COLOR ME SOLID STATE

Color tv sets are the most expensive pieces of entertainment technology that most of us will ever buy . Their sophistication parallels their price tags and often the buyer has no idea what he's getting for his money. Our own ignorance about color tv technics is compounded by the star trek jargon favored by American and Japanese set manufacturers and the riffs about negative matrix and solid state that pour out of the store salesmen's mouths.

'Screen-size: The basic rule in tv shopping used to be the bigger the screen the more expensive the set. This is no longer a strict rule. Color set' prices are now in three categories: under $30Q, $300 to $500, over $500. Today other factors determine whether a 17" set will cost $295 or $595.

Screen-shape: TV screens used to be made from fish-bowl molds. Sony changed that and screens now have practically square corners and practically flat surfaces — as close as they'll ever come and still use a tv picture tube. Beware of sets that bulge in the middle and have round corners, the picture will be fuzzy and out of focus at the edges.