Help me decide: Plasma versus LCD?

LCD is the best choice. The picture quality is the exact same. I sell televisions for a living, and I know my stuff. The LCD is the way to go. Plasma screens get burn ins, or like images stay there embedded in the screen after time. Please go with the LCD. The picture quality is there, trust me...!

Plasma - unless you're buying brand new Panasonic Viera that just came out, most likely this is going to be bigger and heavier than an LCD. Also, they are made out of glass, so the glare issue is there if you can't control the light. Do you not have blinds though? Put some blinders or thick curtains up and there goes the light/glare issue.

Plasma is better blacks, better contrast, and better motion blur (so better for sports and action movies). Plasma color tends to pop more than LCD, but this isn't a good vs bad issue, its more personal taste. Plasmas no longer suffer from burn-in or altitude problems as the other people have mentioned. That's all myth BS that was true years ago, but is now just wrong. You do need to condition the gasses though by keeping the brightness and contrast (picture) cranked down for the first 100 hours. After that you've got one amazing TV.

LCD - are matte finishes so do hold up better if there is too much uncontrollable light. They are the everyman HDTV; they are cost effective. They are lighter usually (which is likely a positive for the wall mount). But their blacks are more grey than black. They do a bad job with fast motion (sports and action movies). You can help compensate for that by purchasing one with 120Hz refresh, but it doesn't come close to matching Plasma.

Oh also, it depends on the size of the TV. 42" and above and you do notice the above mentioned advantages of the Plasma for sure. As you go smaller though, those things are tougher to notice and the LCDs are actually better (just because they are cheaper).

I will do my best to explain To their credit, LCD don't suffer from burn-in, nor do they have troubles at high altitudes where the air pressure differential causes plasmas to emit an irritating buzzing sound. So, if you live in mountainous regions, don't recommend that you get a plasma, though some manufacturers are selling special sets they claim are immune to the problem a Plasma you can get a bigger size and picture the colour is not as Vivid, LCD is smaller more expensive very good picture and don't need to have room as darkened IS LCD the light does not worry it am example of colour lcd black is black and plasma black tends to be a bit grayish still BLACK not vivid hope this helped in laymans terms

What elevation do you live at?

It sounds weird, but this will effect your decision, more than you know. Plasma TVs use a gas filled cell (plasma being the gas) to create the picture, the electrons hit the cell to form the picture.

This creates a problem for them at high elevation, due to the natural laws of physics; gas wants to expand as it rises. The problem you may run into with this is that over time, the TV might develop an audible hum, and the overall quality of the picture will deteriorate more rapidly.

As for the glare, it all depends on the finish of the screen of the TV, different manufacturing company's use different finishes.

An LCD TV will not be effected by elevation, and in my opinion, gives an overall better picture (especially in high def)

The bigger, more noticeable difference would also be the price, plasma TVs run much more expensive than LCD's, and there is more equipment to support them (usually they come with a receiver that connects to the TV separately)

Other than that, there's really not much more to say, other than what you want it to look like and how much you want to spend.

Good Luck!!

The only reasons anyone should be asking this question is/was related to the fact that plasma's used to have a problem with life of product and burn-in. All new plasma's do not have this problem anymore and now you should be worried about color, quality, brightness and viewing angle. Plasma beats LCD on all of these. Also most people watch tv at night or during the afternoon when the sun shouldnt be an issue or you could just close the blinds.

Plasma has a good picture until the plasma starts dying out. Go LCD, they last forever. If your watching standard definition tv on an lcd you'll notice a bit of shadowing and boxyness. But if your watching an LCD in HD it's an amazing picture. Plasma looks good in Stanard definition as well as HD. But LCD is much better at HD picture tha plasma.

LCD. They have less problems. LCD stands for Liquid Crystal Display. All it is, is light coming into the liquid crystal. Yes, this doesn't have as good color as Plasma, but it's not noticeable from farther then 7 feet away.

Plasma are TVs with pixels that light up for color. It's offers a more exact color, but it's not noticeable from the LCD from like 7 feet away. There are burn-ins from time to time. Burn-ins are when pixels look much darker then they're supposed to. Also, pixels will die out faster then the LCD.

LCDs are preferable in bright environments.

Plasmas are better for darker environments.

The color quality of a tv is measured by something called contrast ratio, and the higher it is, the better. So shop around.

We had the same issue and we concluded that Plasma was better for us, because of the color quality. As long as you have blinds or curtains, the glare shouldn't be too bad.

It just depends what you want your TV to do for you.

plamsa. i work for a warranty authorized tc repair center. we service almost every kind of tv. plasma and LCD are about the same. they both have their ups and downs. plasma s are more reliable than LCD. however. the top brands we recommend are sony, samsung, and sharp. we do not even service vizio or any wal mart brand tv. the warranty mostly doesnt cover major repairs and is not a good investment.