Yikes!
I may be back to LCD.
I had a Panasonic plasma for 5 years and I can tell you that heat was indeed a factor. What finally enticed me to switch was the vast energy usage differences. When switching to a Sony lcd, I not only gained 5 diagonal inches (went from 50in up to 55in) but the energy usage went all the way down from plasma 680w to lcd 330w!
And that folks is the difference in heat; plasma tv approx twice the wattage of a similar sized lcd.
I have a 42" Samsung plasma that’s about 6 years old. It does use about 400w and is very heavy, I would guess about 80 pounds. The picture is still great though, I would just buy an LCD for my next TV because the power consumption is lower and they are lighter.
There have been lots of comments about power usage, which is very helpful. Can anyone roughly translate that into a cost difference between the two tv’s?
Reasons Plasma sell for less :
-Manufacturing cost is lower as it’s an older technology
-A lot of plasma are not 1080p, some not even 720p
-The older generation models that were heavy, high power consuming and low quality have left that imprint on the market. Vendors use that to their advantage when touting the benefits of LCD/LED over plasma.
-Bells and whistles such as advanced DLNA, LAN support, film streaming and SD/PVRecording are more common as standard features on LCD/LED.
If you’re looking for something to put into a theater type room or a darkened environment for proper viewing, then plasma is the way to go.
If you want something for everyday tv in a well lit room that might even have direct sunlight on the screen, then use a LED/OLED.
Should you need a specific feature, such as a USB input that natively reads .mp4 format files, then you will want to check all screens individually regardless of the panel technology.
As for weight and power consumption of modern plasmas versus LED, here’s an example of two popular competing televisions:
LG 50" Plasma 50PA650T weighs around 47lbs, with 130 watt typical consumption
Samsung 50" LED UE50ES6300 weighs around 33lbs, with 80 watt typical consumption
It’ll be a fuzzy comparison, since the plasma TV’s power consumption is image-dependent as I described earlier. In my case (Panasonic 65" plasma), I’ll assume an average of 575 watts.
LCD power consumption seems to vary widely. There’s this Toshiba 65" LCD, which claims 360 watts. And then there’s this Sony 65" LCD, which claims 252 watts. Let’s call it 300 watts for an LCD TV.
Further assume that you watch TV for 3 hours per day, or 1095 hours per year.
Electricity costs about ten cents per kilowatt-hour.
Plasma energy consumption for a year: 0.575 kilowatts * 1095 hours = 630 kw-hr * 10 cents per kw-hr = $63 per year
LCD energy consumption for a year: 0.300 * 1095 = 329 kw-hr * 10 cents = $33 per year
So if you go with LCD, you’ll save about $30 per year on direct operating costs. This doesn’t factor in any increased air-conditioning burden to keep your home cool in the warm months (I doubt that’s a very large increment in cost).
As a rule of thumb, you can scale the power consumption down according to screen area. Example: a 32" TV has about 1/4 of the screen area of a 65", so your power consumption (and therefore the plasma-vs-LCD annual operating cost differential) goes down accordingly.
If you watch more TV or less TV, scale the answers accordingly (e.g. doubling your time doubles your cost and your LCD-vs-plasma savings).
For a while plasma had the better picture quality, but I understand LCD has made substantial improvements in the past couple of years. If you can’t tell the difference in picture quality when you see them side by side, then basically you’re left with purchase cost and operating cost (and features I suppose) as bases for making your purchase decision.
I will not try to posit that Vizio is a top tier manufacturer… however I would definitely not put them in the same category as Coby, Sceptre or Emerson! Those brands are the very definition of crap (as is RCA now that they are really no longer RCA in anything other than name).
Fair enough; I was just trying to remember the brands I see on sale at Wal-Mart that still sell large 720p plasmas and other sub-standard stuff.
It sounds like quite a few of us have or had Panasonic high-end plasmas, which from personal experience, look WAY better than the equivalent Sony Bravia LCD televisions of the same era, and also some more modern Samsungs. (what my brother and dad have or had)
Panasonic plasma here, love it. I don’t notice heat, I think my DirecTV DVR puts out more heat. It’s 1080P 58", and it’s a few generations old. It’s been a fine TV, I’m the only person I know with a plasma, but I get quite a few comments about picture quality.
