Plasma VS LCD

wow. THAT LOOKS AWSOME. i wish i had one just in my room instead of the living room T-T

I have an LCD screen back at home, I think it was 30 inch? Can't remember.

Ummm, but what's the different between Plasma and LCD? I can't seems to see the difference >.< Is it the screen?

Here I've a Samsung 46 inches LCD screen. It works great except it's only HDReady (1366x768). I've bought it in 2006 and FullHD screens were more expensive at that time.
For TV broadcast, it doesn't really matter because in France DVB-T is only in SD. Only few programs in HD on IPTV or DVB-S.
It's matter when you have a HD player like PS3 (my case) or HDDVD. I can't enjoy 1080p at 24fps. But 1080i at 60Hz still delivers good picture.

I'm still working my way up to an LCD screen for gaming purposes, seeing as how I don't game much anyway. Right now, I only care about LCD for my computer. Never really noticed the difference in terms of visual quality between the two either.

Danny, it would be great if you could place two HQ images taken from both types of screens together. I think that would help others like me, and give you another article to write about pretty easily. ^^

Oh man, I hope you don't start a Plasma VS LCD fight in here. Obviously, there are pros and cons for both, but any negatives for either are rather mute cause nowadays with new set technology you are getting a fine TV either way as long as you know your product is made from a quality manufacturer and MOST IMPORTANTLY you are satisfied with the quality of the picture you see before you. It really just boils down to what you require, and what you are willing to pay. Either way Danny, upgrade to HDTV, and as big as you can afford.

I have a 46" Panasonic Viera mounted on the wall, and we are very happy with it. It is true it uses more power than LCD. Lifespan for plasma is slightly shorter, but its good for at least 10-12 years. Are you likely to keep it that long? Probably not, so it shouldn't affect your decision that much. Plasma are also usually cheaper in price, and provide a fantastic color picture.

LCD would be my next preferred purchase. They display at higher rez than plasmas, and nowadays there is no worry about ghosting due to low refresh rates of early models. They however are more pricey once you hit over 40", and much more so if you go over 46". LCD needs a backlight, so some people say that blacks are not always "solid" as with plasmas. However, you this shouldn't bother you too much with a quality set.

All in all though, as stated above, you should buy what you feel looks best to you, and base it on much coin your willing to spend. You will love HDTV either way. Go get it!

Toshiba make wonderful products, but Danny,don't forget Sharp.
I am lucky and often can play my ps3 games on a Sharp Aquos LC-46HD1E.
It's a 46" lcd Full HD 100Hz TV.
The quality is incredible.It's the better TV that I watch in my life except the "Superplasma", but 15.000euro or more for a tv is not a business for normal human,I suppose... >_< .
In this Sharp Colors and lights are fantastic and the Tv is full of features.I know that exsist also a more cheap serie without Hard disc and some features like picture in picture with a top size of 42" for people that are not interested in recording anime directly into an Hard disc.

P.s. sorry for my bad english

I can't vote because I have neither at the moment. Yup. just the good ol' Big block of CTV goodness. I might get one when the "rebate" check shows up from Uncle Sam though.

Oh, forgot about this. Make sure your set has the input options you need. I want my next set to have at least 3(or more) HDMI inputs. Must.

You might want to further research the Plasma vs. LCD issue, but I think testing out the picture quality at a store and seeing a comparison of two products is the best way. The differences between the two technologies are near negligible, but heck, you might have good eyes that can notice such detail.

http://stage.soundandvisionmag.com/features/2732/display-tech-smackdown.html seems like a good article with OLED vs. Plasma vs. LCD.

Danny, I got a Regza jz last year (Dec) n the price is abt right. Movies look incredible (Blu-ray), and games just leaps out at ya. One thing i notice between Plasmas n LCDs is dt Plasma seems abit... toned down? Abit blurry even. But den agen, i may be biased ^^.

OLED is superior to all.

http://wikigiz.com/2008/01/07/sonys-10000001-contrast-ratio-27-inch-oled-hdtv-video

With the advances made on both fronts today, I think it's fair to say both LCD and Plasma has advantages and disadvantages that makes them pretty balanced.

Thus, it's a personal choice.

