Plasma vs. LCD: Which Is Right for You?

Reader Carlos Colato writes: What is the difference between plasma and LCD?

Good question, Carlos. Here's a primer on flat-panel TV technology.

Plasma came first. Color plasma TVs hit the market in 1997 after decades of research. The technology includes hundreds of thousands of tiny pockets of xenon and neon gas suspended between two panes of glass. By ionizing the gas in the panel, electrodes within the panel are charged and phosphors in the panel give off light of the appropriate color.

At the time, plasmas were exceptionally thin and amazingly bright, and compared to old CRTs plasma appeared to be the wave of the future. But plasma technology has its problems: First, the gas-and-glass structure is very fragile, and reports of breakage during shipping or even getting them from the store to your house are common. For the first few years, plasmas were notoriously prone to "burn-in," where repeated images (like a TV channel logo in one corner) would leave a ghost-like afterimage on the display. Today this effect has been lessened. Finally, all plasmas suffer from a gradual diminishing of brightness over time to the point where the panels will lose half their brightness after about 60,000 hours (based on the latest displays).

LCD technology is really no different than the LCD monitor or laptop screen you're probably familiar with. Polarized panels contain a gel of liquid crystal material, with wires criss-crossing the screen to activate the crystals at points as required. Technologically it is less complicated than plasma, but it doesn't scale to large screens as well: The largest LCDs are still quite a bitter smaller than the largest plasmas, at least for now. And LCD screens of the same size will be a bit more expensive than a comparable plasma. Plasmas tend to have slightly better viewing angles than LCDs (meaning you can see the image well even if you're off to one side). Older LCDs had relatively slow response times, too, meaning that the image sometimes couldn't keep up with the action on the TV, leaving a blur as a character rushed across the screen.

LCDs do have some advantages over plasma, however. First, they are considerably thinner and lighter, and they are easier to mount on a wall because of this. They also don't suffer from the gradual decrease in brightness that plasmas do, so LCDs might make for a better long-term investment.

If you're trying to decide between the two, however, you really need to visit a store and check out both technologies side by side. The difference can be quite dramatic: Plasma's rich colors and glossy screen can be too gaudy for some. LCD is more muted and less showy (usually with a matte screen like most LCD monitors), but color accuracy can be better than with plasma. Ultimately it's up to you to decide what looks better to your eye (though keep in mind that TVs in store displays are rarely tweaked to look as good as they can). However, both technologies continue to evolve: Expect the differences in price, brightness, and burn-in to slowly diminish to the point where it's hard to distinguish between the two.

Bottom line: Buy whichever TV you can afford that looks the best to you. You'll almost certainly be happy with either technology.