[HDCriticalFan]

I made a significant investment in a 42 inch plasma screen a few years ago (a few thousand pounds). I had previously decided to hang onto it for a few more years as a result. I didn't feel ready to shell out another couple of grand to go to full 1080p and so I didn't "monitor the market" actively.

Then I saw the LG PS 3000.

Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but this is a plasma (not LCD), is full HD (1080P) and fifty inches in size ... and is available for £699-ish ! What is wrong with this picture


I've looked at John Lewis and they have the Pioneer (LX5090) for £2,500. Doing a side by side comparison, it seem to be almost technically identical to the LG.


Can someone tell me what makes the Pio almost four times as expensive ? Is it actually four times better ? If so, in which aspects, connectivity, flexibility/calibration, black level, speed of response, on board processing, no. of bits per pixel in colour depth, durability (lifetime), colour fidelity, ... ?


My gut feeling is that the Pio probably is better ... but only by a percentage (<100). If I can get a handle on what the shortcomings of the LG are compared to the Pio, then I may be prepared to accept them for the chance to increase my screen size to 50 inches and go 1080p for the relatively modest cost of £699.





Regards

[HDCriticalFan]

Perhaps my question is :-

Has anyone replaced a "reputable" (Panny/Pio) plasma for an LG one ... and how do they feel about that decision now ? Is the LG "cheap n' nasty" or not ? Does it have noisy fans, a tacky plastic feel, etc,...





Regards

[shahedz]

Would be interested to hear personal experiences with the LG plasma, am in the markets for a 50" for as cheap as possible!

[HDCriticalFan]

You and me both shahedz

I have done a lot of research and have seen some reliable-looking comments that the LG screens simply aren't as good as the best of the rest. It's fairly subtle "ultimate picture quality" stuff ... but that matters to me.

I am trying to get a handle on just how "dissappointing" these screens actually are. I mean, you can accept a fair amount of shortfall on a screen when it costs less than a third of the better one ! Also, I have a strong suspicion that "poor" compared to a 50 inch 2009 Panny or Pio might still be a huge step forward compared to my five year old 42 inch HD Ready screen.





Regards

[happyhiker]

For £699 you should be able to get a decent Panny, even at 50'', there was a deal on hotukdeals a few days ago. I'm looking at getting a 46G10 for £989, and I bet the price will keep dropping. My Brother had a 50' LG a couple of years ago, I thought it was a bit rubbish and then a couple of months ago a board blew, so now its just a very big picture frame He's since got a LED LCD which is very nice (but a bit pricey)

[McBain666]

Take this opinion "as is", i.e. I just bought a 50PQ3000 and did A LOT of research before.
All the owners of this new LG series are happy, me included of course, many ppl say the PQ series it better than Panasonic X10. For SD quality, I must say, I am impressed. I think on this ground LG have no par.
Then someone point at some shortcoming in HD, or FullHD (it is not my case, PQ is HDR). Namely I think the blacks are not as black as Kuro, perhaps not as panasonic too. Of course, not as the top brand. Though I looked as a PS8000 and is was much better than a PS3000 by side.
Bottom line is, this new LG series seem to be great value, they offer many setting more than Panny and picture quality is probably a bit more than what you pay for (they are cheap!).
You will be scared by stories of image retention, I must say that on my 3 days old LG it was almost absent. A faint self-vanishing shade only visible from 10cm on black screen, after shooting a pure white menu on black.

It depends on what you're looking for.

[grit]

I've recently gone through several new TVs, all of which I returned for one reason or another. The short version - I finally broke down and got a Pioneer Elite 50" Kuro. I'm in LOVE.



Here's the longer version :

(Please note - I adjusted the in-store displays with a calibration bluray disc that came with my Oppo Bluray. The TVs I have had at home I calibrated the same way, then further calibrated them using a Spyder3 colorimeter and my Toshiba laptop computer.)

