2. home-theater
  3. 1322617826

Has LED caught up to Plasma?

I know that the plasma tv's in the past were always considered to be better than the LED or LCD formats. I'm wondering if this is still the case. With improvements in technology, has the gap narrowed? I bought a 42" Panasonic Plasma over 8 years ago (and yes, it's still working...wished it would have died by now! lol) and am looking to upgrade to a new 55" tv. In all honestly, when I chose plasma back then, I thought the picture quality of both the plasmas and the LED/LCD models were both very good. Even though my plasmas has lasted all these past 8 years, my big concern is that they do heat up quite a bit....where LED's run much cooler. I'm thinking this might translate into a longer life with and LED tv instead of a plasma. What would you buy today if you were buying??? Plasma or LED?
calgarian5355
dtc's avatar
dtc
1,047 posts
 
Calgarian5355 - Samsung's are very sexy looking, but I do not think think they have the best picture. I think the current Sony line-up is better than Samsung. To me, Samsung is the brightest of the LCD/LEDs but not as crisp. When you turn the brightness down to normal levels, they just do not have the cripsness. But, if you room light levels allow and you do not mind the power drain the V series Panasonic plasma's are very, very good.
calgarian5355 OP
146 posts
 
Ptm, yes, I already have a power conditioner, and yes, it does do amazing things for the video quality.

There has been a few responses referring to the power usage of plasma screens vs LED...so I was doing a bit of comparison. A 55" LED screen used approximately 38 watts, while a similar sized plasma screen used 120 watts. Yes, it appears that LED tv's use much less power, but I was rather surprised by the numbers to begin with. It's hard to believe that a big plasma screen only uses 120 watts....that's like little more than your typical light bulb.

On another topic, has anyone upgraded their power cords on their tvs? Since the screens are so thin, it's kind of hard to do if you wanted it mounted very close to the wall.....
chadnliz
3,736 posts
 
Right angle cords can be had for those installs
stringreen's avatar
stringreen
6,484 posts
 
Nope...new LED's are now better. The high end LED's are 3D, but you can switch that off.
chadnliz
3,736 posts
 
Plasma still does deeper blacks, smoother motion and offer best viewing angle, ultra premium priced LED models narrow the gap but the vast majority of people truely in the know of video quality still understand Plasma is king. 3d just hasnt caught on and besides thats a different debate than pure best video quality. LED has the great slim look and better energy ratings but again thats just not what this debate is about.
More to discover