LCD (liquid crystal display) televisions contain liquid crystal between two glass plates (this is sometimes referred to as the LCD sandwich). Pictures are created by a changing electrical charge that is applied to these crystals.

Viewing Angles

When the TV is in your living room, not everyone sits in front of it to watch. How well will the viewers in the side seats get to watch?

On most LCD TVs you see some brightness and colour changes when you sit at too much of an angle to the screen. The newer LCD screens are getting better and better, but they are not as good as plasmas yet.

Sustainability

How much power will the TV consume? How long will it last with you?

LCDs consume considerably less power than plasmas - up to 30%. This is a seriously greener technology. The life of an LCD screen is usually guaranteed to be 60000 hours. LCD screens also hardly ever have Screen burns. A screen burn happens when an image is left too long on a screen, resulting in a shadow of the image burned permanently onto the screen. Last but not least - LCD screens are lighter and thinner than plasma screens - which makes them better suited to hang on your wall.

Small Screen

How does the technology fair in the smaller sizes (up to 42 inch)

LCDs are the way to go with smaller screens.

Low Cost

How costly are these TVs?

LCDs usually cost more than plasmas for the same feature set and screen size.

Picture Quality

While most experts will tell you that the good old CRT TVs still produce the best picture, plasmas and LCDs are giving a good fight.

LCD Screens can not display "true black" yet. This is because they use backlight that shines through the LCD layer, and there is "light leak" between the pixels. For you as a viewer this means that LCD screens do not have the best contrast, and darker scenes on the movies or series you watch will not look as good. This is changing, and every generation of LCDs is a bit better with blacks. Older generation LCDs used to blur the picture, especially for sports, because the response time (the time it takes a pixel to respond to being told to change its color) was long. Current models don't usually have this problem (look at response time for the specific TV when you check the LCD out). LCDs have more pixels on the screen than plasmas of the same size. This means that the picture you see is sharper.

Light and Gaming

How you use your TV can influence your decision - the light level in your TV room, or the time of day you usually watch TV can make the needle point LCD or Plasma. A different form of usage has to do with what you usually watch (or play) on your TV.

LCDs use backlight - so the picture has more "presence". This makes them the better choice if your TV room has lots of ambient light or you watch a lot of daytime TV with the shades open. Screen Burns (see Sustainability category) are not an issue with LCD TVs. This makes them the better option if you plan to use your TV for playing lots of video games where parts of the screen constantly display the same image.

Big Screen

How does the tv fair in the really large size (42 inchand up?)

With few, expensive exceptions, LCDs are not a good match in the larger screen sizes. This is mainly because of the better picture quality that plasmas offer.

Click on any product below to compare it to the LCD TV.

Or search for similar products:

Related comparisons

Plasma TV

There are no product images available.

Average rating: 5 / 5 , based on 536 customer reviews
Feel factor: 3

Great Choice

(score 5/5)

I had this TV for over a year and so far have really enjoyed it. It survived two moves without a scratch. I especially like the size of the screen, ease of set up and operation. I love the fact that I can plug in my thumb drive and show off my pictures and play music off of it. I know that it is not the "newest" technology out there, considering how quickly everything is developed and improved, I would still recommend this TV and especially Samsung brand for a TV.

Posted on: 2010-09-17
By penpal

Livid

(score 1/5)

This TV is great, and worked very well for about 24 months. Then it began having trouble turning on. The led light in the front would just turn on and off. You could hear a bit of noise as the TV tried to turn itself on. Eventually it would turn on... after about 4 minutes of this nonsense. Obviously, I'm about a year past the warranty. I did a Google search and realized there is an entire of community who now hate Samsung TVs. Apparently, the company is putting cheap capacitors in these TVs. When the capacitors begin to fail, which tends to happen at some point past 12 months, the TV begins to have problems turning on and staying on. When you spend $1,000 on a TV, you don't expect it to die just past the warranty. This is, obviously, the last time I buy a Samsung product. Just remember, when you buy something these days, customer reviews on a website like Amazon pretty much mean nothing.

Posted on: 2010-08-25
By E. Brown

Lemon

(score 1/5)

This product has a defect. People writing good reviews about it just haven't had their TV break yet. The power will eventually cut on and off, and you get green static. Apparently, the TV uses 10V capacitors in the power supply, which are inadequate. My TV lasted 18 months. If you are set on buying this TV, get an extended warranty.

This is the second and last TV I will buy from Samsung. Both broke under two years of ownership.

Posted on: 2010-08-24
By GraduateStudent

40 inches of entertainment!

(score 5/5)

Plenty of features, I use this TV as my main TV and as a secondary PC monitor for my PC. Easy to hook up and to switch from over-the-air signals, to cable to PC and it still has 4 video inputs available. It's a sleek looking unit.

Posted on: 2010-07-16
By Jimm

Watch out for infrared (IR) interference with other devices

(score 3/5)

Overall I have been pleased with this TV, until I bought a Roku media player. After buying this player came to realize that whenever the screen is dark, this TV generates IR interference and makes the Roku remote unusable. This means that if the TV is displaying the Roku's dark screen saver then you can't wake up the Roku device with the remote. After researching this issue on the Internet I see that many people are having the same issue with different Samsung TV's interfering with Cable/Sat set top boxes and DVD players. I called Samsung and they won't do anything about this issue because it is out of warranty and not enough people have complained about the issue for "this model" to warrant a recall.

Posted on: 2010-04-26
By R. Fallin