I have/had a Pioneer Elite 42" pre-Kuro display, which I love, but it only does 720p and 42" is a bit small for my taste now. I got sucked in when I saw a new Samsung B8000 LED edge lit LCD tv. Wow! It looked AWESOME in the store! So I bought it and took it home. I loved the TV up until around dusk/night. When I turned the lights down to watch "Wall-e", oh was I disappointed. There was blooming on the edges from the LEDs and the blacks were tinted blue. There's also a quality about just watching the TV that I can't quite put my finger on. I feel it has something to do with not being smooth when things move on screen. It's subtle, but it never quite made me happy.

So, returned that. A few weeks later, I allowed myself to believe it was perhaps a bad set because so many people gave it great reviews. Nope. They're all like that.

Returned THAT one and went for a Samsung B750 (LCD with traditional CCFL lighting instead of LED). CNET and other reviews said it was a much more uniform screen, especially with respect to darker colors. I've had it for a few weeks and it does have a more uniforn color and much less bleeding than the LED model. However, in order to maintain darker levels, the backlights dim when the TV determines the scene is darker. It ALMOST dims the light as soon as the scene switches, but not quite. Whats really a problem is a dark scene that pans to a lighter point, and/or back to a darker one. Or a scene that includes both light and dark. The backlight can't make up its mind, so the blacks go from dark to light and back to dark, because the whole screen changes intensity/brightness, not just the part of the image that should be bright.

I also gave a Sony XBR9 a shot. No blue tint to the blacks, but the motion blur and dejudder are together. So, if you want to use motion blur, you get dejudder. Thus, when you watch a movie, it looks like daytime soap oprahs. Some people think it looks like a "cool" 3d effect. In reality, it makes its very obvious what was filmed in front of a blue screen and what was added later. For me, it completely destroies the original feeling of the movie.

I finally broke down and bought the Kuro. From the first seconds I watched anything I'd viewed on the LCDs, looked awesome! "Wall-e (Bluray)" looks spectacular! The scene where he holds on to the ship and it leaves Earth looked amazing. There were more stars, more variation in the stars (some dim, some bright, some with slightly different color hues), the motion looked smooth, and the blacks didn't have a blue cast to them.

I went back and watched "Sleepy Hollow" (DVD) again. I had a hard time watching it the other evening because so many of the scenes looked washed out and had limited contrast on the LCD. When I watched on the Kuro, my first thought was that it looked like I'd switched from VHS to BluRay. Contrast was awesome. Blacks were black. The lighter portions of a dark scene were appropriately light, without washing out anything else OR without being so bright as to hurt my eyes.

I watched CSI: New York in HD. The opening credits pan across a night scene of the New York cityscape. On the LCDs it looked unremarkable, kind of like building outlines with various bright window lights on. On the Kuro, its a whole different image.

Now here's the best part. That Samsung B8000 was $2200 for a 46". The Kuro was $2500 for a 50". Haha! I win!

Oh, and yes, I've finally seen a demo of the B8500 backlit LED set, and when I got the Kuro, I compared it directly to a Sony XBR8 (also local backlit). The XBR8 looked very good. However, the color accuracy was no where near what the Kuro can do, the off-axis viewing deteriorates rapidly, and the image on scenes where dark and light are mixed seemed to have too bright a contrast. It hurt my eyes a bit to look at it. The Samsung B8500 was about the same, though I did not get to compare it directly to the Kuro. In fact, it was a different store and source. However, all the store tests were done in a very dimmed room (equal to home at night with a few very dimmed lights on).

I really think the XBR8 and B8500 are as close as you can (currently) get to the Kuro, but they're still not as good all around.

As a quick comparrison, let me relate this to speakers. I was listening to some very high-end speakers. The speakers that first sounded best to me were energetic, bright, and exciting. However, after about 20 minutes of listening, they started to sound too bright and too energetic. The immediate "wow" factor was gone. In contrast, the other brand had sounded great all along, but never fatigued my listening. I find the same true with LCD displays. In a bright lit store, upon first viewing them, the bright colors pop out and they look wonderfully vivid! After about 20 minutes or so, I see that they are unnaturally bright and vivid, and it starts to strain my eyes.

[Sy1441]

My mates go the LG, I've got the Pioneer.

In short :-

The LG's excellent, especially for the money.

The Pioneer is better in contrast, black level, SD reproduction, calibration options and looks.

The LG is better value but the Pioneer is the better display.