Plasma and LCD Facts

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PLASMA and LCD – some facts

Do flat panel displays last as long as conventional displays?
Flat panel displays are built to last, based on an daily usage of 12 hours per day every day of the year,it would still be more than 13 years before the brightness of the panel will have reduced to about half of what it was when new.

Average life span
CRT TV 30,000 hrs
PDP 60,000 hrs
LCD 60,000 hrs
LED 100,000 hrs

Do plasma displays need re-gasing?
No. Plasma gases are inert and sealed within tiny cells that are sandwiched between glass plates. There is never any need to re-charge or refill the Plasma

Does Plasma TV consume a lot more energy than LCD?
No. Plasma varies the power consumption from scene to scene, whilst LCD consumes more consistent power due to its back light technology. Like for like screen size comparison shows very similar usage.

Both plasma and LCD displays are attempts to solve the same problem: how do you make a big, flat screen without forcing a very large and very heavy bit of glass - a cathode ray tube - into an unnatural shape? Of course, both solutions have their own problems.

Plasma screens work by lighting up tiny cells of rare gases (xenon and neon) sandwiched between two plates of glass, so it is fairly straightforward to make large screens. These screens are very bright and have good contrast with deep blacks. They also have wide viewing angles, so you still get a good view from the side.

LCD screens use columns of liquid crystal molecules controlled by a matrix of transistors (in TFT or thin-film transistor designs). Some of these transistors are likely to be defective, which leads to dead pixels, and the larger the screen, the harder it is to avoid them. LCD screens are lit from behind, so they are not as bright or as high in contrast as plasma screens, and may look less bright if you are off to one side. Also, early LCDs don't react as quickly as plasma screens, and may smear fast movement.

However, LCD screens have made dramatic progress during two decades of laptop PC development, and these problems have largely been overcome. LCD screens also have some useful advantages over plasma screens. They are thinner, lighter and more robust, which makes them much easier to move around. For those with ecological concerns, LCDs use little power, whereas plasma screens use more.

As always, different buyers value different features. If you want a really big wall-mounted display and money is no object, go for plasma. If you want a small or medium-sized screen that you can move around, go for LCD.