The Great Cheapest & Best Plasma Hunt

rez2

Further to that, has anyone come across any decent brand LCD screens for around the £500 mark at least 22-23"? I had my eyes on the Hitachi ..LD2400 or somthing at £585 before xmas and was expecting the price to drop post xmas ...am still waiting.

Would appreciate to hear from anyone who's spotted any.
Ta

scattycat_3

The beeb does the high budget productions in HDtv purely for export, and would be foolish to dismiss this lucrative market, as programme material is limited.

Cameras and tape are cheap compared to Transmission systems and the greater Bandwidth required.
 A Terrestial delivery system would be so much more expensive than Satellite, so expect Sky to kick HDTV off at a premium. The Beeb will have to wait years for analogue transmissions to close before frequency and bandwidth become availble, Unless someone knows better

Though you might as well go for a better display. pixels range from about 840x460 pixels to around supervga/XVGA some 1200 x 1100, so you pays your price

Galstonian

So just to start the ball rolling - and without any judgement on quality....

£999 42" plasma

The £999.99 one is not a plasma screen TV, it is simply a plasma screen.

You would need an external TV tuner, you'd probably want a remote control and stand (or wall bracket) too.
Hope nobody has bought one expecting more.

gavinskii

Further to that, has anyone come across any decent brand LCD screens for around the £500 mark at least 22-23"? I had my eyes on the Hitachi ..LD2400 or somthing at £585 before xmas and was expecting the price to drop post xmas ...am still waiting.

Would appreciate to hear from anyone who's spotted any.
Ta

I decided to take the plunge back back in December and found that Richer Sounds were super competitive on price + their staff really know their onions. I ended up buying a Philips 23PF/9945 23" LCD for £699 (Currys or Comet were doing the same one for £1199). I have just looked on the Richer website now and they have a Philips 23PF8946 23" LCD for £599 - I think (hope ???) its slightly lower spec? But the quality, finish, picture, sound & look of mine is fantastic!

ENJOY 8)

rez2

Thanks . The Richer sounds deal looks good - might pop out and get it . What about the stand for it though? What have you put yours on gavinskii? The glass stands are coming in pretty expensive - almost half the price of the tv itself!

If anyone else knows where the best place to get a cheap but good looking glass stand from, let me know.

Ta

Han_naH

That Panasonic TH-42PWD6 mentioned above at £1549 can in fact be acquired for £900.

How?

https://www.pricegrabber.com

Click USA English at the bottom, and note that you might need an extra board, delivery costs and HMCE will add some import duty... but even then...

This is 60% of the price of the UK unit before any charges... anyone care to look closer? Will the dollar fall further and make this even cheaper????

strofiwimple

Slightly off the subject but pertinent i think. A friend who works for Sony has advised me to stay clear of plasma tv's at the moment. He reckons the technology is not as advanced as it should, the screens have limited life and apparently it is not as long as the manafacturers say it is. Anyone else heard of this ?
For what it's worth he recommends lcd at the moment.

24seven

As plasmas age their maximum light output decreases
most modern screens are claiming 60 000 hours to the 50% point, if a Plasma is set up incorrectly the 1/2 life can decrease, so more care is needed in setting up a Plasma.

Plasma's Vs Lcd's

Take a look for yourself to see which your prefer. Note you will not get a 42" LCD for Plasma money also LCD's tend not to be very good at showing blacks (Look at the Top and bottom of the screen and this often shows) also LCD's have a slower response time, this may show up during fast action as a blur.

Plasma's can suffer from burn in, this maybe an issue if you want to play games for long periods of time with fixed graphics etc.

Other things to think about,

Both Plasma's and Lcd's need a very good signal feed, CRT's are more forgiving in this area, a good Plasma/LCD maybe far better at making the best out of the in-put compared to a cheap plasma/lcd

If you compare in Comet/Curry's, note what is feeding the LCD/Plasma, they do/can make one stand out, by feeding it with a better in-put.

Plasma monitor vs plasma tv

You really want to be using a digital in-put for your Plasma/LCD, so you should be using either a SKY or Freeview "set top box" anyway, so you may not need a inbuilt tuner, if you already have some kind of AV sound system, do you want a set with speakers?

When you hang your Plasma / LCD in the wall, IMO they look better without speakers.

Also consider the amount of space saving you gain by changing to a flat panel on the wall, you maybe freeing up a corner in your room.

Should you be buying into the technology now?

Do your own research and make your own mind up, it can be "never the right time"

I have never regretted for one moment changing to a flat screen, one of the best things I have ever bought, honest.

bosey

yeah, i've never really understood the attraction of the LCD tv thing. long after TFT screens became the benchmark display for notebooks, suddenly a new market emerges for old technology...and shockingly high prices to boot

LCD's blacks are never good because the light source is always on and bleeds through (unlike the newer DMD projectors) and as 24seven said they are blurry on fast(ish) motion images.

LCD may be higher resolution natively but we're still on 625 lines, right? Apart from HDTV (which current LCDtv's lacking the i/p wont support) thing, am i missing something???

Just confused as to whether to go for a 50" plasma or not :-/

Wonga

I agree, LCD are too expensive and too small at the moment. If their size/cost was on a par with plasma counterparts then I would consider. Not too bothered about the screen life as my need to upgrade would be shorter even of that of a cheap plasma.

I am going to give it a few more months and look out for a cheap 42" or 50" plasma for a 1 - 2 year expected period before my next upgrade.

As for flat screens, what is the point if you have the space for a CRT. My 36" CRT has a far better picture quality than any LCD or Plasma, it is BIG but I have the space. Now if I could get a 50" CRT then I would forget flat screen technology.