The LCD TV or flat screen TV market has become extremely diversified and accessible to a broad category of consumers. Prices went way down compared to five or six years ago, when a plasma TV had the price of a room in a small apartment. Newer technologies and manufacturing methods made such television sets to replace more and more the old, thick models which are now so out of fashion and which take a lot of room.

Unlike classic TVs, flat ones need to be installed in their place and not just placed on some furniture piece you’ve already had in your living room. There are two ways of doing this: hanging them on the wall or incorporating them in a special piece of furniture called a TV stand. Either way, an additional purchase is necessary: a TV wall mount or a TV stand. The wall mount is cheaper and it is very useful if your room is relatively small, so you can save some space for other furniture items. Stands are more expensive, but they look very stylish and many of them come with incorporated speakers and with a special place for the DVD player, thus you can set up your home theater system in a neat and clever way.

Both methods allow matching the frame with the color of the TV set: if your flat screen panel has a black frame, you can choose a black wall mount or a black stand. If the frame is silver, you can go for a silver wall mount or stand.

Depending on the budget you can afford to spend, you can choose a wall mount that’s been manufactured with all details in mind, or a rough one. The cheaper ones usually have visible screws and joints, but otherwise, they can provide almost the same functionality as the more expensive ones. However, if you can afford the extra cost, buying an expensive wall mount would offer you the pleasure of a very well-finished piece of furniture, with hidden screws, with channels and tracks for hiding the cables and with more tilting and panning possibilities. For example, a wall arm mount would allow positioning the TV screen in the best position for optimal view much better than a mount that’s not adjustable in its distance against the wall. If for some reason, you can’t use the walls for hanging your LCD TV, a ceiling mount is exactly what you need. Some of these ceiling mounts come with an extension column which makes it possible to have the TV screen positioned at the desired height.

As a conclusion, I can’t say that one solution is better than the other. My personal choice would be to buy a stand, but if the space was small, I’d go for a TV wall mount any given time.