Eeny, meeny, miney, motion compensation.(Memo to Members)

"Because it's there" may be a perfectly good reason to climb the highest mountain in the world, but it doesn't really justify spending $4 on a box of disposable cutting sheets. They're supposed to act as a temporary kitchen cutting board, but our testers found that the sheets were too small and too easily damaged.

On the other hand, the $1,800 you'd have to shell out for a Polara oven/ refrigerator may conceivably be money well spent if your lifestyle dictates flexibility--and your budget allows it. As an oven, it rated fairly well in our tests (see page 51), and it lets you chill your roast until cooking time, then switch to oven mode and start cooking dinner while you're making your way home from work. It's a convenience for which you'll pay--our top-rated electric smoothtop range cost $1,000 less and did a better job at baking--but the choice is yours to make.

We're fortunate to live in a country where consumer choice is a given, but making good choices requires some effort. At CONSUMER REPORTS, our job is to ask--and answer--as many questions as possible so you and other consumers can make decisions based on facts.

In 1948, when CONSUMER REPORTS reviewed TVs for the first time, we said: "Four questions remain before you can decide whether a set is worth its price to you: 1. Is the program service available where you live? 2. Are the programs good enough, and are there enough of them, to warrant the outlay? 3. Is there a receiver in the price range you can afford good enough to satisfy your tastes? 4. Can you get, and can you afford, reliable installation and maintenance service?"

Now, although technology has made the picture on the screen infinitely better, many consumers are facing very similar questions about whether it's time to trade in the analog TV set for a new digital one with all the bells and whistles: Is digital programming available where you live? Is the choice of programs worth the extra cost, which can be considerable? ...