First Plasma/LCD purchase ever - a few questions..

LCD and plasma technologies from the better manufacturers have been fairly reliable according to Consumer Reports, and I would think if anything is going to go wrong with them it will probably surface in the first few months. I know my Panasonic plasma gives 1 year parts and labor, so I'm not sure an extended warranty is really worth it in this instance.

As far as calibration, I think it depends largely on the TV itself and how comprehensive their user operated and service menu controls are along with how the TV is set up at the factory. The best thing to do is read the reviews from the better magazines/webzines and see what they had to do to get the TV optimally set up. For an example, with the newer higher-end Panasonics running their auto-calibration settings seems to get pretty close to optimal and makes professional calibration less or unnecessary. My slightly older Panasonic on the other hand needs to be adjusted through the service menu to get the best results.

I wouldn't buy an open stock item for reasons mentioned previously, and I wouldn't take the advice of any salesman unless it completely agreed with what you read in places like this. They're for the most part worse than useless.

Best of luck.

>04-09-09: Pcking
I understand that Pioneer is getting out of the plasma business and that there may be some bargains out there on their Kuro line.<

Pc, excellent point. I believe they're simply going out of the plasma production and sourcing to Panasonic. They showed a 10G prototype at a show somewhere. The folks over at the AVS are all over this stuff.

I just got of the phone with a friend who was shopping for the 50" Kuro (not the Elite) and he noticed that prices fell to $1800 two weeks ago here in the San Francisco Bay Area. A week later he pulled it together to get one and they had sold out. A week later he could only find them for $2500. Two days latter he found a used Elite on Craig's List for $2500.

Costco has a panasonic 46 inch 1080p plasma for about 989dollars--if you use the amex -costco credit card you get an additional year warranty above the 2yrs you get with them plus a 90 day return policy--hard to beat so I just bought one also have a 50inch plasma --vizio monitor that is 2yrs old from them with no problems picture is excellent and no calibration--good luck

Dont buy open box, dont buy warranty and dont buy the BS about calibration, the amount spent doesnt justify it and as long as you like how it looks who cares. Next and last is never NEVER listen to anyone at BestBuy..........too many of them are idiots to gamble with common sense.

>04-09-09: Chadnliz
Dont buy open box, dont buy warranty and dont buy the BS about calibration, the amount spent doesnt justify it and as long as you like how it looks who cares.<

In a showroom environment the brightest picture equates the best choice to the average consumer which is why most LCD's are shipped with the Kelvin or brightness set very high if not all the way up. Leaving the display set at this high level greatly shortens the life span of the display.

Lowering the Kelvin doesn't necessarily require professional adjustment. Accessing the diagnostic menu and adjusting all the parameters to their optimum using the appropriate software does. The custom settings can also be correctly set for day or night time viewing. As I mentioned above my LCD's benefited greatly from calibration with much better shadow detail, color rendition, and less fatiguing brightness, just to name a few.

Any adjustment should be done after a few months of use. As 55dok mentioned a search at the AVS forum may provide you with basic settings that could also greatly improve a displays picture quality over the factory settings.