Plasma or LCD?

Up until the relatively recent introduction of Plasma and LCD televisions the Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) television was king. The CRT is still the most popular television in the world but over the next decade that is set to change.

CRTs produce a good picture but they don’t come without problems, the obvious ones being they are extremely bulky and heavy and they can also take up a lot of room. In addition to this they offer a low resolution by today’s standards. You may think that the resolution hasn’t been a problem for all those years you have watched television, but think of the resolution you were browsing the internet at on your PC 5 or 10 years ago compared to what you are using currently. 800x600 or 1024x768? You are probably running at least 1280x720 now. Quickly take a step back in time by lowering your resolution to see the difference. Until the last few years we hadn’t seen progress like this for television resolutions, in fact there had been none at all. Fortunately that has changed now. And it is not just the resolutions that have improved, the colour accuracy has increased significantly, providing a much sharper and more accurate picture.

Plasma TVs

Plasma technology was invented all the way back in 1964, at the university of Illinois, USA. They were monochrome displays then and have since advanced significantly. They first went on sale to the general public in 1997 by Pioneer, manufactured by Matsushita, and since then other big names in the electronics industry have joined in – Panasonic, Samsung, LG Electronics and Philips.

A Plasma television, also sometimes referred to as a plasma panel, is made up of two panels of glass that hold an inert mixture of noble gas – neon or xenon. In between these two plates are millions of tiny cells, which are electrically turned into plasma exciting the phosphor atoms and emitting light, resulting in the picture.

Plasmas are larger televisions, the starting size being 37” and the largest is currently a massive 60”. They have viewing angles of 170° or better, allowing them to be viewed at almost any angle.

There is a common misconception that Plasma TVs do not have long lifespan due to them suffering from screen burn. This was true for older models but is untrue as far as today’s Plasmas go and should not put you off buying one. You can expect new plasmas to get through at least 60,000 hours, which if you have it on 8 hours a day every day (a lot of time by anyone’s standards), then it should last you at least nine years.

LCD TVs

LCD stands for Liquid Crystal Display. The technology has been around for years, you see it used every day in monitors, clocks, microwave ovens, house alarms and in many other places. Recent improvements in the technology have allowed it to be used in televisions.

All LCD TVs have a fixed resolution, this is determined by the manufacturer. It is known as the monitor’s native resolution and a TV will perform optimally when viewed in it. Any other resolutions must be rescaled and this can result in blocky images.

Unlike Plasma technology, LCD technology lends itself to smaller displays, starting at 13” and the biggest on the market is Sony’s 70" X-Series BRAVIA priced at over £25,000. LCDs have a lower viewing angle than their Plasma counterparts.

A weakness in early LCD TVs was their refresh rates but manufacturers have invested a lot of time and money in improving this. While they still do not refresh as fast as Plasmas do they have improved enough for it not to be a reason to put you off buying one.