Christmas - time for a plasma?

With the holidays approaching, you may be thinking of giving yourself…er, your family, a new, bigger, better TV. The operative question this year will be plasma or LCD.

It’s no longer the size that determines plasma or LCD, as LCD manufacturers are catching up with the big guys and producing over 40 inch screens. It’s a weighty subject, as plasmas are going to be about twice as heavy as the slim LCDs that can weigh less than fifty pounds even for the larger screens. Of course picture quality is important but even there the LCDs are catching up with a higher native resolution than plasmas. This means you get more precise detail.

The negative on LCDs is their viewing angle, i.e., the farther from straight on viewing, the dimmer the picture along with degraded color accuracy and contrast.