Ten year old Sony 42" Plasma still going strong!!

Then that replacement will have to be an LCD TV

Not going to happen. If you are serious about a plasma in the future you should take a look at Panasonic and Samsung. Personally, I'm waiting for the advent of OLED, but it will be sometime before they can produce that technology more economically with a competitive life expediency.


Ian

I remember drooling over those HDTVs back then, but $5000-$8000 or even $10000 was just too much money for me at the time. My local Circuit city had an especially nice display selection at the time, and I used to go there just to look at them.

I did eventually buy my first HDTV about 4 years ago, just before the prices collapsed. It was a entry-level Samsung (32" A330) , and it cost around $900. It also still looks as good today as the day I bought it.

Sony does make some very nice LCD TVs - i came pretty close to buying an HX929 last year despite it's known issues but i just couldn't justify it's lofty price considering that a mid-level Samsung or Panasonic Plasma has better picture quality and less issues, and for a thousand bucks less.


They didn't switch to LCD, they were already making LCD TVs well before they got into the Plasma assembling business. Although they made some gorgeous Plamsas, they bought the panels and some of the electronics from Samsung then wrapped it up in a nice Sony bezel with their name on it - then charged way way too much for them compared to the other big names like Panasonic, Hitachi, Philips, Toshiba, HP, LG, Samsung, etc. Sony's Plasma division lost lots of money the whole time despite outsourcing the panels. They later built a panel plant in a collaboration with Samsung but that flopped too so they pulled out of the market entirely and concentrated on LCD which they are a LOT better at.

Sony Plasma TVs also had a very high failure rate and ran out of many replacement parts even before the TV's one year warranty was up.



They're never going to make Plasma TVs again. They're supposedly collaborating with Panasonic to develop OLED TVs now so i'm kinda excited to see what becomes of that.

http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/News/Press/201206/12-0625E/




Ian