Supporting Cast

Bell'O

You’ve finally succumbed to your flat-panel TV envy and purchased one of your own. That’s only half of the equation: You’ll need a place to put your new friend, and whatever your taste or price range, you can rest assured that what your TV is on will look as good as what’s on your TV. Options and styles of wall mounts and stands have increased substantially since we last looked at this category 4 years ago. Along the way, prices have come down, although some of that is due to a lot more low-price models entering the market.  
 
SLENDER MARGINS. When wall-mount TVs emerged on the market, the mounts themselves were bulky, fixed, industrial-looking products. Four years ago, mounts could add as much as 5 inches to the profile of your TV and looked terrible when you glimpsed them from the side. Increasingly, today’s mounts protrude 3 inches at most, some much less, and even have end caps to make them less of an eyesore from the side.

In 2005, tilting mounts that let you angle the TV in any direction cost at least $250, but now you’ll find that these start at around $120. And fully articulating mounts—models that extend away from the wall on jointed metal arms—start at $250 for models that hold a large TV (42 inches). That’s about half of what you would have paid 4 years ago.

But no one wants his/her TV to stick out like a sore thumb far away from the wall. A few articulating versions allow the cumbersome extendable arms that hold the TV to hide in a wall box (although this requires cutting through drywall and mounting the box between wall studs). If you’re willing to sacrifice screen movement for the sake of flatness,  Sanus introduced two mounts in July that protrude a little more than a half-inch. The ML11-B1 ($120) holds 26- to 46-inch TVs that weigh up to 100 pounds and the LL11-B1 ($150) holds 37- to 65-inch TVs that weigh up to 150 pounds by using a rail-and-hanging bracket system (think: closet or garage storage solutions). These don’t tilt or swivel, but the company says other super-slim products that do should be out within 6 months.

Meanwhile, OmniMount in June introduced a product—the aptly named omnimount ($40)—that also doesn’t use a traditional mounting plate. It relies on four spacers that attach to your television set and slide into four provided wall brackets. The manufacturer says the system will hold TVs 1-1/4 inches from the wall and accommodate screens that are 13 to 42 inches and weigh up to 80 pounds. It’s the first of its kind that we’ve seen, and a do-it-yourself solution that’s as smart as it is simple, although the trade-off, of course, is that your TV is fixed in one spot. Although the company isn’t saying whether a version for bigger TVs is coming, we wouldn’t be surprised if one was introduced at industry shows this fall. It’s not a stretch, either, to think that other manufacturers will come out with their own versions.

If you’d rather not get up from the couch to move your TV, you don’t have to. Today, motorized mounts that let you move the mount at the touch of a remote button can be found for as little as $350. These mounts were just arriving on the market 4 years ago, and they rang in at least $2,000!