get a bargain.

Avoid Off Brands

My first piece of advice is to avoid HDTVs that have brand names you've never heard of. It's one of the easiest ways to avoid cheap, low quality TVs.

For Small TVs, 720p is fine

If all you plan on using your TV for is watching television of playing video games, then if the television set you're considering purchasing is 40 or less, you don't actually need full 1080P resolution. If you're thinking about using the TV as a computer monitor, just buy a computer monitor instead.

If the TV is 42 or more, then 1080p is the right choice.

LCD, LED or Plasma

The cheapest TVs are always LCD TVs. Plasma TVs tend to be good values for their size (there aren't a lot of sub 50 plasmas these days), but suck up three times more power which can add hundreds of dollars to your electricity bill each year. LEDs are excellent for picture quality, brightness, and black levels, but are the most expensive of the bunch.

If you're looking for a good deal, just stick with LCD.

Contrast Ratio

I've seen many bargain TVs recently sporting mere 10,0001 contrast ratios. To be honest, the picture simply won't look as crisp or as nice as you're probably expecting with such low ratios. High end LED TVs have ratios that are in the millions now, but as long as you get one that has at least 50,0001, you'll be fine.

Refresh Rate

One of the biggest complaints about LCD TVs from the days of yore was that when you'd watch something that had a lot of action, for example, sports, that the motion would get blurry. This was due to the fact that most LCD had 60hz refresh rates. These days, the best LCD TVs have 480hz refresh rates. While you don't need anything that high to get a good picture, we do recommend sticking to 120hz TVs whenever possible.

There you have it, a quick and simple guide to purchasing a cheap LCD TV.