To Plasma or Not To Plasma,That is the Question...

[ffutures]

About a year ago I guessed that the price of basic 40" plasma TVs was going to plummet some time this year. I was right - there are now two or three available at around £1600, and I expect that most of the ones at £2500 or so will be down to the £2000 mark by mid-summer, with the first sub £1000 sets in the January sales next year. This means that I can more or less afford a "cheap" plasma screen now, and next year may be able to afford a pretty good one.

Snag is that LCD is increasingly looking a better bet; you can buy a decent 30" set for £2500, and I expect to see them at around £1500 next year, maybe less, and the quality and resolution is generally much better, plus you don't get station ID logos burning in. By this time next year there may be affordable (for me) 40" panels.

I'm ruling out projection (expensive, noisy, huge power consumption and hideously expensive lamps), projection TVs (too big, and I couldn't place one where I want it over the fireplace), and bigger conventional TVs (see above). So the question is...

[Poll #303901]

All comments gratefully ignored (or not).

Comments

[robertprior.livejournal.com]

Plasma TVs currently have a fairly short lifespan. For that sort of money, you might want to wait and get something that will last longer.

[sbisson.livejournal.com]

A plasma TV will last about 3 years or 3000 hours. Wait for LCD or OLED.

Actually wait for OLED. It copes a lot better with ambient light...

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Big durable OLED displays look a long way off - according to the sites I just checked the current generation has a fairly short life and nobody is tooling up to make anything bigger than a 20" display, mostly much smaller for e.g. mobile phones.

I think LCD is the way I'll go, at least for the next few years, so waiting a while is probably my best bet - unless someone wants to sell off a plasma set really cheap for some reason, of course