Plasma or LCD screen?

Question

What's the difference? Which one would you buy? why?

Answer 1

How much time you got?

Okay, plasma first: simply put, it has a layer of pixels with gas between two glass plates. Electricity excites the gas which produces the picture. The big advantages that plasmas have now in the marketplace is size and price. If you want a big image of say, 50" or bigger, plasma is it. It started out many years ago as a pricey display designed mainly for commercial applications. However the small depth and decent picture soon made it a viable home product - with a hefty price. Now, however, the pricing has come down substantially. You can get a pretty great 50" plasma from LG for less than 3k and a decent unit from HP or Dell or around 2k. Cons for the plasma are mainly weight, heat, and "burn in." Since they use glass, they're heavy boogers and if you wall mount them, you have to make sure you are using studs (wall type not male models) to support the set. Plasmas generate a lot of heat so make sure that it has a decent amount of ventilation (similar to old crt sets). "Burn in" is not some old saying left over from the sixties, but rather a term that defines a static image left in the pixels that won't go away. For example, if you are a gamer and left the unit on pause with a frozen image on the screen for several hours, the chances are good that upon resuming play, you might see a shadowy remnant of the frozen image. CRT units were susceptable to this as well. I wouldn't make a big deal about it, though, since most newer plasmas have built-in software to help minimize the possibility of burn-in but you need to be aware of the fact that it does exist and can happen.

LCD is the same thing that most Casio watches and most solar powered calculators use for their displays. Liquid Crystal Display has been around for a loooong time but only in the past few years been adapted for home display use. A red, green, and blue array of lcd panels is backlit. The backlight illuminates the panels which light up according to what color they need to be showing and, viola, picture. For pictures under 46", LCD is a great choice. They are brighter and don't present as much picture glare from ambient light due to not using glass. Lower quality units will suffer from a picture lag - fast motion is smeared. Better quality units from Sony and such don't have this problem. LCD does not burn in and weighs much less, so installation might be easier. Since they are a "newer" home technology, they do tend to be more pricey than a comparable sized plasma.

They should both last several years, over 40k hours or so. Like CRT sets, they do lose brightness and clarity as the years go by and unlike some rumours to the contrary about plasma, they can't be "re-charged" or some such thing. Both can suffer from having pixel failure which causes little spots on the screen. Pixel failure is not repairable and in most cases won't be covered by the warranty unless there is multiple pixel failure in the same general area of the set. Quality control has been much better so pixel failure rates are pretty low and hard to notice in any case if only one or two go out.

Resolution for high def is the same on both. There are some newer higher resolution (1080 vs 720) plasmas on the way, but expect them to be pricey initially. By the way, higher resolution is a non-factor if you are sitting further than, say, 10 feet - you can't tell the difference from that distance.

It really comes down to size and price. Take a look at several good brands, stay away from the off brands or the "computer" brands. They tend to offer lower cost, but also lower proformance. See if you have a local a/v specialist you can go to. The a/v specialists tend to have much higher quality sales people than the national "big box" retailers and can answer pretty much any questions you might have. Also, ask the see the sets on somthing other than a high def feed. After all, most of what's broadcast is NOT high def and you still want the picture to look good for watching a local sporting event or something. Good luck and enjoy!

Answer 2

This question has been asked many times, so I've formulated my standard answer. Here it is:

Picture quality of plasma is brighter, better color, better blacks than LCD. (There is something about looking directly at glowing phosphors!)

Sharpness is the same for equivalent pixel counts. Some newer LCDs have 1080 x 1920 resolution, most plasmas still in the 720 x 1280 range.

Plasma is heavier and uses more power than flat panel LCD.

There are reports that plasmas are not as reliable or they don't last as long, but that is no longer true with the latest models. Plasma phosphors dim slowly over time (but not as fast as CRT phosphors); but direct view LCDs use flourescent lamps which also dim and eventually burn out (some are replaceable). Projection LCD sets have bulbs of limited life, but are replaceable and the lifetime is a few thousand hours of viewing.

Plasmas are subject to burn-in. A stationary image left on the screen for a long time could produce a permanent ghost image. The most risk is when viewing a lot of 4:3 ratio pictures (non-HD), which are displayed with vertical dark areas on the left and right to fill in the wide screen. There are ways to minimize this, however. many sets have a "stretch" mode which widens the picture to fill the whole screen. This could also be a problem with extended playing of video games if there is a background image that remains stationary.

Plasmas come in largers sizes, although large flat panel LCDs are coming out, but they are expensive. LCD projectors can be 70".

LCD contrast and brightness can be reduced when viewing from off-center (both flat and projector, but sets will vary).

Answer 3

Hi,

If you are looking at 32" and below.. choose a LCD. The picture will be clearer and sharper than a plasma at that size. If you are going for greater than 32", then go for plasma. It all has to do with how the picture is created on the screen. I have just bought a 42" wide screen SD (Standard Definition) plasma... its fantastic!

If you go to the wikipedia site, that will give you the technical differences. It is my understanding that the way LCD technology creates the colour black is not as good as plasma, but that if the screen is not too big (ie, 32" and below) the eye cannot pick this difficulty up and goes un-noticed.

Hope that helps somewhat. The CNET.com is also a great site for technical info.

Happy shopping!

Rod

Answer 4

After much research on cnet.com and other sites. I think LCD is the best bang for your buck. Some plasmas run the risk of "burning the image" onto the screen. I've also been reading articles that mention sales of flat screen TVs have been lower than expected this year. Manufacturer's and retailers have slowed production and are expected to give some good discounts this fall (holiday) season. I would wait until then if you can. Prices are projected to increase again in 2007 due to the absorption of excess inventory.

Answer 5

lcd for clearer, crispier picture but not bigger than 32" - plasma for bigger screen and longer life than lcd.

Answer 6

choose lcd same picture quality cheaper and plasmas fade and u have to recharge it its expensive

Answer 7

LCD. The screen is much clearer and no glare.

Answer 8

lcd is slimmer, better quality, and you can hang it up like a picture frame. some models have certain modes u can use-kinda like screen savers n stuff. dlp tvs are best.

Answer 9

Not real sure which is better but what ever you do, don't by Magnavox/Philips products and definately do not buy it from Circuit City no matter how much cheaper they are. Both have horrible customer service and definately do not stand behind their products.

Answer 10

LCD is cheaper and has a better picture.