LCD v Plasma

[swilt1]

Hi all,
Well I must confese straight away to knowing very little about LCD or Plasma except when I look in the shops and think I must have one of these instead of my crappy CRT, but the pictures always look terrible I guess that more to do with the Feeds that dixons etc use.

Anyway can someobdy sum up for me the Pro's/Cons of owning either a LCD or a Plasma. I am looking at the most at around £1500.

The main things that will be watched on them will be normal channels ie BBC1 ITV as well as Sky Sports in particular football.

Thanks in advance

 

[LcdGuru]

Plasma Pro's: Cheaper. Wider viewing angle. Better off-axis colours & blacks.
LCD Pro's: Better greyscale. Longer life. No burn-in. Lower power

This being the LCD forum - most people here would say LCD is best.

 

[swilt1]

thanks for the reply, I have had a search on the subject within the forumn and the plasma forumn and as you can guess there is a real big variation in answers. The viewing angle inerestes me as I have a square living room. the TV would say be on the facing wall to Sofa 1 and on the wall that sofa 2's left arm buts up too. So that I guess would cause a problem for viewing from that sofa. I cant really relocate this sofa due to where the door is and on the other wall its a bay window. One way around it if it can be done would be to put the LCD at an angle across 2 walls? Is that possible?

Thanks

 

[LcdGuru]

It's possible - but it kinda defeats the purpose of having a flat screen. The idea is to have it flat against the wall. If it's in a corner you may aswell get a CRT. They're cheaper and give a better picture at standard resolutions.

If you need to view at 45 degrees then plasma is prolly the way to go. My Sharp LCD looks great head on - but by 20 degrees the blacks start to go - making the picture look washed out.

 

[Pompey_Lad]

I prefer an LCD, although its brand dependant. I have a philips 26PF9946, bought from Army & Navy for £720. The picture quality is stunning, much than I have seen on plasma demo's. This set is reduced currently by £800, and Ive seen it on the net for as much as £900+. If your looking at a plasma in the 42" region id advise saving your money. Too many people seem to opt for bugdet plasma's only to be disappointed down the line, especially stay clear of Tiny. Awful sets with terrible customer service.

Im opting for a second LCD in summer the Philips 32PF9986. What-Hifi scores this higher than all equally priced plasma's, and it is almost surely future proof. Ive had a demo of this set and it seems to retain the picture at a viewing angle of 45 degrees.

 

[KennyP]

Pompey lad, would you recommend the 42PD9986 over the Hitachi plasma 42PD5200. Both get 5 stars in the mags. I've seen the 5200 and PQ looks great. I watch movies and footy thru Sky. Is motion blur a problem on the 9986?

 

[Pezerinno]

Kenny demo both screens - I have read reviews mentioning how great the 32"9986 is but not rating the larger panels as highly.

 

[jimsan]

The 32" and 37" Philips 9986's are fantastic. The 42" isn't as good.

As mentioned higher up on this thread, we LCDers are likely to pan Plasmas. There is a reason for this. I have argued these points before, but I firmly believe that Plasmas are a dying technology. The only valid reason for purchasing a Plasma currently is if you are on a limited budget and you want a big (42" +) screen.

Going back to my initial statement about the 42" Philips PF9986 being inferior to the smaller ones, in a recent comparison test, a handful of the very best current plasmas were put up against it and it wiped the floor with them.

An LCD is capable of astonishing picture quality that I believe no plasma is capable of.

Jimmy

 

[lz1cam]

I would add up that all the plasmas I've seen have very bad color bandwidth.
The color grades changes are not smooth at all but with ugly borderlines and looking at human faces or smooth color clouds in the sky would reveal this plasma weakest and annoying point.
About the LCD viewing angle depenedance.
I found out that putting the TV with 12 centimeters higher than initial widened up the horizontal angles (LG-Phill 30").
I believe the LC are oriented for best contrast looked slightly from downside.

 

[dmdeev]

I've watched several plasmas and LCD (conneceted to HDTV). I must admit that with Hi Def signal LCDs showed much better than plasmas. More details and less grain on the background. I'd prefer an LCD with HDTV, though Plasmas cope with
low resolution more effectively