Plasma TVs

Welcome to our Plasma TVs page at Flat Screen Forum.

The battle for supremacy in TV technology, between plasma TVs and LCD TVs, is now becoming a more even contest, with the LCD TV making rapid advances in recent years. Traditionally, plasma TVs have been the more expensive and desirable flat screen option because of the larger size of screens available and the quality of the picture they produced. It is fair to say that plasma TVs still dominate the UK market in the 40in plus sector, but they are now facing increased competition as LCD TVs become available in larger sizes.

Why buy a plasma TV?

Firstly, if you're after a really big flat screen, i.e. 50in, then plasma TVs are still your only option at the moment, although larger LCD TVs will be coming to market.

The principal advantages of plasma TVs are their ability to produce life-like colours, and that they have do not have any of the response time issues that can be found on LCD TVs. This means that they can display fast moving images without any blurring.

Plasma TVs are self-illuminating, so they can be seen clearly during daylight hours.

Plasma TVs have a very wide viewing angle, meaning that all members of the family will be able to see the screen from pretty much every angle of the room, and as the screen is flat, there will be little of the glare that was such a problem with older CRT televisions.

Those interested in the protecting the environment will be pleased that plasma TVs have a much lower power consumption than older CRT televisions, and they're also unsusceptible to electromagnetic interference, so there's no problem putting them next to the large speakers involved in a home cinema system.

Plasma TVs are only a few inches deep, so you shouldn't have too much difficulty finding room for it in your living room. Often people will choose to wall-mount their plasma TV, but as they can be fragile, this is usually best left to professionals. Plasma TVs are also heavier and produce more heat than their similarly sized LCD TV rivals.

A long-standing criticism of plasma TVs is that they are susceptible to "burn-in". This is where a stationary image is displayed on the screen for too long, leaving a permanent ghost imprint on the screen. However, plasma TV manufacturers have solved this by using sophisticated electronics to make sure that individual pixels are never in the same state long enough to allow "burn-in", so this is no longer an issue with the latest plasma TVs.

All in all, plasma TVs are still worth serious consideration if you are looking for a very large television, although their dominance is set to be challenged by further advances in LCD TV technology which will allow larger LCD TVs.

Flat Screen Forum Team, April 2006

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