Sometime ago it was something like this: Big LCDs = too freaking expensive, though they do have supperior quality.
Plasmas = cheaper, with "purer" black, but inferior image quality and response time.

Nowadays, big LCDs has become cheaper, image quality on Plasmas improved, contrast ratio and response time improved on both. I also heard Plasmas are becoming more durable also.

Anyways, I have a 32" LCD TV. Using it as TV and monitor.

HD-TV ready, Samsung... not the latest model but does everything I need right now.

I'd recommend Sony and Samsung... but that's for Brazil. We don't have as many brand names as there are out there... in Japan and US for instance.

But I always find Samsung monitors impressive... and Sony TVs. I think the difference is not that much today, but I remember when I first saw the Bravia line in a display among other LCD TVs... it was just on a whole other level.

Unfortunately, you had to pay the premium price for that too. :P

I agree with CyruzDraxs! OLED, FTW!

Just because I'm still stuck on OLED..

LED ftw. My family has both a 42" LCD and a 60" plasma. I personally much prefer the LCD, the plasma is alright but it seems to distort a lot of things and it really can't reproduce picture as accurately as ANY LCDs I've seen.

LCD - mainly because plasma is susceptible to burn in which means, still images may leave permanent marks.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_display#Screen_burn-in

That's a big saving there, whoa.

That depends on the TV itself, most LCDs cannot achieve the sizes that plasmas can, I've never seen a LCD bigger than 46 or 47 inches while plasmas can go up to 70 or even more. I still have my 4 year old 42'' plasma and it's like new.

Today everyone can have a HD TV or a HD ready TV, the prices here are pretty low, the price drop since January 2007 has dropped like hell, you can get a full HD for 1200 USD but of course the price has to do with the trademark itself. Each trademark has its own price and of course most of the times quality follows, the most expensive trademark is Pioneer and has the best quality I've seen so far, if you want one of the best full HD TV and can spend a little more than I recommend the Pioneer one.

I have a meagre 22" LCD at home which will double as a 2nd monitor for my PC when I get a larger dedicated TV (yay for DVI input).

Plasmas are generally more expensive but they're bigger and have better picture quality and colours compared to LCDs.
Then again, It may be worth waiting for a decend size OLED displays. Those look SWEET!! shame they currently cost an arm and a leg for a miniscule 15" display.

@CrazyAnimeTuga

LCD screen size has reached 150 inch recently

http://electronics.devlib.org/news/12.html

If I remember correctly the resolution for the screen is 4000 x 2000.

I have a Sony Bravia 32" LCD TV and its beautiful. It only cost me 1000$ because I got it on the day on Boxing Day in Canada.

I have a Toshiba Regza too.
Its a very good LCD with many settings and options
Toshiba does a godd job whith their LCD's.

I was in the same situation couple months ago deciding on Plasma vs. LCD. I ended up getting a fairly high end plasma, Pioneer FD5010 over the Sony Bravia mainly due to the better refresh time and overall the black level seems better with plasma. I have no regret getting a plasma and Pioneer has a built-in system that shifts the image by couple of pixel every few second to avoid burn-in. Also I recommend getting it professionally calibrated to get the most out of your HDTV especially if you are getting a high-end TV.

We have a 42" LG Plasma screen and picture quality is great on it. Though it is susceptible to screen burn which is annoying, especially when we're playing games with our PS3 with static images like dials and radars. Therefore I personally go for the LCD's the next time if we have to buy a new TV.

I have a plasma TV at home. Good thing too. My old TV would have burned itself out at the rate I connected it up to the 360.

One of my friends had an HD plasma and it was a pretty sharp display, only problem was it had some serious ghosting problems. He's since upgraded to an HD LCD and there relatively no ghosting.

Good tip on kakaku. Don't know if u remember but years ago I asked you for places to buy a second hand Sharp Zaurus? I ended up searching on kakaku and ended up finding the lowest price on coneco.co.jp or something. I got a new C3100 for a price that's cheaper than a second hand C860! >:D hehe

seriously what is the difference between plasma and lcd?
any able to help me with the pros and cons?

used to understand the plasma has better pic quality but nowadays i see that lcd is better...

