Choosing Between Plasma & LCD Televisions

The advent of flat-panel televisions has brought new trends in people's TV-buying pattern. The general public would love to see one on their living rooms or bed rooms. The brand and the size are included in the assessment. But mainly, choosing between LCD TV or Plasma TV has suddenly become a challenge for people who are planning to own the alluring flat-panel TV.

So you may ask, what is the difference between the technology behind Plasma TV and LCD TV? These two look utterly similar at one glance, but the difference all boils down to the flat screen and thin side view.

The screens of the LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) are composed of liquid crystal pressed on in the gap of two glass plates. The Plasma screens on the other hand, utilizes small gas plasma cells which are charged by accurate electrical voltages to generate a picture.

With that said, do these two have a big disparity in bringing out picture quality? And how do these two measure up to our good ol' CRT TV? To answer the latter, the experts still say that the CRT TV is still the best when it comes to overall image display. Thus, the extinction of the CRT units will not be in the near future, that's for sure. However, between the Plasma and LCD, generally there isn't that much difference, unless you're subjecting them for total analysis at the same time.

One distinct attribute for the Plasma TV screens is its ability to display "blacks" deeper than the LCD screens. Therefore, Plasma TV's generally have better delivery of dark views and color contrast. The Plasma's have better motion tracking technology, allowing no motion lag for fast-moving scenes. Plasmas also have superior viewing angles. The price tag is also an obvious advantage over the LCD family, especially when you're planning to buy a large-sized panel. 

Now, what's the real score for LCD TV's? The LCD's used to be at the upper echelon when it comes to price. But the LCD TV manufacturers are now slowly giving the Plasma producers a run for their money by being competitive as far as pricing is concerned.

The LCD also has higher number of pixels, or higher resolution, which in turn shows more details on the screen. The Plasma may produce brighter colours, but the LCD has an element that can offset that. Because of the lower brightness of LCD, it consumes almost half the power of what Plasma consumes, and that's definitely a plus factor for some eco-friendly citizens. Talking about dimensions, the LCD's consume lesser space and weighs far lesser than the Plasma, making LCD more suitable for wall mounting.

Prior releases of LCD TV's used to offer longer life than that of the Plasma's. But now both models are at bay with 60,000 (or more) hours of life, which is like 20 years of 8-hour daily usage.

If you're still riddled by these two flat panel treasures, perhaps your decision can be based on the size of your budget and on the features that really matter. Both units are feasible choices for home theater set-up. For first hand experience, it would be best to visit your nearest LCD TV and Plasma TV dealers, and then it's time to make the proverbial choice.