Comments on: Why I'd still buy plasma over LCD

Many people are counting plasma out of the HDTV market. But for screens larger than 42 inches wide, plasma is set to remain the flat-screen tech of choice.

[CliffK2]

I just bought a Pioneer 60 inch Elite Kuro. I bought it for all the positive reasons listed in this article. Based on my history, I will keep it for six to ten years and then buy another television. I watch TV one to three hours per day, so the Pioneer won't need replacing as it will still have plenty of life (60,000 hour half-life) and will not be suffering from burn-in, but I expect I will have the itch by then to buy a new television. I do not know what technology I will buy, but it will be big screen, have good color, and good blacks. I also expect by then it will have a built-in wireless connection to my home's network. Who knows what else, perhaps a wireless connection to a home theater system and a wireless connection to cable. Who knows. But I am happy with the Kuro for now.

[iceman721]

I own a Samsung series 6 50" plasma. I couldn't be happier with it. It has a very high quality picture, 4 HDMI inputs, can be adjusted or "tweaked" as much as you want. It looks beautiful even when its off thanks to the touch of color (red) surrounding the frame not to mention that it has no issues with fast motion and displays 24fps material nativiely with no issues at all from my HD/Blu Ray player. With all that said I paid way under retail for it (1600 retailed for 2500) when I bought it. A relative just bought a 42" Series 4 Samsung (720p/1080i) for 600.00 on sale. I saw a 32 inch LCD (Phillips) that was 720p/1080i on sale for 589.00. Why would you NOT buy a plasma???

Burn in is no longer an issue on newer sets and the panel half life of my set is over 100,000 hours and thats when set on full brightness. The only drawback to plasma's that I can find is if you are in need of a smaller set or have a very bright room with a lot of glare then you may need an lcd. I think many people just don't know what they are buying and they are steered by the employees who are working in these stores over half of whom have no clue. I have also heard the energy consumption argument and based on my own experiences it doesn't have much merit either. Plasma uses more energy but if you take the time and adjust your set (better yet calibrate it) and place the brightness at a reasonable level energy consumption can be reduced by 20% or more from the advertised consumption rates. For most plasma is the better choice if you do your own research and not depend on a less knowlegable sales person trying to generate numbers or clear out inventory.

[carbonLORD]

Samsung's Luxia LED's will kill both Plasma and LCD as well as DLP and SONY's overpriced undersized OLED's so theres really no argument about Plasma versus LCD anymore.

[chrisfromnyc]

Plasma is dying, get over it Don. LCD is nowhere near perfect, but the bulkiness and power consumption of plasma is killing the technology. My guess is that by 2012 plasma will obsolete.

[nickshellshock]

If you look at the power consumption per square inch, recent Panasonic Plasmas are caught up with LCD in power consumption as they have dropped about 40% required power since last year. This puts the G10 and S1 around the middle of the pack or better, when compared with recent Cold Fluorescent Lit LCD power consumption.

I work at a major electronics retailer, and I have only once seen even a mid-range Panasonic retain an image. It displayed a low resolution video, on repeat for 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, with black bars on the side over the course of a month. After about a week with the video down, the retained lines caused by those black bars, and the poor quality bright image were gone. The lower end models are not quite as resistant to burn in, but from what I've seen, you would still need to try to burn in those models. A friend of mine abuses his low end Panasonic 42px80u (not so power friendly, but still energy star qualified) by leaving it paused for hours on end.

It is important to note that a retained image and burn in are not the same thing. Retained images go away, usually in a matter of seconds or minutes, sometimes longer, while burn in is forever.

Bright rooms are still an issue, for DAY TIME viewing. My TV room has a sliding glass door, and large kitchen window facing the setting sun, and a 6' diagonal window facing the rising sun, which would overwhelm the brightness of most plasmas. But I don't watch TV during the days so this is not an issue for me.

[kwilsonjr]

Well, you can certainly tell the author is not on the CNET staff. Many of the conclusions and observations are something I would expect to read in 2007...not 2009.

Another anomaly is his observation that Plasmas make up over 40% of the 50"+ market. The only way plasmas were able to even compete in that market now, with big panel LCD's in the 50" and up range, was to slash plasma prices well below their retail value.

And what is this garbage about 'motion blur' during sports? He is stuck in 2006-7 with apparently no clue about the leaps and bounds in LCD technology.

I look to CNET for cutting edge information. I did not find that in this piece.