I've got a 4 years old 43" Pioneer plasma. it was the first flat screen with HDMI so don't really need to change it. But if I do, I'll stay with a Pioneer one. The 50" Kuro full HD had the most impressive color and contrast rendering I've ever seen. the black rendering of the panel is quite the same as the black frame around the screen. of course quality as a price...almost 5000 € in France (770000 yens).
I will in japan next week and I've a question about Kakaku.com (I don't read japanese). It's a selling website or a price comparator of Tokyo's retail shop?

At this point, I don't care about plasma or LCD, but I *do* care about the actual screen resolution.

Even at relatively high prices, I'll see TVs with actual screen resolutions other than 1280x720 or 1920x1080. 1366x768 is a common resolution I see, which looks fine for upscaled 480p, but ensures that all real HD content is scaled poorly. I tend to see more plasmas like this than LCDs, likely due to manufacturing cost.

Of course, with TV broadcasts and overscan, sometimes it's going to be crappy anyway, but Blu-Ray and game console/computer outputs connected via DVI look much better when the signal resolution matches the pixels on the screen properly.

don´t like plasma that mutch. there´s a little chance of geting you screen freezed when you leav it paused when you for exampel goes for some food But it got better colors than lcd so if the plasma dident had the freez prob i'd have one:P

I have a 37" Sharp Aquos and my office has a 52" Sharp Aquos. I have to say that I've never seen anything look better (plasma or LCD) within the price range of 1500 to 3000 CDN.

Personally, I'd go for a plasma TV, but an LCD monitor. With plasma, colors are more vivid, and there isn't much (or any) lag - important when I'm playing beatmania IIDX. LCDs are good as a monitor though, because I've only got 6 square feet of desk space lol.

We have a 52" Sony BRAVIA and a 42" LG (which i purchased myself). both are LCD and 1080p. I prefer the LG one because it has better colors and mainly watch that one myself and use it for gaming. If you're making the switch, I'd definitely recommend LCD over plasma as LCD is becoming more and more affordable to the general public.

i see many people saying that OLED is superior to LCD, that may be true if you're talking about contrast ratio, but as it is now, it does not have longevity like the LCD as the blue LED component has high failure rates after 5000 hours of use. so good luck watching your OLED in red and green only.

I own a Plasma, but my next HDTV purchase will be an LCD. My one huge gripe with Plasmas is the glass screen. Plasmas are best used in a space that has very little light (i.e. a home theater would be best). I have the plasma in my living room and I have a sliding door that shines tons of light into the room. Unfortunately, if you watch the TV from a certain angle, all you see is the reflection of the light from the sliding door.

Another negative is the burn in. A lot of games have a HUD (Heads Up Display), such as a health bar, points, things like that. If I play a game for hours, it gets retained in he plasma for a certain amount of time. The only way to remedy this is to watch something else for a couple of hours. LCDs don't have that problem. Plasmas are best to watch movies & TV shows on, I wouldn't recommend them for video games, especially if you play them often like I do.

The one positive thing about plasmas is the blacks are much darker compared to LCDs, but I know LCDs are getting much better lately (like Danny said), so maybe they were able to make the blacks better on LCDs.

So in short, movie/HDTV fanatic with a dim room should go for Plasmas. Gamers, people with bright rooms, or people who don't want to worry about burn-on or image retention should go for LCDs.

I much prefer the color rendering on plasma to lcd, but if I'm still in my apartment when I make the HD jump, I'll probably get an lcd because of the amount of light that streams in during the day. It's so bright that during the day I can't watch anything on my CRT TV or during the summer when daylight lasts to like 8pm.

If the lighting conditions were ideal in my apartment, plasma, no questions about.

Just wanted to point out that LCD's being immune to burn-in is something of a myth.

I've seen burn-in on LCD's twice so far.

1: When I worked at Electronic Arts I noticed that the LCD's in the lobby (that are usually on the menu screen of one game or another, retained burn-in of the menu screen when I went to play the game.

2: I was using a neat analog flip clock screen saver for a while, on my Dell LCD at home. I stopped using it when I noticed that the screen saver was leaving an afterimage of itself after I returned to normal system usage.

I believe that both of these LCDs were made by Samsung (correct me if I am wrong about the Dell LCD being made by Samsung), so maybe that had something to do with it.

