Guide to Frugally Purchasing a TV to Meet Your Needs
I recently bought a new big screen LCD TV for my condo. When I was living in my apartment, I was using my roommates’ TV, which was a 42″ Toshiba LCD. For two years I was spoiled with a big screen TV with HD. I thoroughly enjoy watching television. I watch anything sports, especially football. Also, I’m hooked on 24, prison break, heroes, terminator, lost, scrubs and the office. In order to watch all of my stories I decided I had to buy a big screen to replace my roommates’ TV. Below I will explain my search to find as good a deal as possible, while explaining some of the common TV buzz words.
Plasma Versus LCD
Both Plasma and LCD TV’s are flat screens. Plasma TV’s use varied electrical voltages to change the color of plasma gas cells. LCD TV’s use electric charges to vary the color of liquid crystals. Initially, plasma’s produced a superior picture quality, especially in regards to the darkness of the blacks. LCD sets are quickly narrowing the gap in terms of picture quality and blackness levels.
In addition to picture quality, plasmas have a better viewing angles. Also, plasmas have less motion blur during fast motion scenes. LCD’s are narrowing the gap in these areas as well, especially with the new smooth motion technology and ever decreasing refresh rates.
LCD’s tend to have a higher native resolution, which essentially means there are more pixels per area. LCD’s consume less power than a plasma, which is a huge advantage for the frugal minded. The life span of a LCD is most often greater than for a plasma. LCD’s are not usually associated with the burn-in phenomenon, which is the result of a static image left on the screen for too long.
I opted for an LCD TV for power consumption reasons and a higher native resolution.
1080p Versus 720p
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