Anyone got any advice\shopping tips on plasma tv's?

I'm looking for a 42" model to give me some space when my father moves in.

Any suuggestions are greatly appreciated.

Thanks

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Enough about me, how are you doing?

It's all about contrast ratio and inputs. Displaying varying degrees of black/grey is the hardest thing any digital display device can do, so carefully check that performance area. There are a lot of signal interfaces beyond the old BNC RGB connectors, so whatever panel you get, make sure it has the connections you'll want.

I just bought a 42" Samsung. It is not plasma, it's DLP. My salesman even admitted that when you get to x0,000 hours on a plasma it is finished.
I could not see an appreciable difference between the DLP and the plasma and when the price was factored in, it was DLP.

Can't advise on plasma, but DLP was a good alternative for me.

Yeah, but I don't think you can hang a DLP on the wall. I'll be looking into a wall-hanging TV in the next few months for my kitchen after I'm done with the remodel.

So get a cheap one if you can. I paid around $1500 for a 42" Maxent last summer...couldn't get a standard TV with that screen size to fit in the nook because of the massive footprint required!

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2009 ML350 (106K) - Family vehicle
2001 CLK430 Cabriolet (80K) - Wife's car
2005 BMW 645CI (138K) - My daily driver
2016 Mustang (32K) - Daughter's car

Hour life of a plasma panel is equal to about 15 years of average household viewing. If you have the TV on 24/7/365, then a plasma panel is not for you.

As for burn-in, a plasma panel is as susceptible to it as a CRT monitor is, but except for video games, static image burn in isn't really a big deal anymore.

I've been considering a Plasma tv and my research shows that recently the Plasma's have increased the 1/2 life to 60,000 hours and the price has been coming down. The 1/2 life is defined as putting out half the brightness from when it was new.

I also discovered that the specs don't correlate to the quality of the picture. The higher resolution set may not look as good as another TV with lower resolution. The Panasonics and Samsungs are highly rated plasma TV's. I prefer the look of the Pioneer however the Pioneer goes for twice the price of the cheaper brands.

Also keep in mind when viewing TVs at a store the settings (brightness, color, movie mode, sports mode, etc.) from one TV to another may be different which can account for a difference in picture quality.

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Ray
1998 Mercedes E320, 200K Miles
2001 Acura 3.2TL, 178K Miles
1992 Chevy Astro, 205K Miles

I discussed this with a friend who was researching them. Say it lasts about 10,000 hours. Someone like me would not watch more then 5 hours of TV / Day (MAX). At that rate, we are looking at around 5+ years of life.

I think 5 years is pretty good for a TV.

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With best regards

Al