LCD or Plasma, what's your opinion?

[DaiRees]

Hiya dudes ,

We're in the market for a new telly but the choice is mind boggling and I don't know what to get. Gonna be 50" or more and wall mounted. So LCD (LED lit or otherwise) or plasma - discuss....

[Captain Jack]

Plasma all the way. Far more natural picture compared to LCD's cartoon like images but does use more power.

Panasonic stuff is fantastic. For 50", make sure you have nice sources to make of what's likely to be a "full HD" set. No point without Sky HD or Blue Ray stuff.

[steve_earwig]

I don't bluddy know! Have a read, looks like you might need to be careful if you play computer games on a plasma but they're tops for palatial-sized screens.

[peugeot406rapier]

there is a plasma in the living room (my mums) and the screen is a nightmare to keep clean like the early flat screen computer monitors, LCDs usually are thinner and lighter aswell i have sky+ HD and an X-Box 360 and a blu-ray player hooked up to my 32" LCD and they are all working perfect with fantastic picture quality! and its only a £300 samsung from argos! my opinion; LCD

[jasper5]

I have a Pioneer Plasma in the living room and a Toshiba LCD in my son's bedroom (was in the living room until I got the Plasma).

The Plasma is superb, fantastic on SD and HD, I have Sky HD.

The only thing wrong with the LCD is that unless you sit full on in the middle of the screen you lose resolution in the picture, ie, the picture fades out the further to the side you sit, check that out when you go looking at sets.

I keep my Plasma screen clean using a slightly damp microfibre cloth.

When you go looking at sets, compare prices with John Lewis, they do a free 5 year warranty and will match the price of anything you see for sale that is cheaper than theirs (must have a price tag on it, they do check).I got £400 knocked off the price of my Pioneer by using price match.Shame Pioneer don't make TVs anymore.

Check out http://www.avforums.com and for reviews try http://www.trustedreviews.co.uk

[mjb]

I looked at a LOT of tellies (and spent hours in shops trying to set them up right) before I bought mine 2 months ago, and decided the best by a long way was the LG 47LH3000 47" LCD. Plasmas were right out of the window due to the short lifespan, excessive power consumption and worst of all, HUGE risk of screen burn from TV channel logos and games.

The LG set is the biggest LCD you can get for sensible money, it's got advanced picture options with custom memories, incredibly neutral colours when setup right, and inputs coming out the wazoo. It's also dirt cheap at under £600 delivered next day from Amazon and handles the upscaling of 720p and PAL quite nicely.

The down sides are:
1) I had to buy Sky HD
2) I had to buy an Acer Aspire Revo to shove xbmc on as a sweet HD media player
3) No analogue audio out via RCA sockets - just SPDIF and a 3.5mm headphone jack
4) The black level's not the lowest around, but it's only noticeable when you look for it
5) If you set it to the highest backlight level during a sunny day, turn it off, then turn it on again at night, you'll burn your retinas off
6) Everyone else's 32" tellies look tiny and ill-defined now

I am over the moon with the purchase!

[Captain Jack]

Be aware that the larger the screen, generally the higher the resolution (max is 1920x1080 of course) and worse SD picture quality as the upscaling artifacts will be far more noticeable. Plasmas tend to do SD better than LCD.

A year ago, we were contemplating getting a 42" LCD for our living room in a flat in London but to get a decent one, you need to spend more. So we went for a smaller 37" Panasonic plasma - viewing distance is only 2 meters for us, so no need for a larger set. Sure, it looks small now but that's why you have "upgrades"

Basically it depends what you will use the TV for. For gaming and a majority of high def viewing, get LCD - cheaper, lighter and no screen burn in that you can get with plasmas if you're not careful. For Freeview and Sky SD viewing get plasma - HD stuff will obviously also look fantastic. New plasmas have a much better lifespan than the first generation model, so unless you watch it 24 hours a day for 10 years, there's no need to worry.

Have you considered LED TVs? Don't know much about them but demos look very good indeed.

[DaiRees]

Yeah I've been looking at LEDs, in fact it was this one that kicked the whole thing off. It's only 29mm thick so you can literally hang it on the wall like a picture, unfortunately my in-laws have a 40" Samsung LCD and I hate it, plus the thin one's still about £2K so a bit cost prohibitive.... Problem is now that the mrs has seen that she doesn't want anything fatter.

Been skulking around Comet and Currys looking at things and scouring the inernet hence the current confusion. I'm told to go for a Plasma if I want something bigger than about 40" but I'm still a bit anti-plasma after their bad press of a few years ago, I know they've come on a long way but finding it hard to commit!! If I were to go for a plasma I'm thinking that this Panasonic one looks like the one for me, I'd like 58" but it's about £3K, the 50" is more like £1300.

I know I'm gonna have to get a HD source, upgrading to Sky+HD

[jasper5]

Good luck with your final choice....just a note on cables, don't let Comet or Currys con you into buying an expensive, so-called high quality HDMI cable, the one that comes free with the Sky+HD box is every bit as good as one costing £100.

[mjb]

LED TVs are just LCD TVs with the CCFL backlights replaced by a matrix of white LEDs. Great idea, as individual regions can be dimmed to decrease output levels (note: NOT increase contrast!!!). Very good tech, but it's new, so £££££££££££££££

The thing with LCDs though, is you'll get a crap picture unless the screen's built with a top quality panel AND is driven by very good electronics. The worst plasma you'll see will be mediocre but the worst LCD screens are truly dreadful. There are a few diamonds out there that don't cost the earth, and I really do recommend LGs 47" screens, especially the 47LH3000. It does have a "store" setting though, which makes it look just as ghastly as everything else you see in a Comet...

[Captain Jack]

I'm told to go for a Plasma if I want something bigger than about 40" but I'm still a bit anti-plasma after their bad press of a few years ago, I know they've come on a long way but finding it hard to commit!! If I were to go for a plasma I'm thinking that this Panasonic one looks like the one for me, I'd like 58" but it's about £3K, the 50" is more like £1300.

That's the bigger version of my TV - the P37V10 - it's great, had it for a year and I have not regretted it one bit. Picture quality is great from Sky HD, SD and my MCE box.

[STALLED]

LCD anyday over a plasma.

Plasmas are cheap - but they are now old technology. LCD's look so much better when hooked up to a computer screen.

Remember, 100hz or above!

What is SkyHD+ anyways - We just have FTV HD which is all the free to air channels, now on HD?

[jasper5]

Sky +HD.....http://www.sky.com/portal/site/skycom/s ... yhd/whatis

FTV HD is equal to Freesat HD by the looks of it.....http://www.freesat.co.uk/index.php?page=hd.Main

[DaiRees]

Been mooching around a different Currys this morning and I still don't know. The plasmas all look really grey to me when there's a black screen on, so I don't know how they can claim to have the levels of black that they say they have. They certainly seem to have better colour definition that the LCDs though, the LEDs appear to have good colours and the deepest blacks but as pointed out above the large ones are too expensive. As Matt says, it's a lot to do with how the monkeys in the shops have set them up too The same telly looks totally different in one shop to another!

[Captain Jack]

Black levels on plasma will always be better that LCD unless set up incorrectly. It's especially evident when watching in low light - in LCD you'll even see the backlight bleeding from the sides sometimes (if the telly is cr*p).

Like I said, for movies and general programming - plasma all the way. For computer games and high def viewing - LCD.