<p>We are looking for a flatscreen. Right now, LCD’s with LED lighting are the hot new technology, along with wifi and 3D. I’d just like a big screen with 1080p resolution and a high refresh rate. Plasmas look like a great deal. They are cheaper than the LED/LCD units and have great color and picture quality.</p>
<p>You just don’t see very many plasmas at Sears, Best Buy, etc. So I’m just wondering–would I be buying a product that might be hard to service in a few years because they have become obsolete?</p>
<p>The Panasonic Viera plasma TVs are awesome. Better color, better motion, more like a tube picture than the LCD/LED models, plus better off-axis viewing. I’d buy another one in a NY minute. I would only choose an LCD/LED model if I needed burn-your-retinas brightness (the proper setting on any TV is way down from the showroom torch mode) or if I were going to leave it on a fixed picture (plasmas will burn in an image if it is never moving).</p>
<p>The Panasonics with THX mode give you a near perfectly calibrated picture mode at the push of a button.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t worry about future repairs. This stuff is pretty much disposable. Not worth the cost of repair in most cases.</p>
<p>Don’t worry about the service - get a TV that has a great picture for the price and meets your needs. One type that seems to be phasing out are the non-LED lit LCD TVs and those seem to be the greater bargains at the moment but I wouldn’t get one of those for a primary TV.</p>
<p>I have a 55" plasma over 5 years old and it still works great and has a great picture. If I was looking right now for a replacement I’d check on both the LED lit LCD and plasmas. </p>
<p>Contrary to what some think, plasmas are still being manufactured but not by as many manufacturers as used to make them and generally only in the very large sizes - 50" and up.</p>
<p>I’m looking at a 50" plasma that Sears has this week for only $549 on closeout. It’s a Zenith that I’ve read is manufactured by LG. 1080p, 600 Hz. I already have a wifi blu-ray player, and don’t care at all about 3D. Life is already 3D, and is way better than what’s on TV.</p>
<p>I have also heard great things about the Panasonics. The Panasonic equivalent to the Zenith described above is selling at about $799. A far cry from the early days when smaller plasmas sold for $5K!!</p>
<p>I had started looking at all the varieties of TVs last year and specifically said no to plasma but guess what I got a Samsung Plasma. I love it and this year bought another one. I do not want to buy the most expensive TV that promises the latest technology and then wind up having problems. That happened with our DLP TV which was all the rage and then within a year it was one problem after another. The money saved between a plasma and LED will be used towards another TV if needed in a few years. Meanwhile our plasma TVs work wonderfully and can not believe I almost passed over these TVs.</p>
<p>a) no motion artifacts. Pretty important feature on a “football watching” TV.</p>
<p>b) Excellent viewing even at angles far off center – to the sides or above and below. LCD TVs start to look awful from wide angles – because the light shines through them from behind (from white flourescent tubes or LED lights), rather than being generated at the actual viewing surface of the TV.</p>
<p>The disadvantages of plasma are weight (they have a real glass front), heat, and energy use. From a manufacturing standpoint, LED is winning out because of the shared technology (and volume) with computer monitors.</p>
<p>My understanding regarding plasmas and energy that though they may consume more energy than either LCD or LED models, they still use less energy than my current 32" tube TV.</p>
<p>Please correct me if that’s inaccurate.</p>
<p>I’ve also heard that the glass front on a plasma may create glare in a bright room. Then again, my tube tv has a glass front that produces glare at time, and I live with it (don’t watch much daytime tv anyway, so not really a factor for me).</p>
<p>Thanks to all–if you have a question, someone on CC has the answer!</p>
<p>Much less energy than the old tube TVs. Also, glare on the glass screen is much less than the old tube TVs because it’s flat, not curved.</p>
<p>I have my TV in a room with two sliding glass patio doors and six skylights – all south facing. And, with the proper THX setting, my TV has the brightness turned way down. It is still perfectly watchable even in bright daylight. If sun is shining directly on the TV screen mid-afternoon, I will occasionally go up to the standard brightness, which is still well below the burn-your-retinas exaggerated torch mode the TVs are all set to in the showrooms. Those brightness levels are painful on a large screen TV in a dim room at night. The single best thing anyone can do for a better picture is selected one of the less exaggerated brightness modes. Pick something usually labeled something like “standard” or “movie” instead of “vivid”.</p>
They’re heavier but in reality, I hung mine on the wall over 5 years ago when I first bought it and haven’t moved it since so the weight’s irrelevant in my case and I suspect in the case of most people unless they’re routinely moving large TVs around (in which case I’d avoid a large plasma).</p>
