Digital Trends

The war between plasma and LCD flat-panel TVs rages on, and no doubt you’ve heard the propaganda from both camps. While LCD has traditionally been more expensive than plasma at the larger sizes, that gap is diminishing—making other factors such as performance and features more significant. Here, we’ll take you through the pros and cons of each technology to help you make the important decision: To buy a plasma or LCD television? You can always discuss this debate in our forums too.

PLASMA FLAT-PANELS

Benefits:

• Better contrast and deeper blacks—Plasma displays are known for their deep, inky black levels, which result in better contrast and a more three-dimensional picture. Panasonic and Pioneer are especially well known for their sets’ high-quality black levels, setting the standard for all other plasma sets.

By comparison, LCDs have a more difficult time “turning off” their backlighting mechanisms for a truly dark image. On the other hand, they are generally brighter than plasma displays, and therefore perform better in situations where there is a lot of ambient light (more on that later).

• Don’t suffer from motion blur on action—Due to technical reasons we won’t get into here, LCDs are often victims of motion blur—aka image smearing—which results in fast action or sports footage looking blurry or smeared across the screen. In a very bad case, if a golf ball is flying through the sky, you might see a comet-like trail behind it.

• Unlimited viewing angle—Unlike LCDs, off-axis viewing of a plasma set will look the same as if you were looking at the plasma sitting directly in front of it. In short, image quality is consistent from any seat in the house.

• Cost slightly less than LCD sets—While the difference in price is shrinking, plasmas are slightly less expensive than LCDs, especially at larger sizes. However, this doesn’t necessarily apply to top-end models.

Drawbacks:

• Short-term image retention a possibility—Plasmas have always gotten a bad rap for burn-in or image retention: When an image, such as a station logo or stock ticker, remains on the screen for too long, you may see a faint ghost of the image after it disappears. For most good plasma displays though, this is a non-issue, and any ghosting that appears should quickly go away. A lot of manufacturers use screen savers if an image is paused for too long to prevent image retention.

• Screens can suffer from glare in bright rooms—Plasma TVs’ glass panels are known to reflect light and make them harder to watch in a bright room. Many manufacturers are using special techniques to minimize reflections, however, and some of them, such as Panasonic’s anti-reflective filter, minimize these reflections and improve performance in brighter rooms. Look for antiglare options when you are shopping for a plasma TV.

• Use slightly more power than LCD displays per square inch.

• Less choice—LCD panels are everywhere and come in a wider variety of sizes. There is a little less variety to choose from when it comes to picking a plasma display.

The bottom line:

While we could take the stance that both technologies are equally good, and the choice is up to your personal preference, we won’t go for the easy cop-out. The fact is, plasmas have a slight edge when it comes to a truly cinematic picture. If you are a cinephile who likes to watch a lot of different film sources such as Blu-ray discs or DVDs, plasma is your best bet—especially if you have some control over ambient light. The technology’s deeper blacks, sharper contrast and absence of motion blur make it ideal for almost any application. Just watch out for image glare on untreated plasma displays, and make sure your plasma can stand up to the amount of uncontrollable light in your room.

A Very Thin Pioneer Kuro Prototype TV