Anyway, the point is, burn-in on an LCD does happen.

I confirm for kakaku! I bought my 10-22 USM lens for my Digital Rebel by browsing this website and go to the good store in Hakihabara. The price was very cheap, a lot cheaper than the other store, and far cheaper from what you can find in frace!!

I've got both LCD and Plasma, and I would dare to go as far as to say that there are no LCD today that can match a plasma when they are in the same price range.

I watch all anime and regular movies and use my PS3/360/older consoles on my 50" plasma.

Plasmas just got so much warmer and better picture and colors, while LCD makes everything look a lot duller and more colorless. Though it all depends on what you watch and your needs I guess, but when it comes to anime, movies and games I would choose plasma any day.

I just upgraded my old 42" 1080i Toshiba LCD to a shiny new 108p 50" Pioneer plasma. The difference is pretty astonishing between the two.

The LCD had poor colour reproduction and absolutely terrible black levels. The plasma though has no problem with such things. It's a much nicer picture both for movies and games. The only thing I would say LCD has the edge on is it's anti-reflective screen, but that really is the only advantage.

I have a 1 yr old 40" panasonic plasma and just got a 32" LG LCD. The plasma wins hands down. The tuners pic up a signal better. The screen is better, colors are better...especially black and the whole menu system is better. The screen also reflects less light than the LCD even with the glass screen. Just go with a good brand for a plasma.

BTW you can get a 50" plasma for about $1000 in the US and the 32" LG LCD cost me $699.

Also most of the newest comparasons between the two state that plasmas are still better in any size then their comparable LCD (from engaget, etc.)

Recently got an LCD where I live. The LCDs are getting better and better, but I think that I would have bought a plasma especially since I do a lot of gamming. LCD has somewhat of a problem blurring fast objects. However it would be easy to ruin a plasma tv from burning the screen when it is new. I'm definitely appreciative of the HD for my PS3. Awesome!

Danny - the Toshiba Regza is a good choice. Plasmas loose their quality after a while, new-school LCDs are much better than ever : 1080p, Wide color gamut feature , high contrast ratio, VGA input (essential nowadays).

LCDs all the way!!

Other things to consider when getting a TV is the setting you will be watching it in. Plasmas are generally brighter and will look better in a bright or well-lit room. Plasmas DO use more power. Although older plasmas did have problems with burn-in, newer ones don't. If getting a LCD, just make sure it has a fast response time and high contrast ratio.

The choice depends on how you use the display,

Plasmas are great if used as a main living room display for watching movies. The picture quality is still much better than LCD (responsetime, blacks, contrast). Pioneer and Panasonic being the best.
So for Movies and gaming i'd take a plasma.

LCDs are more versatile as most new ones will let you hook up your PC properly (no overscan, 1:1 pixelmapping) without having to worry about damaging the screen..
Plasmas also aren't 100% flicker free so it wouldn't be as relaxing to read a few websites on a bedroom TV-set.
My current LCD pick would be Sony, best factory calibration. (same panel as Samsung)

If you take a Toshiba listen to it before you buy, I recently got a 32'' model that made an annoying buzzing noise when not set to 100% brightness, seems to be the same on all units. But I don't know if it's also the case with the bigger models.

lesnumeriques (in french) and hdtvtest....uk have some really good reviews. (names can differ in japan but it's usually easy to tell what's the corresponding model)

Plasma power consumption varies greatly depending on the brightness setting and the image displayed (white picture, full consumtion, dark movie less than a small LCD)
It's usually best to turn off dynamic backlighting on LCDs so they will constantly use the same amount of power.

And I forgot to mention that an LCD will probably give you less headache when gaming for 24hrs.. (if you notice the very slight plasma flicker)

Thanks for the tip on Kakaku.

The plasma I have at home is kinda on the slow side, turning it on takes a minute,channging channels takes 20 seconds and shutting it down takes another minute, that's 140 seconds of my life wasted! So yea, I think I would like to get an LCD...

well what can i say? i have a 26" LCD tv and well it's looking good so far (ME WANTS A BIGGER ONE!!) anyway i can't buy the HDMI cable cuz it's sooo expensive and almost all of em are covered in gold which makes it more expensive!! I MEAN WHAT THAT #$%^& it's wrong with em? I ONLY WANT A DECENT HDMI CABLE (sob sob) it's that soo dificult to understand...... (overreacted)... anyway LCD are cool! ^^

Plasma burn is isn't a big issue in my experience, and on Pioneer plasmas it'a total non issue as they include something called an 'orbiter'. This basically moves the entire image around 1 pixel at a time very slowly so any constant element is never in the same place for too long.

