I’m looking to get a 37 inch flat panel LCD monitor for my HT set-up. Looking for suggestions on which brands to research so far I’ve looked Philips and Sharp and although the Philips model has better response time, brightness, viewing angle and contrast ratio the sales people at Circuit City and Best Buy are steering me towards Sharp stating that Sharp will beat Philips in LCD any day.

Is Sharp the way to go and really better than Philips?

Brit, unless it absolutely has to be a 37", from what I've seen and read you should consider the 32" and 40" Sonys in their XBR series.

I just helped my dad install a 42" Hitachi Plasma in one room and a 32" LG LCD in another. Both have fabulous pictures.

I have a Sharp 37 inch LCD and am very happy with it. Sharp seems to have established a consistent record of high performance, high quality LCD TV's... at least reviews I saw last year were good. Sharp is probably a safe bet for LCD TVs. However, things are changing fast so it's possible another brand like Philips or Sony might have the performance lead at any specific time. I'm not a big fan of Philips or Sony quality so I'm happy with the Sharp although I do like the Sony color system especially on their XBR systems.