Life is full of existential questions. There is no denying this. Ever since we were born, we spend a lot of time wondering about the essence of things. Starting with the famous childhood question of who’s better, Bruce Lee or Chuck Norris (thanks to the movie Way of the Dragon, we now know) or the even more famous question of which was first, the chicken or the egg, we go through life filled with questions. There is no doubt each and every one of these is extraordinarily important at the time of its asking, only to lose its meaning later to much more important ones (those the require you to be over 18 in order to answer them).

The question I was to try and solve for you today is one such question: which kind of TV is better between plasma, LCD or LED? I am pretty sure that soon a geek’s girlfriend will be terribly grateful to me for saving 10 minutes of her boyfriend’s online time that he will then spend with her. So here we go.

Plasma is a technology involving rare gases subjected to an intense electromagnetic field causing them to produce the colors. Currently, plasma is considered to be the best for the reasons that are about to follow even though the better models are also the most expensive. However, if you do not require full-HD capabilities (how much of a difference there is between 1080p and 720p is a matter of debate), you can find extremely good models at very cheap prices.

Here are some plasma advantages:

  • the best contrast ever, leading to perfect blacks. This matter because as you might have noticed (if you’re a movie buff), on most TVs what should be black is in fact more or less a shade of gray. Having pure blacks leads to sharp images with well defined colors.  Plasma is currently the undisputed contrast king, with the market leader LG boasting contrast in the values of 3 million to one, compared to the measly 100 thousand to one of the second place LCD.
  • perfect angle of view. Currently, plasma is the only technology that guarantees image clarity from just about any angle. Period. Various LCDs boast 170 degrees angles but in practice it rarely goes over 150 degrees while LEDs can’t really go over 120 without image degradation.
  • lifespan. If a while ago the plasma screens would burn out fast, today their lifespan is on par with the other types of TVs, claiming the normal 100 thousand hours before they expire. This would roughly translte to over 50 years (considering an average of 5 hours of daily screentime).
  • refresh rate. Plasma TVs refresh much faster than their counterparts and thus deal very well with fast moving images.

And now for some cons:

  • burn-in. Despite advances in burn-in prevention, plasma TVs still suffer from this one, especially in a TV passes 10 thousand hours of use.
  • glare. In average light, plasma screens tend to reflect light, leading to poor performance in those conditions, since they don’t benefit from matte/anti-glare capabilities.
  • power consumption. Plasma TVs are the biggest power suckers of the bunch, having at least 40 Watts “advantage” on a same-screen-size LCD or LED.
  • bulky. When it comes to flat-screen slimness, the plasma screens are the fat of the bunch, thicker and quite heavier than their LED/LCD counterparts.

On to the LEDs and LCDs. Let it be known that LEDs are in fact LCDs but benefiting from retro-illumination. For some pro’s:

  • power consumption. LCDs are moderate consumers while LED TVs are the most eco-friendly of the bunch
  • size. They tend to be lighter than plasma and slimmer, with the LED again taking the cake.
  • pricing. Full-HD LCDs tend to be very attractively priced, while the LEDs vary a lot and can come close to plasma.
  • image quality. Nowadays, LCDs are catching up fast with plasma to the point where they can have crisper images, while LEDs are kings in terms of illumination (candela per square meter).

And some cons:

  • LED’s tend to also suffer greatly in above-average light as the backlight can wreck image quality despite anti-reflective materials
  • poor black quality which may lead to washed out image
  • older models especially do not cope well with fast-changing images, later ones have improved but they still can’t match plasmas in this regard
  • viewing angle: images degrade very quickly when not looking directly at the screen, specially on the horizontal.