If you're considering a flat-panel plasma or LCD TV, you're in the right place. In this article, we'll cover the pros and cons of flat-panel TVs, then take a closer look at each type to help you figure out what kind of flat-panel is right for you.

Flat-panel TV basics

Flat-panel TVs create beautifully bright, crisp images using either LCD or plasma screen technology. Many models measure 4 inches deep or less, opening up a whole new range of TV placement options. Mounted on a wall, a flat-panel TV becomes part of your room instead of part of the furniture.

Thanks to steady improvements in recent years, flat-panel TVs now compete in most ways with the picture-quality benchmark: high-quality tube TVs. Flat-panel screens continue to get bigger and better, and the best news is they're getting cheaper, too.

The digital technology inside flat-panel sets has many benefits, as well as a few limitations.

Flat-panel advantages:

• Shallow depth and light weight expand placement options. Wall-mounting is the most space-efficient approach, but most people place their flat-panel sets on a table or cabinet. If you are considering wall-mounting, plasma TVs weigh more than LCDs (but still much less than a same-sized tube TV).
• Digital display precision: Plasma and LCD TVs are digital displays, creating images by illuminating a fixed grid of tiny pixels. Actually, every pixel has three sub-pixels: one each for red, green and blue. Color and brightness information are precisely controlled at the sub-pixel level, resulting in a palette of millions or even billions of possible colors.
• Perfectly flat screens mean that flat-panel TVs maintain perfect image focus and geometry from top to bottom, side to side, and corner to corner. Straight lines look straight. Even the newer flat-faced tube TVs show distortions at the screen edges due to the angle of the electron gun (see illustration at the top of page 2).

• More expensive than a big-screen projection HDTV with the same size screen.
• Picture quality doesn't quite equal the best available from the very finest tube TVs, specifically in the areas of contrast ratio, black level, and naturally smooth motion. LCD and plasma TVs also tend to reveal more noise, distortion, and other shortcomings of regular (non-HD) broadcast and cable TV signals.

Plasma or LCD?

Many people know they want a flat-panel TV, but aren't sure which type to get. The chart below provides a quick comparison of plasma and LCD.

Which type is right for you?

Plasma TVs have been around a little longer than LCD TVs, and their technology is a little further along. Plasma screens use a phosphor coating like tube TVs, so they have the natural color we're used to with tube models. Plasmas have better contrast and black level performance than LCDs, and offer slightly wider viewing angles. People often describe plasma's picture quality as richer or more "cinematic," so it's a great choice for a home theater, or your main TV.

A plasma TV might be for you if:

• You want really rich, warm colors and deep blacks.
• You'll be sitting off-axis when you watch TV or movies.
• You don't watch a lot of TV shows or play lots of video games with static images on the screen for more than a few hours at a time.
• Your viewing room doesn't have a lot of ambient light, or you can easily reduce the light by closing the blinds, for example.

If you're looking at screen sizes under 40", LCD is your only flat-panel choice. LCD looks great in a kitchen or any other room with bright lighting. LCD displays are better at resisting glare from sunlight or room lights, and they're very bright (brighter even than plasmas). LCD is also one of the most rugged display types. Its total immunity to screen burn-in makes LCD an ideal choice if your viewing includes frequent computer or video game use. And if you leave your TV on for hours at a time tuned to a news or sports channel with a scrolling "ticker," LCD would be a safer TV choice.

A flat-panel LCD TV might be for you if:

• You watch a lot of TV shows or play lots of video games with static images on the screen for extended periods of time, multiple days a week.
• Your TV room is relatively bright, or you do a lot of daytime viewing.
• There are many more 1080p LCD models than plasma — that's the highest resolution currently available, so you'll see a very sharp, detailed picture.
• LCD TVs are usually more energy efficient than plasma models of the same size.

If you're interested in how plasma and LCD displays work, each is explained in detail on the next page.