What should I buy a Plasma or LCD television?

2 Responses to What should I buy a Plasma or LCD television?

1. Chris

   February 11, 2012 at 11:41 pm

   Hi there, here is a summary of LCD Versus Plasma. LCD TV’s are cheaper to run than Plasma TV’s and also (if the room you are using is bright) have better anti glare technology. Plasma TV’s have the advantage of better viewing angles and also do overall have a better color accuracy. However, Plasma TV’s can be susceptable to “burn-in” or “ghosting” whereby the pixel cells age too quickly causing an image to permanently etch on the glass panel. Overall they both have their advantages, so it depends on what you are using it for. I have an LCD Television and it works great for me.
2. gossamer

   February 12, 2012 at 12:19 am

   Let’s talk about the differences, it’s hard to say which is BETTER, because they each have different features:

   A compare and contrast is in order here:

   Just to start off, your computer monitor (if you’re using a flat-screen widescreen monitor) is more than likely an LCD screen. So that should help you already know what an LCD looks like.

   OUTSIDE MATERIAL:

   LCD: An LCD screen is made of a plasticky material, which is good because it’s not reflective. Meaning, if you are putting this TV in a room where you open up a lot of windows and there’s lots of lights then the light will NOT reflect off the TV and the image will look clearer. The downside to this is that if you’ve got a little kid they can poke the TV, I mean if you poke hard enough you can ruin the pixelations. The plasticky feel makes it more fragile.

   PLASMA: A plasma is made of a glass, reflective material. This is because in order to use whatever technology plasma uses, it has to be enclosed in that glass. Anyway, this makes any light in the room reflect out of the HDTV. There’s a neverending glare if you are in a room with windows. Again, the ability to control the lighting in the room is important if you want a plasma HDTV.

   THE IMAGE

   LCD: LCD are to CRT’s (regular big-box TV) as MP3′s are to CD’s. What that means is that the image on a regular big-box TV is actually better than LCD. New LCD HDTV’s definitely have better resolutions. Meaning there’s more information being presented on your screen. However, other then the fact that more information is shown and there’re more colors, everything else looks worse. If you watch a movie, you’ll notice the movement is not as good as on regular TV. There’s like a lag, if you notice carefully. Also, the blacks are not as black as they are on a TV. Even the image quality, despite it being bigger, is actually not as clear or sharp as they are on regular TV’s. It doesn’t seem to be noticeable to many people, but I’m picky, so maybe it’s not a big deal.

   ***I’m gonna go off on a limb here and say that HDTV’s are better because they’re bigger, and lighter, and use up less electricity and take up less space. However, I have yet to see an HDTV that SURPASSES the regular CRT big-box TV’s in overall image quality. Maybe projectors are better, but it has to be really dark for that. Anyway, don’t get caught up on that, technology has not caught up yet, so forget it, and the only practical choices available today are LCD and plasma TV’s so moving along.******

   IMAGE

   PLASMA: Okay, Plasma, has much better movement representation and faster response (fast-action, like sports) and better color contrast, I mean it looks prettier and it doesn’t have the lag that LCD’s have. The only problem you’re going to have is having too much light in the room and causing glares.

   OTHER THINGS:

   LCD: What else is bad? If you’ve ever seen a laptop screen you’ll notice that they look darker when viewed slightly to the right or left or up or down of center, well the LCD is gonna be slightly like that too.

   Plasma: What else is bad? Plasma is more prone to burn-ins. If you play video games or plan on leaving a News Network or C-span, anything that has constant lines, like how video games will display information the entire time you play, or how there’s a CNN news logo on the bottom the whole time, that’s going to damage the Plasma and it’ll leave a permanent mark there, because something in the nature of plasma just makes it that way. Yes, they’ve improved it over the years, but I mean they’ve improved it, they haven’t gotten rid of it. If you do this everyday for 5 years, it’ll show. However, I know a lot of people who say, “so what, I want better coloring and movement, and I’ll buy a new TV if it gets damaged.” If you don’t care about buying a new TV when it get burned-in, I guess this isn’t too big of a deal.

   WEAR AND TEAR

   LCD: The LCD after about, oh, 8 years, will begin getting little pixel dots, that are permanent. If you have an old laptop, you’ve probably seen this in action. Also, there’s a chance you can get banding, which is where a band, a straight line starts flickering. This means it’s dieing.

   PLASMA: The Plasma, starts off looking better, but in 8 years, you will definitely see the difference. It’s just all downhill from the moment you buy it, and I’m exaggerating, but it has to do with the way it’s built. The plasma contains gas inside of these things, and the electricity makes it turn into plasma, this excites the phosphors and then they produce the light. The phosphors lose luminosity with time, so it’s just the nature of plasma. Plasma loses luminosity and LCD also starts losing it’s color as well. I guess it’s more noticeable on plasma because it starts off with better color than LCD.

   BOTTOMLINE:

   In the end, these HDTV’s have a limited lifespan. They just don’t make them like they used to. A friend has a TV made in the early 1980′s, and I swear it has better response