Poll: Were you / are you planning to buy a plasma?
By Darren Murph 
posted February 28th 2009 12:00PM
posted February 28th 2009 12:00PM
posted February 28th 2009 12:00PM
A look back on popular stories from today in a specific year.
Now that we've thrown 'em off the trail, use the form below to get in touch with the people at Engadget. Please fill in all of the required fields because they're required.
While I agreed with most that was written here, I cannot agree with people who say any plasma beats any LCD... Yes the Kuro is an amazing piece of technology but look at the price relevant to a comparable LCD.
Lower end plasma's no longer beat higher end LCD's... Do not try and fool yourselves or others into thinking thats true. Go to a local audio video shop and compare the 4 series Samsung plasma to an 8 or 9 series LCD and tell me whats better.
PDP owners wonder why the myth surrounding plasma is still prevalent... It might be because people who bought plasmas 6-7 years ago were astonished to see permanent burn-in after only a couple weeks or months of burn-in and swore off the technology forever.
Compare it to the RRoD fiasco of the xbox 360... Even though the newer JASPER models are quieter and smoother, people still fear getting an RRoD even though it will most likely never happen. I myself have a 2002 Rear-Projo and 2003 plasma that have burn-in. But im educated enough to know the problem has been fixed.
But like they say, if you get "burned" once, no pun intended, you wont take a chance again. Let's say tomorrow, Samsung issues massive recalls on most of their LCD sets and consumers are forced to send it back etc... How many do you think will buy Samsung in the future?
I personally feel sad because a "superior" product is going to go away soon. While I have no doubt that upcoming technologies will replace Plasma, I would have preferred to have plasma ride out its final years with LCD.
Another problem is that in this day and age technology spreads gossip too fast. Like it was with HD-DVD last year, within a matter of months everything came crashing down. I saw how one site speculated that Universal and Paramount would leave within a week after Warners announcement and then all of a sudden every site and store was saying that HD-DVD has lost all its major support etc...
It also doesn't help that Best Buy employees are such tools that they would spout anything just to get sales.
No, compare any Pioneer Plasma to any Samsung LCD, that's a good comparison of the best-of-breed for each technology. If you compare on price, you miss plasma's performance niche. Obvious differences:
-- motion resolution (blurry on LCD)
-- purity of colors (better on plasma), depth of black (LCD is inconsistent due to dynamic backlighting),
-- peak brightness is far greater on plasma -- 1500cd/m2 plasma versus 500cd/ms for LCD.
-- full-panel brightness is much less for plasma, but makes no difference when TVs are calibrated properly.
So... no LCD is still not superior. It is ONLY cheaper. To say that it's superior because it's cheaper is fallacy.
I never said that because LCD's are cheaper they are better... In fact, the 9 series Samsung 55a950 is one of the most expensive LCD's out there.
What I do not like about your response is that you list the cons of LCD to prove your point and then when you list the con of plasma you push it aside because it wouldn't matter if they were calibrated. But the majority of consumers wont calibrate to 6500k settings.
Most will stick to the dynamic 'POP" they see in the stores. Regarding the other cons, I haven't had much of an issue with motion blur because its really hard to notice. Granted if you compare a plasma to an LCD you'll see a difference but compare it to a DLP and you'll see the same thing.
As for comparing a top of the line Pioneer to the top of the line Samsung 9 series in a natural home environment at a local video shop, the pioneer had it beat. But the 9 series samsung beat out most other plasma's I saw. The only real knock against it was the viewing angle which was limited to around 140 degrees. But the blacks were so good, you couldnt distinguish screen from bezel. That's how good the black levels were, and then there was hardly any motion blur.
And now more and more Plasma's are becoming as cheap as LCD's...
The way you responded made it seem as if im against plasma when ive had the technology since 2003.
But you really ought to go and compare a low end plasma to a higher end LCD and see how far LCD actually has come.
Plasmas are going to be dead in Europe once they begin banning the most energy hogging televisions. I know some plasmas will be safe but in general LCDs use less power than plasmas and many plasmas will fall foul of regulations. Even if some plasmas remain on sale, their likely C, D, E or F energy rating won't be doing them any favours. I think the format just won't be economically viable in Europe any more. I expect most CFL LCDs will be in the B, C or D range and the LED LCDs in the A, B, or C range.
