09-20-2010, 08:31 AM
It all depends on what your going to be using it for. If you like to play video games or are you just going to be watching high definition movies? Despite the advances in LCD technology over the past few years, Plasma televisions still deliver the best picture quality hands down. The best LCD tv can't compete with best plasma in terms of contrast and black level performance. Although it has gotten a lot better, you will still see some form of pixelation on an lcd when there is a really dark scene in a movie.
With that being said there are two things that sway people to buy an lcd over a plasma and that is the glare and burn in. Glare on plasma's has gotten better with the introduction of anti-glare screens but you will still see some form of glare if its in a brightly lit room. It's usually best to not place the plasma on the wall that has a window directly opposite of it. In regards to burn in on plasmas it still is an issue but not as big as it use to be. Plasma's are most susceptible to burn in during the first 72 hours of viewing. During this time it's best to air on the side of caution and to not pause a movie for an extended period of time or leave the xbox 360 on it's home screen for a while. For the period of when you first start using the plasma I tend to watch the discovery channel for the the constant change of colors. It's just a good way to break in the television set.
As far as LCD/LED tv's they are just all around work horses. You don't have to worry about glare, burn in and now a days they are very light weight and extremely thin and now the prices have dropped a tad. You might not get thee absolute best in picture quality but they're pretty golly gee willikers good. In the end it comes down to preference, usage, and budget. Are you going to be playing video games and do you have kids? A lot of times people burn an image into there Plasma screens because the kid playing a video game paused the game or left it on the home screen of the system and completely forgot about it. Say what's you want about burn in not being an issue anymore but leave a game paused for a good half hour to an hour and you'll see ghost images of that on the screen. In a perfect world I'd go with a Plasma in the living room for the sole purpose of watching movies in hi-def and a LCD in another room for playing games and mixed usage and then a theater room in the basement with a 100" inch screen and hi-def projector and surround sound, lol. If your going to go LCD look at Samsungs and Sonys. For plasma take a look at panasonic. They are the all around leaders in those departments.
PS. If your going to invest 2k in a brand new television set at best buy do yourself a favor and spend an extra $350 bucks on the extended warranty. When I had purchased my new Samsung lcd it was a little over a year before I started to have issues with it. It would take several minutes to turn on and would flicker when it did. I had the service plan and called best buy up and they sent a guy to come in and take a look at it. He opened it up and the issue was a blown capacitor on the main board. Took less then 5 minutes to change and when he gave me my receipt it had shown what it would of cost if I didn't have the plan. Over $300 bucks for something as simple as a blown capacitor. This incident alone paid for the service plan. Some issues actually cost more then a brand new tv to have it repaired so the plan is def. worth it. Sorry for the long rant, hope it helps.
With that being said there are two things that sway people to buy an lcd over a plasma and that is the glare and burn in. Glare on plasma's has gotten better with the introduction of anti-glare screens but you will still see some form of glare if its in a brightly lit room. It's usually best to not place the plasma on the wall that has a window directly opposite of it. In regards to burn in on plasmas it still is an issue but not as big as it use to be. Plasma's are most susceptible to burn in during the first 72 hours of viewing. During this time it's best to air on the side of caution and to not pause a movie for an extended period of time or leave the xbox 360 on it's home screen for a while. For the period of when you first start using the plasma I tend to watch the discovery channel for the the constant change of colors. It's just a good way to break in the television set.
As far as LCD/LED tv's they are just all around work horses. You don't have to worry about glare, burn in and now a days they are very light weight and extremely thin and now the prices have dropped a tad. You might not get thee absolute best in picture quality but they're pretty golly gee willikers good. In the end it comes down to preference, usage, and budget. Are you going to be playing video games and do you have kids? A lot of times people burn an image into there Plasma screens because the kid playing a video game paused the game or left it on the home screen of the system and completely forgot about it. Say what's you want about burn in not being an issue anymore but leave a game paused for a good half hour to an hour and you'll see ghost images of that on the screen. In a perfect world I'd go with a Plasma in the living room for the sole purpose of watching movies in hi-def and a LCD in another room for playing games and mixed usage and then a theater room in the basement with a 100" inch screen and hi-def projector and surround sound, lol. If your going to go LCD look at Samsungs and Sonys. For plasma take a look at panasonic. They are the all around leaders in those departments.
PS. If your going to invest 2k in a brand new television set at best buy do yourself a favor and spend an extra $350 bucks on the extended warranty. When I had purchased my new Samsung lcd it was a little over a year before I started to have issues with it. It would take several minutes to turn on and would flicker when it did. I had the service plan and called best buy up and they sent a guy to come in and take a look at it. He opened it up and the issue was a blown capacitor on the main board. Took less then 5 minutes to change and when he gave me my receipt it had shown what it would of cost if I didn't have the plan. Over $300 bucks for something as simple as a blown capacitor. This incident alone paid for the service plan. Some issues actually cost more then a brand new tv to have it repaired so the plan is def. worth it. Sorry for the long rant, hope it helps.