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It was bound to happen; the shift from CRT to flat panel took a while, and came hand in hand with the jump from SD (how on Earth did we ever watch that?) to HDTV. Folks across Canada moved from 27″ tubes to massive, spacious, and almost impossibly thin 40″/42″ panels – sizes that have dominated retail sales for the past three years.

So it comes as no surprise that the Jones’ have moved upwards and onwards – and it’s time to catch up with them. The 40-ish inch panels that found homes across the nation are starting to get along in age, and with falling flat panel prices it means that an upgrade every few years isn’t out of the question. We’ve broken the 10-year TV cycle – shattered it, really -as Canadians prepare to move the 40″ into the bedroom and find themselves hankering for a new display for gaming, TV, and movies.

What can you look forward to when buying a new flat panel? If you bought a 40-incher over the past few years you either picked a CCFL-backlit LCD or a plasma. Your new display will give you the option of more efficient LCDs, new plasmas that suck a fraction of the power, or the ultra energy efficient LED-backlit LCDs. Newer displays are built with greener power consumption in mind, and most new models are built to more strict environmental standards in the hopes of reducing e-waste.

You might notice that newer displays offer colours that really pop; older displays didn’t offer the wide colour gamut that you’ll find on newer ones. The colour gamut is the amount of spectrum that our eyes can see – by producing a display that can show more of the colour gamut you get a TV that offers images that are closer to what we see in real life.

Depending on the model you’re looking at you’ll probably see and hear a lot about Internet Widgets and DLNA. There’s an effort afoot to integrate the web into just about everything in consumer electronics; you may not ever have the urge to check the weather at a click of a button, but you can. YouTube access looks more interesting as it shifts to a place where 1080p streaming is a reality.

Finally: Size. Across electronics stores the 40″ range has taken the place of smaller 32s and 37s as 50″ models move into the limelight. We’re going to see some killer deals on the remaining 40s as the larger 50-inch displays become the focus. If you’re feeling the itch for a new display, be aware that you’re going to be directed upwards in relation to screen size; in the end that’s not a bad thing.