32" LCD - 720 or 1080p?

Depends what he is using it for, if he has gaming system and blu-ray then you want to go with 1080P. If it is just for cable or directv then 720P would be fine because that is the best signal the cable providers use anyhow.

Only some shows on pay per view

1080p is a waste of money for a 32" except for short viewing distances such as computer monitor. At 10' you can't tell the difference between 720 and 1080 on a small set. If you have money burning a hole in your pocket buy him a larger 720p set.

I agree, I think the 720P is a great picture, You would be wasting money to buy 1080P on anything less than 32 inch.

as an owner of a 1080p 32" i will confirm what people have said, at that viewing distance witch is very far for a 32" 1080p is pointless, you need to be 2-5' away at the most to see a difference

720p is 1280x720 or 921,000 pixels per frame.
1080i is 1920x10780 or 2.1 Million pixels per frame or over twice the detail per frame.
The disadvantage of downscaling 1080i or 1080p content to 720p is that since 1/2 of the pixels are being eliminated a high percentage probably actually contain meaningfull content such as the boundary edge of objects so the resuylting image will not be as sharp.

720p is 1280x720 or 921,000 pixels per frame.
1080i is 1920x10780 or 2.1 Million pixels per frame or over twice the detail per frame.
The disadvantage of downscaling 1080i or 1080p content to 720p is that since 1/2 of the pixels are being eliminated a high percentage probably actually contain meaningfull content such as the boundary edge of objects so the resulting image will not be as sharp.

at 10 feet walfords stats don't mean a thing
720p is fine in this case

2.1M pixels are worthless if you are sitting too far away to see them.

The point I wa trying to make is that if you have a 720p source availabe source available such as ABC. FOX, ESPN-HD then you will get better PQ at Viewing distances where you can no longer resolve any1080p content then you will get if you downscale 1080i or 1080p content to 720p siince the content of the 1 million pixels that get eliminated by downscaling will contain a lot of pixels which are part of object edges and therfore the downscaled image objects can be blurry as compared with those of an undownscaled image.
I fully understand the rational and formulas for determining the viewing distance at which a person with 20/20 eye sight starts to loose the ability to resolve pixel content differences.

I would have to say 32" is too small for viewing 10 feet away regardless, at the least I would try to find a 37" 720p, which would probably cost about the same as the 32" 1080p you're considering.

Certainlhy since the height of a 32" widescreen is less then 16" watching it at a 10 feet viewing distance makes no sense if you really want to see anything with any detail.