As for weight/power/all that, the TOTL 65" Panasonic Plasma claims 159W average on mode power and weighs 106 lbs w/stand, 94 lbs wo. It also has all sorts of interactive features (smart tv stuff) that mine doesn’t have.
Plasmas have become vastly more efficient, so much so that apparently it’s no longer correct to state as fact that LCDs consume fewer watts than their plasma counterparts - it just depends on which two models you’re comparing.
It’s amazing to see just how much and how quickly high-end tv’s have come down in price! And now the industry is offering LED backlit LCDs, prices are quickly working their way down.
I see that LG is advertising an 84in TV, an Ultra High Definition with “4K” screen resolution (3840 x 2160 pixels), contrast ratio is listed as 10,000,000 to 1. It started out with a pricetag of $20K, quickly moved down to $15K, and here BestBuyPC is offering it for just under $13K. LG- 84LM9600 LED-backlit LCD “Smart” tv
I have an LG Plasma, and it works well for me. The major difference from LCD is the glass screen, which means you get more glare from the lights. If you are going to be watching during the day in a sunlit room that could be a problem.
Other points made here:
Weight: plasmas may be marginally heavier, but 200lbs for 65" is way off the charts. A spot check on Amazon suggests 90lbs is a more reasonable average, and LCDs are about the same.
Resolution: 1080p plasmas are cheaper than 1080p. I’m sure the OP knows enough not to compare prices of a high resolution TV to a lower one. I don’t know if 720p is more common in plasmas than LCDs, but for anything 50" or above, it’s not very common to find 720p in either technology.
Energy usage: plasmas do use more power, but not as much as they used to, and there are ways to reduce this.
Someone upthread mentioned this tv, LG 1080p HD Plasma 50PA650T as using only 130W. It sounded so low for such a huge plasma I had to ck it out for myself, this and also look for a LCD worthy of comparison.
Couldn’t find a currently manufactured 50" LCD of the same (LG) brand, was surprised though to discover this 55" LCD, LG 1080p HD LCD 55LH50 listed as hogging 238W - even when factoring in its larger size - a huge percentage difference compared to the 130W plasma.
I’m looking at the specs in the owner’s manual now, and it says 160 pounds, which is still main-battle-tank heavy. This does not include the base (sold separately), which is ballasted for stability; it probably adds at least 30-40 pounds.
It’s nearly four years old; maybe technology has improved to make them lighter in recent years?
Just looked at specs of 3 random 65" plasmas (too lazy to link, was at B&H Photo). The weights - stands included - ranged 96-103 lbs.
That said, I love the slim profile of my LCD.
mmm
They’ve definitely been losing weight - I’ve got a 2011 model year 65" Panasonic plasma, and it’s 97 lb bare, 112 with the stand. The 8 year old 50" Panasonic is significantly heavier, thicker, and has a much larger border around the screen.
This is true of both plasma and LCD technologies so I doubt it has any measurable impact on the cost difference between the two. In fact, out of hundreds of flat panel TVs Best Buy sells one 480i model and it’s an LCD.
This maybe true, though there is certainly no shortage of plasma TVs with smart options. Again, these options don’t really account for the price difference in plasma vs LCD/LED technology. The OP is asking why two TVs with the same options, resolution, size, etc. will not cost the same, with the only difference being one is plasma and the other LCD.
I’d heard (years ago, mind you, so this may no longer be an issue) that the plasma would degrade after approximately 10 years and you would have to replenish it. Is that still the case (or was it ever)?
9 years ago, there were worries about the lifetime of plasma displays. Mine is now 9 years old, and AFAICT, is just as bright as the day I bought it. And it’s been on a LOT - probably 25% more than the average. So this was either extremely conservative engineering estimates, or anti-plasma marketing.
There were also stories that you had somehow “recharge” the plasma. That’s never been true - each pixel is a sealed element, and there’s no way, or need, to recharge them.
That must have been what I’d been told (the recharge). Glad to know that’s not the case, though it’s the reason I’ve never looked at a plasma.
burn-in will always be a potential issue. Plasma displays are phosphor-based just like CRTs, and there’s no getting around the fact that the phosphors will fade as they age (and fade faster the brighter you make them be.) It’s less of an issue now because modern sets have some tricks to mitigate the onset of burn-in or to at least make sure the phosphors fade relatively evenly across the screen.