PEOPLE are looking for a few good things – great-tasting diet food, hangover-free booze and a plasma TV for under $1,000.

Well, consumers got one step closer to one of those fantasies – the affordable big TV – yesterday when Polaroid started selling its 42-inch HDTV set for $1,299, according to reports.

The price of the set has not reached the magic $1,000 mark that, experts predict, will trigger a consumer rush to buy the huge, flat-screen sets.

But it’s getting very close.

Polaroid, the instantphoto company that was badly hurt by the development of digital still photography, has turned its attention in recent years to making low-priced flatscreen sets.

– Post staff writer