buying a plasma tv

[davemchine]

I've been kicking it around for awhile and I think tonight is the night. I'm gonna drive down to costco and buy a plasma tv. They have a panasonic 42", with built in tuner and speakers, for $2200. I had seen a samsung with a great swivel base at best buy for $2400 but I don't know that I want to spend an extra $200 for a swivel base. Those are my only two big stores in town so I'm kind of limited.

Dave

[The UnDoug]

Good luck! I'm sure it'll be great whatever you choose. I'll be buying in the next year, I hope.

Enjoy it! And let us know how it is!

[N-OS X-tasy!]

I'm LOVING the Panny 50" plasma I bought a few weeks ago. I've watched more movies at home in the last three weeks than I have in the last three years. You'll love yours.

[microchip13]

Just beware of plasmas, I've heard bad things.

Don't know about where you live, but one of the problems up here is they make a buzzing sound at high altitudes.

[N-OS X-tasy!]

It's true that plasmas are not recommended for use about a certain altitude. I don't remember the altitude, but I know I wouldn't have bought one if I lived in Denver.

Besides that, most of the problems experienced by earlier generations of plasmas are no longer an issue. The most prevalent, premature phosphor aging (often incorrectly referred to as "burn-in"), is a thing of the past, assuming you take certain precautions during the first 100 hours of use. It's pretty long, but this thread at AVS Forums has lots of good info on the issue:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=608677

(I recommend picking up the thread about one-third from the end, as it was started over two years ago and some of the info toward the beginning may be out of date now.)

[Dick Moore]

Once again, I recommend the 50" Vizio at Costco for around $2000. You do need external tuners, since it's a "monitor". I believe the 42" Vizio at Costco has the tuners built-in. If the Panasonic and Vizio are both 1024 x 768, then the Viz is a better deal. Beware totally evaluating the pix based on in-store viewing, since input signal quality can vary, and so can set-up. BTW, my 50" Viz was just about perfect out of the box, based on the Imaging Science Foundation test DVD. I did a little tweaking and got the dang thing just right for me.

Either way, Good shopping!

[davemchine]

I ended up buying a Hitachi 42" plasma at best buy. It's on their website for $2500 but I talked the salesguy into $2235 and I felt really good about that. I believe this is the one, http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=7803013&type=product&productCategoryId=pcmcat33900050026&id=1142293092238

I took it home and plugged it in using an inexpensive antenna just to see what was around. I was able to pick up several channels that looked pretty good. I was concerned that 42" might be too large for the room but it turns out it just looks normal. So for the moment I'm very pleased.

My furniture gets delivered wednesday and then I'll have everything hooked up like normal, that's gonna be great!

Dave

[Dick Moore]

Hitachi LEADER!

[N-OS X-tasy!]

Hitachi makes a good plasma.

[Grateful11]

Plasmas aren't the best choice if you have a lot of ambient light. Their gloss screen reflects nearly every light source.