Wednesday, May 22, 2013

What should I buy a Plasma or LCD television?

Q. I'm looking to buy a 42 inch HD television. I'm confused between plasma and LCD. Consumer Reports magazine is now starting to say that plasma is getting better and possibly better than LCD.
So can someone tell me the difference between them both? Can you also tell me which one in your opinion is better?
Ryan.. Thanks for the spam
Nick.... But why do you perfer it better ?

A. 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


Does anybody know when HDTVs are going to fall in price again?
Q. Specifically, I'm looking to get a 52"-60" HDTV LCD and I was just wondering if I should wait. I read in a recent consumer report that the prices may decline again this fall but haven't heard anything else since. Can anyone validate this or possibly shed a little light on the subject? Thanks!

A. TVs actually move thru different price levels as they get older.
New technology TVs are of course....EXPENSIVE.
4 year old TV technology is about $1000.....

Yes they do decline during WINTER....look for a price drop in December, and maybe January....


Is there a search engine web site which helps gather information on electronic gadgets?
Q. I want to gather information about HDTV, Sony KDL-46V3000.... Suggest me a search engine site which can gather all possible information like manufacturers info, reviews, deals, etc.

Also, I would like to compare features and prices with other top brands like Samsung, Panasonic and Sharp.

A. Consumer report site?





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