Plasma Versus LCD TV

So you want to buy a flat-panel TV and you are undecided on it's type. Keep reading and at the end of this guide you should have a winner in the "plasma versus LCD TV" competition. Basically, it's all about what you want from your flat-panel display. Based on what you want, you might find out that a plasma TV is better for you or that a LCD is the best choice to make. You might even end up with the chance to choose any of them and leave other personal preferences to dictate the exact product you will buy. But let's cut to the chase and introduce the differences.

Image Quality
Here is where the plasma TV has an advantage over LCDs. Plasma displays can have higher brightness and contrast levels than LCD displays. This is a major advantage of plasma versus LCD TV but that doesn't make it an absolute winner. The reason for that is the ambient light. In an environment with low or no ambient light, the plasma displays have great brightness and contrast, offering you great images. However if you are in the situation where you have ambient light (most real-life scenarios), a LCD TV might be a better choice because in this case the LCD image will look better. This change in image quality based on the environment appears because of the glass used to build the plasma and LCD displays. The glass from witch the plasmas are made is highly reflective while the glass of the LCDs does not reflect so much light. In conclusion the best thing to do when trying to decide witch type of flat-panel display to buy is to know in what kind of environment you will use it. If you have ambient light maybe is better to go with the LCD. If you want to experience great images in a low light environment, then go for the plasma.

Also regarding image quality, LCDs have an advantage when it comes to the viewing angle. However it is a small advantage. LCD displays have a viewing angle of up to 175°

There is also something that even if most people don't care about I want to point out. Plasma TVs have their performance decrease at high altitudes. There are plasma TV manufacturers who produce displays specially designed for high altitude but I expect those to cost more. LCD TVs are not affected by hight altitude.

Display Size
Plasma TVs come in sizes ranging from 32 to 63 inches. LCD TVs have slightly smaller sizes - 13 to 45 inches. There are both plasma and LCD TVs that go over those sizes. For plasma TV, Panasonic has the record with it's TH-103PF9UK measuring 103 inch. On the other hand, in the LCD sector, LG has the lead with a 100 inch display. However these very large flat-panel displays are not readily available or affordable at the consumer level.


Other Aspects of Plasma Versus LCD TV
Though most people are primarily concerned about image quality and display size when choosing a flat-panel TV, there are a few other aspects witch are worth mentioning.

• Plasma TVs are much heavier than LCDs of same size. You should keep this in mind when installing them and make sure the wall or stand you want to install your plasma on will support it's weight. Also most of the plasma TVs require additional supports in order to be mounted on a wall.
• Plasma TVs also require more power and produce more heat then LCD TVs.
• Plasma TVs are more fragile than LCD TVs. This means you should take extra care when handling and installing a plasma.

Hopefully this guide will help you decide on what type of flat-panel display you want to buy. If you would like to buy a Plasma TV or a LCD TV at good prices, or just to see what choices are out there the links below are just for that.

Flat-Panel LCD TVs | Flat-Panel Plasma TVs | TV-DVD Combinations

If you want to read more about this subject, check out this very in-depth guide about plasma vs LCD TV available on TheBestPlasmaTV.com

Largest Plasma TV In The World

You have all seen large Plasma TVs before, you may even think you own one. Fifty inches? Hah! Sixty-Five Inches? Nice try, but you may as well be squinting. A new product from Panasonic makes all other Plasma TVs look like discount items from the last century!

The monster is Panasonic TH-103PF9UK and it has a diagonal of 103" (261 cm). At this size it is the largest plasma TV in the world. It's one and a half times larger than what you would consider a big plasma for your home, but of course it's not really supposed to be used in the average person's home theater system. Most likely you will see it at presentations and similar events, because it was made primarily for professional applications.

The super-size plasma provides a widescreen progressive display featuring a full high-definition pixel resolution of 1920x1080, a contrast ratio of 4000:1, and an effective display area of 89" wide by 50" high (that's four 50" plasma TV put togheter).

Let's see some of the features (from Panasonic website):

• Full HD pixel resolution of 1,920 horizontal x 1,080 vertical
• Industry's leading 16-bit processing to produces 4,096 steps of gradation
• Contrast ratio of up to 4,000:1 to reproduce exceptionally deep, rich blacks
• Effective display area is approximately 89" wide by 50" high
• Supports 1080/60p/50p, 1080/60i/50i/24p/24sF/25p/30p, 1080/50i, 720/60p/50p, 480/60i/p, and 575/50i/p video signals
• Advanced Dual Picture mode to overlay a video image onto a full-screen PC image
• Expanded configurations for multi-screen displays and the ability to enlarge an image up to 4X vertically and horizontally
• Three interchangeable slots and comes standard with the TY-FB9DD DVI board (compatible with UXGA input), TY-42TM6A analog component board, an integrated D-sub15 PC input, and an integrated D-sub9 RS-232C interface

Ok so it's big and it's hot, but how much does it cost? As you may expect from a new product that also happens to be advertised as 'THE LARGEST IN THE WORLD' it's pretty expensive. The list price in US is $69,995. I bet that's over your new TV budget, but in case I'm wrong and you want to know from where you can buy it, check out on Panasonic website. At least for now, if you're interested in buying the TH-103PF9UK you have to contact Panasonic here.

The first thing that came into my mind when thinking about it's size was the display of USS Enterprise from StarTreck. It's not that big, but I bet we won't have to wait much until the TH-103PF9UK will loose it's 'largest plasma TV in the world' status or until we will see a display the size of a wall.

Bestseller - Samsung HPT5064 50" Plasma HDTV

Featuring a 1365 x 768 resolution, 15,000:1 Contrast Ratio and Filter Bright 2 Anti Glare Technology, this plasma TV managed to rise above other products and become a bestseller.

Samsung HPT5064 uses the latest Digital Natural Image engine (DNIe) enhancement circuitry to deliver exceptional brightness, contrast and image quality. The Samsung DNIe video enhancer refines analog NTSC for an overall improvement in picture quality. Because of it's 13 bit processing the HPT5064 as well as HPT4254 can produce over 549 billion colors, witch is a lot compared to the one billion colors that TVs with 10-bit processing can produce.

Regarding the connectivity, HPT5064 has three HDMI connections, three S-Video inputs, two Component Video A/V, USB 2.0 connection, PC (RGB) input, composite video, headphone jack, and two RF input.

This plasma HDTV has a picture-in-picture (PIP) feature, but because it has only one tuner it does not permit PIP to function in same mode. You can't watch one TV channel in the main screen and another one in the PIP screen, but what you can do is watch a TV channel in the main screen and in the PIP screen watch content from your DVD or computer. This however is a limitation we can find in most HDTVs on the market.

Read more or buy it: Samsung HTP5064 50" Plasma HDTV