Step into the TV section of any big-box electronics store, and you're bound to see endless rows of LCD sets lining the shelves. While this surplus of options can make it tough to decide on a specific LCD model, the upside is that the competition for your flat-panel TV dollar has resulted in a number of great deals.

One that you may want to consider when shopping for a big-screen LCD is Olevia's 252T FHD. This 1080p-rez 52-incher, which lists for $2,500 (but sells for considerably less on the Web and elsewhere), offers a lot of screen area for the money. And it lies in the upper half of the company's 2 Series - a line that lacks the high-end video-processing features found in Olevia's high-end 7 Series but nonetheless offers reliable performance for the price.

The 252T FHD has a sleek, classy look that I warmed to immediately. The black bezel surrounding its screen earns points for its textured finish (as opposed to a glossy and mirror-like appearance). Beneath the screen, there's a row of basic control buttons, along with a silvery flange that seems designed to reinforce sound from the TV's built-in speakers. One thing about the 252T FHD that I can't say I appreciated: At 132.25 pounds (with its stand), this is easily the heaviest flat-panel TV I've had to lift in some time - a good 32 pounds heftier the last 52-incher I tested.

When it comes to video inputs, the Olevia isn't overflowing with connections, but there are plenty of jacks to get you started. In addition to two HDMI and two component-video inputs, the TV has a VGA port for plugging in a computer.

The set includes a perfectly functional remote control with a backlit keypad for locating specific buttons in a dark room. That's a good thing, too: A fair number of the remote's buttons are crammed into its bottom half, requiring some effort to locate them. To switch inputs, you repeatedly press the Source button to toggle through all available connections - a frustratingly slow process. And to change display modes (aspect ratios), you locate the Aspect button and cycle through the various options. Choices for high-def programs include Full (16:9) and 1:1 (a direct pixel-map mode with no scaling), along with two zoom modes. And you get two additional options for standard-def programs: Aspect (correctly displays 4:3 programs with black vertical sidebars) and a Panoramic stretch mode.

Setup Compared with many other current LCD HDTVs, the Olevia has a relatively basic set of features - which means no 120-Hz scanning option, dynamic contrast control, or other fancy things to tweak its picture. The only semi-exotic adjustment is a three-position backlight control with Dark, Medium, and Bright Room presets that can be easily selected via a dedicated button on the remote's keypad. After first choosing the Dark option, I next hit the Menu button to call up the TV's unique rotating onscreen menu system. Scrolling through the picture adjustments, I selected the 6500 color-temperature mode (the only other available mode was one labeled "Native" that made pictures look too bluish) and then adjusted basic settings like contrast, brightness, color, tint, and sharpness.

The set offers a few "Input" presets with names like High-def TV, Standard-def TV, and Progressive DVD, but since I could only find scant information about these in the TV's CD-ROM manual, I chose to steer clear of them. Other items I elected to avoid included the Contrast Enhance, White Peak Limiter, and Black Level Extender options in the Idea submenu. My main reason was that settings of this sort usually don't improve picture quality, but another reason was the manual's curious recommendation that I disable these functions. Consider it done!