O/T TV question

If you were in the market for a flat screen television, what would be your choice, a plasma, or a LCD. Thanks for any info. Stan

I have one of each. Bought a LCD last year and a Plasma this year. Went to the plasma as we sit quite close to the screen. When watching fast moving things, like football play action,you can see a very slight smearing effect because the refresh rate of LCD is slightly slow. I understand that has been addressed with faster processors (120HZ).
I moved the LCD into the bedroom so it is now 8 ft away for us. Can harldy notce any smear at that distance. The Plasma has almost no smear effect. I do think the plasma has a tad better picture than the LCD. The plasma take a couple seconds longer to turn on. Both are excellent.Both are bottom line sets that I paid under $900 for.42"LCD and a 52"Plasma
If I had to by another today I would shop price almost exclusively.I just do not see a huge difference between the less than a grand sets and the several grand ones. LCD or Plasma...I would go plasma again.

I was told if your putting it in a sunny room, you'd be better off with an LCD. There is much less glare from the screen.....rw

We just bought a new RCA 42 inch LCD. It was on sale. I don't mind paying a little more for a better quality of anything. So , I walked back & forth , and back & forth , and back and forth. Looking at all the TV's. Both plasma & LCD. From one brand to the other(about 6 different brands). For watching TV , you can't tell the difference. I ended up buying the one on sale. We've had it about a week now. Nice TV. If it helps any , one is supposed to be better for playing video games. I believe it was the plasma. The plasma is also supposed to have a better picture if watching from an angle. I couldn't see any difference. I was also told the plasma runs hotter(more heat). One of the two is also supposed to have less glare in a brite sunny room. My advice......go for price.

I would say "it depends".

Plasmas tend to have the ability to have a much darker "black" because of the way they make a picture. LCD's have to have a light behind it, and if its not a high end set this turns everything that is black a shade of gray. Might not be an issue, but if you watch lots of movies, it could be a deal breaker.

Also, Plasmas tend to be much heavier, run hotter, and use more electricity than the same size LCD. Keep that in mind if you wanted to hang the thing on the wall.

One other thing, if you watch a lot of TV that isnt wide screen or high definition, you can get the bars on the side of the screen. When a plasma is brand new, if you leave these bars on your screen for too long, they can burn in. Not good. Same if you watch lots of CNN or a new channel that has a ticker on the bottom. They sell a DVD that you play in the TV for a few days on a loop that "breaks in" the plasma for you so you dont need to worry.

My vote, unless you are a real die-hard quality fan is to get an LCD. There is a company called Vizio that sells lots of sets at Costco that has a really nice one. Its called their XT series, and has the new 120 Hz processing. Consumer reports says its a best buy, and its got a lot of bang for the buck.

Good luck!

I thouht the Plasma had better color, black verses greys on the LCD when viewed side by side. Light reflecting on the plasma can be a problem as we found when the wife decided to move the tv to a lighter area. The plasma has a glass screen that is tough and easy to clean. The LCD plastic type screen needs light cleaning only, and can scratch if attacked by a child with a stick, dogs claw etc. Both will be great improvement if you currently have a tube type tv.
Chris

Go into the electronics stores and look at them working. It's amazing the difference in quality.
I got my last one a few years ago by watching ballgames and trying to read the scores along the edges. Most were hard to read.
A couple of years ago I was looking at plasma and LCD TV's and some are so good the image looks like it's sitting out in front of the TV when you're off to the side.

While it really doesn't have much to do with choice I did read this past week that if LCD image devices are stored in cold environments like campers the LCD can freeze and render the unit useless. Electricity go off where you are are for weeks at a time in which you temporarily abandon your home?