Recently, for the first time in more than seven years, I had occasion to buy a new television.

I was astounded at the sheer number of options that were available to me: Roku-capable, Wifi-ready, multiple HDMI inputs, USB access, etc. And I thought long and hard about which options I really wanted or needed, or what I thought I might need a few years down the road. I priced the TVs accordingly, and could clearly differentiate the price levels given what I felt I would need or use, even within class of similarly-sized TVs. As you can imagine, options that I wanted to include would cost more than some, but without options that I didn’t want, those TVs would cost less, and I eventually settled on the right TV.