On top of that, even plasmas main advantage is disappearing. LCDs may still use dynamic backlighting and still have bloom, but with LED backlighting its fast reaching the point that it doesn't matter much any more. LED LCDs are already making in-roads and will no doubt supplant CFL in most new models within a year or two.
It made me buy a Pioneer 5020 before they're all gone. It was easily worth Amazon's price with the 5% gold box trick ($1804 last week).
Dude, all I ask from my brand new Plasma TV is that it not set itself on fire. I just bought it from Newegg at Thanksgiving. Now I know why they were practically giving away a 42inch 1080p (for $799). I'm pretty happy with it, I'd say.
Plasma rules 58" + market, no question. Have been planning / continue to plan 58 to 60" plasma purchase.
First off regardless of the fact that Panasonic produced the first
plasma TV, Pioneer Limited plasma TV's are far more impressive then
anything Panasonic has churned out.
I own a plasma, I bought a 50" a year and a half ago and it should last me for a while, long enough that when I want a 65" or 70" OLED will be available in those sizes. Plasma has a far better picture than LCD...that 120 Hz is bullshit trying to impress consumers with irrelevant data. Plasma has a refresh rate of 480 Hz and higher!...Score one for Plasma! LCD has a .4ms response time ooOOOoo big deal, plasma has a .001ms response time, plasma haters take that...Score two for plasma! LCD still has a blurry picture when there is fast motion, grated that is usually the result of the film camera and not the TV. But still I have seen far better fast motion images on a plasma than an LCD. The sharpness on LCD is far to high. Where LCD and Plasma both have HD images, plasma is smooth and crisp and LCD is much to sharp, its so sharp in fact the picture no longer looks real. Its all about balance, its like turning the color up on any TV, you know the image will look terrible. Same thing with sharpness just because a TV is super sharp does not mean it will look good, it’s all about balance. I say again, LCD's are way too sharp unless you buy Sharps $15,000 limited edition series, ya know the commercial talking about the thinnest panel to date etc. That is the only LCD I have seen in person that blows other LCD, plasmas, and even OLED out of the water! LCD has contrast ratios of 40,000 - 100,000 where plasma has a contrast ratio of 1,000,000...Score three for plasma! And that is the goal with HD TV to make the picture real as possible right? But we might have to wait for Ultra HD for that. Bottom line, human skin looks more real on a plasma than it does not on an LCD (unless its the $15,000 Sharp Aquos.) Granted I am a plasma owner but I am happy plasmas will die off, I was never a fan of noble gasses in TV's that’s is archaic technology i.e. cathode ray. But which LCD will survive LASER LCD or LED LCD? I belive that LCD will survive long enough to compete with OLED where as plasma will not. Even though we have seen some new plasmas which are as thin as LCD, it is a dying technology just like SED and FED. SED is like a thin cathode ray but still containing toxic gases which are ignited to produce a pitcute. Tell me do we still light gunpower to get a flash for a camera? No we don’t, plasmas are endangered, SED and FED will die before they see the light of day. SED and FED have no chance against OLED, which literally is the future of all visual display screens. The next TV I buy will indeed be a 65 inch OLED. I refuse to buy an LCD until the technology advancements have doubles from what they are today. In 5-10 years when I plan to replace my TV if a 65" OLED is not out yet then I may indeed buy an LCD, by then the technology would actually be impressive. My computer screen is LCD and I am fine with that for now, but my plasma still blows LCD out of the water...unless you have the Sharp limited edition series, which is a $15,000 TV! The Sharp limited edition series is what a TV should be. If I were ever to buy an LCD it would be a Sharp Aquos and nothing else.
Bottom line I am not opposed to buying an LCD...in the future...but by the time I do OLED will be the best out there. Plasma looks way better than LCD wether you believe it or not it is the truth.
*Sorry Pioneer Elite plasma* not Pioneer Limited plasma...there is no Pioneer limited.
I think that if plasma manufacturers would have marketed plasma as the reliable, better picture, it would be a much more prevalent and accepted technology. http://www.pspconverter.com manufacturers allowed the rumors to escalate to a point that could not be overcome.