Who has the best plasma monitor these days

Pioneer plasmas are some of the best product out there in our opinion. They cost a little more than other brands but you pay for what you get. Actually we've installed more Panasonic plasmas than Pioneer plasmas but learned that most of the consumers who chose Panasonic are for cost reason and told us that they read impressive specs from Panasonic website. But our installation and personal experience clearly showed us that Pioneer is just hand down much better in terms of picture quality. The overall design fit and finish of Pioneer plasmas are also better than that of Panasonic. But then again, you pay for what you get.

The smaller pixels in LCDs will give them an resolution advantage over plasmas for high definition video formats. Plasma has better bightness, contrast and speed. However, plasma's advantage over LCDs are eroded with each generation of LCD. On the other hand, LCD's advantages over plasma are not being eroded. In the long term, LCD will win, but only until the new technologies such as SED and OLED come to market.

I just went through the whole process (and headache) of picking the "best" tv to build my new HT around (not a headache)...and the winner for me was the:

Pioneer Elite 60" Plasma. (the 1080i) This was just about 2 months before the 1080p came out, but I cannot tell the difference. I sit 12 ft away and have a denon DVD source, until the Blu Ray - HD DVD wars are over.

All I do is watc movies now.

John

Can't go wrong with Pioneer, the 5080 can be had for 2k as they recently cut prices.

"Tlg":

I am also with several of the other posters on this thread.

If money is not a problem, I would go with one of the Pioneer KURO's also. If you STILL want a plasma and money is SOMEWHAT a problem, then I would steer toward Panasonic (just gotten myself a 77U (a 42" model) for Christmas, and so far, I have been MORE than satified), and not look back.

I've read at some places that the 77U is a 720p set, and then at other places, they say that the 77U is a 1080p set. I don't know who to believe. Maybe I need to contact Panasonic and get the correct story sometime later this week. But whatever the case is, I got my 77U for about $1,500.00 + $300.00 for an extended warranty. Comparably speaking, the 700U was seen for as low as $1,900.00 on sale. But the 700U is a TRUE 1080p set, so there are no doubts as to what the resolution capability of this set. Now, if Panasonic tells me that my 77U is also a 1080p set, then I probably would be very happy as I would have then gotten a 1080p set at a bargain price. Otherwise, if they tell me it is in fact a 720p set, then I'll still be happy, as this was what I was setting out to get in the first place

Between LCD and Plasma, I feel the way to go would be to go plasma. My reason being is that they tend to produce a sharper, clearer picture with a much deeper black than even the best LCD set that I can find. Of course, this will come at the expense of some brightness and some on screen glare during daytime hours (even though, the anti-glare coating on the screen does help somewhat).

If you MUST go with an LCD, then I would look at Sharp and then Toshiba in exactly that order.

Good Luck and Happy Shopping.......

--Charles--