<p>One weird thing (but nice) about my TV (Hitachi plasma) I noticed - the screen is supposed to have some surface that doesn’t attract dust - and it doesn’t! It’s amazing that the screen stays dust free.</p>
<p>OP - I think the bottom line is that plasma TVs are still viable, there’s no reason not to get one for fear of it being technologically not current, and it really comes down to the price/performance ratio. They’re a pretty good deal right now. Let your eyes and pocketbook be the main deciding factors. When comparing a plasma to an LCD(LED lit) make sure you do the off-axis views as i-dad mentioned, although the current crop of LCDs are pretty good in this regard, a show with action to see if delays are noticed on the LCD although they’ve improved in this area as well, and in different lighting conditions.</p>
<p>A family member recently bought an LG LCD(LED lit) and it has a great picture. LG seems to have become a major player in TVs - both LCD and plasma but it’s best to try to do some relatively side by side comparisons of brands in like sized TVs if you can. It’s difficult to compare side by side if the TVs are different sizes since the smaller ones will appear to have a better picture - especially if you’re standing closer to the TV than optimum as you will when watching at home. IMO there’s no substitute for a larger TV - if you’re going from a 32" direct view TV like I did you might think a 46" would be just fine but I think you should get a reasonably large TV within budget and space reason. Personally I wouldn’t go less than 50", I have a 55", and whenever I replace it I’ll consider 60" and above. You get used to the big picture real quickly and it’s nice.</p>
<p>I have my 50 inch plasma on a TV stand instead of wall-mounted, because the swivel feature is handy for an adjoining kitchen. My wife and I can easily pick it up and put it on the stand or lift it off and put it on the floor. I could probably lift it by myself, except that it’s big enough (width and height) to make it awkward for one person to get a grip on it. Really the weight is no big deal. It weighs 58 pounds without the pedestal, 64 pounds with the pedestal. The 54 inch Sony LCD weighs 63 pounds without the pedestal, so I guess that’s a wash.</p>
<p>What a difference compared to the 32 inch Sony tube TV we had hauled off. Sheesh. That thing was difficult to lift even for two sumo wrestlers.</p>
<p>^^ I agree - lifting the plasma is a lot easier than a 32" and above tube TV since it’s easier to grasp than the awkwardly shaped tube TV and may actually be lighter. The trouble with tube TVs is that in addition to the awkward shape that makes grasping it difficult, the bigger the tube the thicker the tube’s glass envelope needs to be so it doesn’t implode which makes it heavier than it would appear whereas a plasma or LCD TV doesn’t have this implosion issue so the glass doesn’t need to be as thick. </p>
<p>I don’t think the weight difference between an LCD and plasma is worth worrying about unless one’s frequently moving it to different locations - not just adjusting its angle.</p>
<p>I bought a Sony Bravia Full HD LED LCD 3D television. The television is just superb. The LED and LCD option is quite good but can be deemed too bright for some users. The 3D option is also quite good. Overall, I think i made a very good decision.</p>
<p>Bought a 51" Samsung plasma as a surprise Christmas present for my H. My 24 yo son set it all up – on a stand – on Christmas Eve morning while I was at work and younger son had H out of the house keeping him busy. He then wrapped it in place on the stand. Apparently it was not too heavy and easy to handle for him, which is why I had him do it!</p>
<p>PS Love the TV after the old circa 1998 30" tube thing that was free out of a model home when they took the model apart over ten years ago.</p>
<p>Generally, on Sony TVs, the CINEMA picture modes will be much closer to accurate than the bight STANDARD and the burn-the-retinas out VIVID torch mode. These settings are fairly consistent across brands – they just call them different things. Almost always, the lower brightness settings (Cinema, Film, etc.) are closer to what you would get if you had a professionally calibrated TV – although they won’t appear as “spectacular” at first if you are used to looking at the highly exaggerated showroom vivid modes (the standard settings out of the box).</p>
<p>I’m still in love with our seven-year-old 50" Pioneer Elite, so I might be biased. Plasmas have the best black levels, the most naturally fluid motion, and the best overall pictures–that’s what I’ve noticed, at least.</p>
<p>Go with plasma. I still prefer our 720p Panasonic- nearly 6 years old now (funny how you relate purchases to moments in life- such as kid’s HS graduation…)- to new high quality LCDs we’ve had with 1080p and high refresh rates. Can’t justify replacing this one yet, sure hope they’re still around when we do. Our Panasonic TV brand does a better job than most for standard def TV- eg the weather channel (howcum we can’t get the local weather on the HD version…). Brands matter. </p>
<p>btw- Giants deserved to beat the Packers. Good luck to the NFC against the evil NE Patriots.</p>