That aside, I would say go plasma for gaming and movies, and go LCD for computer use.

@lin-da-kenobi

I can get ya a good deal on that HDMI cable, I know that many retail stores rip you off like mad. If you have no objections to ordering online you will definitely like monoprice.com

I bought my 3ft HDMI cable there for a total of 6 dollars including shipping. It works great with my PS3 and HDTV.

I recently gotten a 52 inch Samsung LCD and it rocks. HDTV is simply spectacular ... can't wait to add a PS3 for BluRay playing.

well the difference between the plasma now as people know it, are that plasma burn out quicker and are hotter and use more power. Lcds on the other hand uses less power last longer and give about the same quality. But all Lcds differ i like the sony ones the best no doubt they make the best pictured LCD with brightness sharpness and color. Panasonic i can say will 2nd to them. those are just my recommendation if you buy any.

I'm still using a CRT and unless it breaks I won't replace it.

If I had to buy a new one I guess I would buy a LCD because of the lower power consumption. :-)

@BandAiD: ARIGATOU!!! thank u very much!!

still using a cheap China-made 30' CRT... which cost only RM200++ (USD60+) 1 year ago..

zzz

oO... I didnt know Departmental Stores jack up prices so much...

i've got a toshiba plasma in my apartment and bought a sony bravia lcd for another apartment that i bought as an investment.

purely subjective, of course, but my preference is the plasma. i spend much of the time watching movies and feel the plasma has an overall nicer picture (keeping in mind i'm just comparing these two models).

the big negative for the plasma is image burn-in. if i leave cnn on for a few hours a ghost of the logo will appear for the next couple of hours which to me is very annoying.

my personal preference would be an lcd. I seem to find the plasma tvs around here much more expensive than their lcd counterparts. Lcds are quite cheap as well. I find the samsung lcds one of the cheapeast lcd tvs in the market these days. Any problems with burnt images in plasma tvs? Are they easy to fix?

I also use kakaku.com btw and I find it amazing that the prices are way cheaper compared to retail stores that I find on the web.

The cool and quiet aspect of LCD makes it much more appealing to me than Plasma. They're also much, much less heavy.

Of course I really would like to pick up an OLED screen too.

アメフトやバスケはやっぱプラズマでしょう。やっぱ５０＋でいくんだったらプラズマの方が奇麗。でも液晶のほうがかなり安いけどね。
自分はsharp aquosの３７です。
これぐらいのサイズだったら液晶でもいい。
でも動きの多いものを見るんだったら、プラズマだね。

-KAZU

Good choice danny! Plasma is still much superior to LCD in contrast and fast moving scenes. I was considering buying LCD but when I looked at some of my anime and photos on my old Goldstar (now LG) TV vis the PS3, they just looked so much more vivid than when viewed on my monitor (20.1" Viewsonic LCD). Plasma is the closest thing you can get to a HD CRT tv.

Hopefully, some reasonably priced 1080p plasmas come on market so I can experience PS3 in true hd.

Plasma has a better picture, better contrast, no viewing angle issues, and MUCH better Standard Definition picture (SD).

Unless you're watching all HD, you should consider how SD shows will look. They look like total crap even on the best LCDs, whereas they actually look pretty good on a plasma.

The advantages LCD has over plasma are no burn-in issues, lighter weight, brighter picture (too bright, in some cases), and less electricity.

But if you care mostly about picture quality, go plasma.

i prefer LCD coz it is more affordable compare to plasma.

LCD 4eva. i go buy 32 inch philips FULL-HD, when i get my paycheck from my part time job.
samsung´s new LED tv could be awesome but too expensive to me. 3000euros is too much for my wallet

Plasma all the way, no lags, no problem with blacks begin not blacks, the colors are a lot better and naturals too, and finally NO wide view problem. Nowdays burnin is a myth on plasma.