How to choose a plasma and an LED TV?

LED IN DARK

PLASMA IN LIT ROOM

LED IN LIT ROOM

LEDs (which are basically the same thing as LCDs) are the biggest sellers.

Their picture quality is not as good as that of plasma TVs, but still good enough for nearly everyone.

They also offer greater practicability and they can get a lot brighter. The majority of people should opt for an LED TV - especially if the TV will be located in a living room with a lot of windows.

LED TVs can also produce a wide range of colours (also called the gamut), with some manufacturers employing some cunning technologies such as quantum dots and blue LEDs to deliver hard-to-reproduce reds, greens and blues.

Though backlight unevenness can also be a problem with them Typically you’ll notice this in dark scenes where it could be brighter along the edge where the LEDs are located, or in the corners.

Unlike LCD TVs, whose pixels are lit by LEDs shining through filters, plasma TVs have a three individually lit plasma chambers for each pixel (one each for red, green and blue). When current is applied, the gases inside the cells form a plasma and glow.

Plasma is a relatively old technology and as the current used to form the plasma is mostly given off as infrared heat, they use a lot more electricity than LED TVs.

Plasma TVs on the other hand have the best picture quality hands down, and are also cheaper. However, they are not very bright, so they are only suitable for dark rooms. They suffer from occasional but not permanent image retention and have a slight buzzing noise on bright pictures.

Go for a plasma TV if you want no compromise on the picture quality and if it will not bother you each time an image is retained for more than two minutes.