Put aside some cash for good connection wiring as well. You can spend a ton on a great TV and then try to connect it with cheap wires and it sucks.
HDMI connectors go for a lot more than I ever thought.
You might also want to think about whether you need additional connections to your TV. Do you have stand alone DVD players, VHS players—are you ever going to connect your PC to the TV...stuff like that.
I checked them out and got a TV model that did NOT have all of the bells and whistles...primarily because I KNEW I would never use them. Can save you $100 sometimes.
And yes, I would second the recommendation of Costco. They seem to have more TVs every time I go in there. Good prices too.
You are correct in the type of cable, but not in price. Monster, for example, is the biggest rip-off there is in regards to touting that you should buy their overpriced cables because somehow they are better. It’s not the brand, but the type of cable used.
In a nut-shell, any brand of the following will produce the same result; find the cheapest of these for the desired result:
HDMI - Offers both 5.1 sound and HD digital picture. Recommended for all HD applications such as HD DVD, HD Cable/Satellite.
Composite cables - Offers lower grade HD picture, but needs a separate cable for sound (usually audio cables that only offer stereo sound).
RCA cables - NOT HD, no matter what anybody says. These are always yellow for video, and read and white for sound (stereo sound only).
Coax (your normal cable TV wire) - Not HD with mono sound.
DO NOT buy the gold-plated cable myth. The $20 HDMI cables work just as well as the gold plated Monster cables. It’s a digital signal. Any cable that delivers the data is exactly as good as any other. The picture is identical.
Remember. Your HDMI cable is going to be about 4 feet long. Even cheap, crappy cables work for that distance.