Brandon Posted April 14, 2011 Share Posted April 14, 2011 So my parent's 10 year old Mitsubishi rear projecting HDTV finally broke. with a $400 quote to fix it, they'd rather dump it on Craig's List and get a new one. They are looking at 55-60" sets, midrange, so around $1,300-1,600. Obviously, not buying at Best Buy, so prices should be cheaper online. I've always had gotten LCD tv's as I don't have room for anything bigger than 37" really and I remember that with the older plasmas, you had a huge issue with burn in. I know the new plasmas are better, and LED LCDs are also good... but more expensive. Thoughts? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HawkMan Posted April 14, 2011 Share Posted April 14, 2011 Plasma Pro's: - Better Image quality (colors, contrast, blacks) - Faster Refresh, 600hz - less gaps between the pixels and sub pixels Plasma con's: - slightly higher power usage (not as much as claimed) - Warmer (not necessarily a con) - Don't buy Samsung Plasma, they still suffer image retention(not burn in). - Cheaper Plasma models tend to have little surface coating on the glass so they get more reflections. so get the higher models, the best models have very good surface coating and will be less reflective than a glossy LCD. If the room has no issues with light reflections, a cheap plasma offer the same PQ as a expensive one, just make sure it's full HD at that size, especially since HD ready Plasma use non square pixels. Panasonic are great plasma's and don't have any image retention problems anymore and haven't had for years. LG makes some nice cheap ones, but I'm not sure about they're quality but they tend to score very good. but often criticized for reflective glass. LCD Pro's: - Brighter whites (not necessarily a pro, it only lights up the room more, it doesn't make it more white). - Less power usage (not so much for LCD, slightly more for LED) LCD Con's: - Light bleeding and ghosting. - light ghosting/bleeding around the edges(LED) - GLossy LCD's(and the new all glass covered screens) suffer the same reflection problems that plasma does. and pretty much al are glossy today, if they're not, then you lose a lot of color vibrancy and contrast. All in all, go for Plasma, it's just better, especially at that size. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joni_78 Posted April 14, 2011 Share Posted April 14, 2011 So my parent's 10 year old Mitsubishi rear projecting HDTV finally broke. with a $400 quote to fix it, they'd rather dump it on Craig's List and get a new one. They are looking at 55-60" sets, midrange, so around $1,300-1,600. Obviously, not buying at Best Buy, so prices should be cheaper online. I've always had gotten LCD tv's as I don't have room for anything bigger than 37" really and I remember that with the older plasmas, you had a huge issue with burn in. I know the new plasmas are better, and LED LCDs are also good... but more expensive. Thoughts? Plasma sets have ruled in 2011. If I remember correctly top 4 HDTV's are plasmas currently. I have best HDTV of 2009-2010 (LED) and while it gives almost as good pq as plasmas that technology introduces some new problems on picture. LCD has blooming, on top of that LED has halos. Plasma black level performance degrades over time and it consumes more power. I would choose the backlit LED personally, I'm just too afraid of the downsides of plasma. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HawkMan Posted April 18, 2011 Share Posted April 18, 2011 Plasma sets have ruled in 2011. If I remember correctly top 4 HDTV's are plasmas currently. I have best HDTV of 2009-2010 (LED) and while it gives almost as good pq as plasmas that technology introduces some new problems on picture. LCD has blooming, on top of that LED has halos. Plasma black level performance degrades over time and it consumes more power. I would choose the backlit LED personally, I'm just too afraid of the downsides of plasma. Err. no Plasma black levels do not degrade. when a plasma sub pixel is black, it's off, it's not making light. it can't get any darker and can't really degrade, I'm not sure where you got this idea. backlit LED suffers much more drawbacks anyway, especially with the light bleeding and haloing, since even the best has around 1000 LED's, and since the TV has just that many horizontal lines, it almost 2000 more pixels than LED's. so the local dimming backlit LED is pure marketing with no real value. the only thin it really does is make the black bars black, but even a decent LCD can turn of the tubes to make them black. if you want a quality tv today, with good PQ and solid technology, Plasma as it. even the power issue is greatly exaggerated, since the comparison use the Watt values at the back of the sets. these are mostly correct for LCD and LED, since they use the whole backlight all the time. a Plasma however will on average be somewhere around 50% of that value, maybe less with power-save since it doesn't use constant power, but each pixels use power form 0-100% based on color and intensity. There's to many factoids about plasma's still going around, 5 years after those problems where history. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Elі Subscriber² Posted April 18, 2011 Subscriber² Share Posted April 18, 2011 LED all the way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vandalsquad Posted April 18, 2011 Share Posted April 18, 2011 You won't get an anwser on here besides arguing from both sides. They both have they're advantages and disadvantages. Tell your parents to go in and view them in real life and to decide what picture looks better to them because they will be the ones watching it. Then find the cheapest of that model you can for them with some online research (Y) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Charisma Veteran Posted April 18, 2011 Veteran Share Posted April 18, 2011 You won't get an anwser on here besides arguing from both sides. They both have they're advantages and disadvantages. Tell your parents to go in and view them in real life and to decide what picture looks better to them because they will be the ones watching it. Then find the cheapest of that model you can for them with some online research (Y) +1 really is a personal preference thing, so just see which way their tastes run :) For me, LED all the way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HawkMan Posted April 18, 2011 Share Posted April 18, 2011 You won't get an anwser on here besides arguing from both sides. They both have they're advantages and disadvantages. Tell your parents to go in and view them in real life and to decide what picture looks better to them because they will be the ones watching it. Then find the cheapest of that model you can for them with some online research (Y) There is no real sides in this, it's only facts. and Plasma wins on everything but using slightly more power and not lighting up the room as much. The problem with seeing them in the store is that either they're not adjusted and all and they're all on dynamic, they're in horrible shop lighting which means when you get it home the picture isn't going to be anything like what you saw in the store, and if they are adjusted (meaning the remotes are out) 500 different idiots have been messing with the settings on each set. there's only two things you need to decide which is more important to you A: less power and having a less than 1cm thick tv, then LED (you absolutely need separate speakers though) B: Picture Quality, if this is what you onsider more important, the answer is ALWAYS Plasma. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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