Plasma or LCD?

I just got the new 50" Panny plasma. I love it! But it does have 1 major drawback: The glare is horrible. My wife doesn't notice it, but I do all the time. Can't have the kitchen light on behind it or else it drives me nuts.

Plasmas are more affordable than ever. After a price match, I got my plasma for only $1700. 2 years no interest at Best Buy.

It all depends on your personal preference. Go to a good shop where they actually have their sets calibrated. You can't trust Best Buy they have no clue on how to calibrate their showroom displays. They even sabatoge some so they can convince you to get the Geek Squad involved for an extra $500.

I have a 50" DLP too, but I'll never go back to them since the bulb burns out sooner than advertised. If I had to choose again, I'd go with plasma. Of course they got some new display types coming out, but I'd wait a few years for those technologies to mature before committing a few thousand dollars on a new set.

 

Is that the new LED DLP? The one that gets rid of the color wheel?

I'm interested to know what the opinion of that is. I've looked at TVs for several months now and talked to two friends who are experts in that area but even they can't agree.

Right now I'm thinking either LED DLP, LCD with the black-out feature, or wait for the Mitsubishi lasers...

 

UPDATE -

Run far, far away from the Sony Bravia. 4 days after buying it and mine is stuck on a power cycle glitch that won't go away. It turns on, and then once the TV display clears, the TV mutes for a moment, turns off, then turns back on again.

I'm bringing this piece of crap back to Best Buy tonight, and Best Buy was actually more helpful than the morons at Sony's Customer No-Service.

 

Well that's really rare for a Sony product. And I would never deal with a manufacturer inside of 30 days of purchase, especially if you buy from a big box store like Best Buy or Circuit City.

 

I bought a Samsung LN52A650 a couple months ago. That's a 52" LCD with the 120mhz deal.

It's pretty kick ass, and I thought, by and large, it had the nicest image of any TV I've ever seen. The one drawback is it doesn't have the traditional matte/glare reducing screen that most LCDs do. It's sort of a shiny looking thing. Strangely though, the glare from daylight tends to "melt" away when you're watching tv, which didn't happen on my old RCA rear projection TV.

So I'd think if sunlight is a huge issue (it's not for me because the TV is usually only getting sun in the morning when we're at work- and I could always close the blinds if i wanted), you might want to go with something else, but so far I've found the imagine is about as good as I've seen.

 

I have a 60" Sony rear projection TV, the KDS 60A2000 or 60A2020. It is an awesome TV. The sound is very average, but if you're going to spend that much on a TV, chances are that you'll hook it up to in external receiver and speakers (the sound if fine with external speakers hooked up).

Sony made the best rear projection TVs, and it is just as good as the large plasmas (and was much less expensive). The biggest drawbacks are that it lacks the "cool factor" of a plasma (your friends won't go "oooh"), and you can't hang it on the wall.

If you can find one of the Sonys still in stock somewhere, I'd recommend picking one up; I'm sure that stores are trying to get rid of their inventory now that Sony is no longer manufacturing them, and possibly you can still find one at a heavy discount.

 

Thanks for all your input. After a lot of research and evaluation, I have a new baby 60" Pioneer plasma on the way to my house--just in time for pre-season.

Some of my main considerations:

Wider viewing angle (our room has chairs off to both sides) than LCD
Blacker blacks (I like dark movies)
Faster motion handling for sports and action movies (plasmas are still >5x faster than the best 120Hz LCD)

I also wanted the big screen because I wanted to make Oden as life size as possible, but couldn't work out the installation of the 120" projector and screen. ;-)

 

Congrats on the purchase! I'm sure you won't be disappointed. Plasmas are my preference at the moment. THey got some crazy new tv's coming out in the next couple of years, but they won't be cheap. Plasmas are a great deal right now, and honestly, you wont' be able to tell the difference since you won't be watching two tv's side-by-side, unless you are really lucky!