Holiday Shopping for Tech Gifts? Read the Buyer's Gadget Guide

Dec. 1, 2010— -- It's the holidays, and many are out buying gifts for friends and family.

But if you have a gadget lover on your gift list, would you know what to buy?

Here's a guide to some of the newest tech products on the market now, and what you should know about them in order to make a smart choice.

Flat-screen TVs are huge sellers around the holidays, but how do you know which one to buy? LCD? LED? "GMA" checked out one LCD TV and one LED TV and the difference of one little letter was $600!

There are plain old LCDs and then there are backlit LCDs. The LEDs are fancier versions of the standard LCDs.

What does an LED backlit monitor get you for that extra chunk of change?

It's thinner, lighter and uses less energy, but here's the big difference: it's brighter. So if you have a really bright living room with lots of windows, an LED backlit TV is a good upgrade if you can afford it. If you have a darker room with less ambient light, LCD will do just fine, especially if you want to save a few bucks.

When you are shopping for a TV you see 120 or 240 hertz, but which is a better investment?

This number refers to the number of times the picture is painted on an LCD screen every second. More should be better, right? I say not exactly. Early LCDs suffered from something called motion blur where you saw artifacting or blockiness around fast-moving scenes, especially sports.

The increase in the refresh or hertz rate is supposed to fix that. I have talked to a lot of people about this and done side-by-side comparisons and here's my assessment: You can visibly tell the difference between 60 Hz and 120 Hz: 120 is better. But I can barely see the difference between 120 and 240. I need a new TV, and I'll save a few bucks and get 120 Hz.