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Displays
Smaller Sizes Helping Boost Plasma Sales
Flat-panel sales in the 32- and 42-inch size range -- with 32 inches new to the category -- made Q2 2008 a productive one for plasma TVs.
vizio vp322
Vizio’s VP322 32-inch plasma
August 12, 2008 | by Arlen Schweiger

Maybe you’re media room isn’t big enough to accommodate a whopper of a TV. Maybe you really prefer plasma to LCD and snapped up a 32-incher for your bedroom.

Budget flat-panel manufacturer Vizio brought plasma into that 32-inch size category earlier this summer, and consumers are filling their rooms with them, according to Quixel Research.

The market research firm says in its USA PDP Market Review that after a down Q1, the plasma display panel (PDP) category bounced back with a 30 percent increase in unit sales in Q2 2008, with 32- and 42-inch models leading the way.

“The 32-inch and 42-inch plasma TVs were very effective in their respective market positions during the second quarter,” says Tamaryn Pratt, Quixel Research’s Principal. “Prices for the 42-inch models were very reasonable and the products were well distributed. Those in the industry sometimes forget that a 720p model is also HD and a good product for many consumers at the right price point. The new 32-inch PDP entry took advantage of tight LCDTV supply at that screen size and hit a home run in its first quarter out, accounting for 18 percent of the total market in units.”

Not everyone needs 1080p, especially at the 32- and 42-inch sizes, and at $599 Vizio’s VP322 certainly seems appealing. Significant sales of smaller, lower-cost plasmas led to 8 percent quarter-to-quarter growth in the category, Quixel says.

Anyone want to tell us about experiences with the 32-inch plasma, even compared with a same-size LCD? Are you favoring plasma in these smaller sizes? Let us know in comments below.



Arlen Schweiger - Managing editor of Electronic House Magazine
Arlen contributes product news items to electronichouse.com along with his role on the print publication. Got a tip? Send it along!



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Comments (4) Most recent displayed first.
Posted by Joseph Masimino  on  08/14/08  at  09:19 AM

Oh, and there are the 239 people who rated the LED DLP TV after they bought ti from Amazon. The combined rating is 4.5 out of 5. Consider that at least one or two got a lemmon, or rated the delivery service as part of their review score and gave it a 1.  Then go overto the AVS Forum and look through the thread on the Samsung LED-DLP.
It is a well known fact that more people come to the internet to complain about their purchase, not rave about how well they liked it. Try to tell anyone that owns one of these that it is not as good as Plasma, or LCD, and they will laugh at you.

Posted by Joseph Masimino  on  08/14/08  at  08:52 AM

No, I based this one the 2008 Samsung 61” LED-DLP I bought, and have been watch for three months. I also based it on working with flat panel TV’s that are used in everything from people’s homes, to conference room displays.
Can we agree that LCD is not the best all around display? It can look very good, but then it can look very bad, depending on how close the input signal gets to the panels native resolution.
The LED-DLP I have looks great no matter what I put through it, it can be 1951 vintage The African Queen or Casino Royal, I have three other TV’s in the house and none of them are as good as the LED-DLP at viewing such a wide range of material.
You did not touch on the pixel burn, or heat of Plasma, How about the weight or cost of a 61” Plasma? The 61” LED-DLP weighs near 70 lbs, and cost under $1800.00 with free white glove shipping. The only real detractors of DLP were in the older models, which had a spinning color wheel, and costly light bulb. The light bulb degraded over time, so the picture got progressively worse. Now that they are all but gone, DLP is back on top

Posted by adam hanson  on  08/14/08  at  08:26 AM

i hope you are not basing your “best pic” on what you have seen in stores, cause you know that they don’t calibrate those displays to NTSC standards.  and i promise you if you were to get a calibrated display of each type you won’t be able to pic out one from the other.  and just so you are aware, initially yes a plasma does consume more power but after it “warms up” its power consumption drops to be in the same ball park as a nonLED LCD.

Posted by Joseph Massimino  on  08/12/08  at  09:57 AM

Plasma has always had a superior picture to LCD. No matter what the size, Plasma will never be the choice for me. The drawbacks on Plasma include power consumption, heat, weight, and possible pixel burn-out, and burn-in. Eve LCD suffers from the pixel problems. Fortunate for LCD, while the bigger sets make it pretty hard to hide a bad set, the smaller ones are more forgiving. It has been this way for as long as I can remember, smaller TV’s always produced a nice picture. This was mostly because what you can’t see doesn’t hurt you. The bigger the set becomes, the more critical the picture quality will be. My choice of the biggest, best picture remains with LED-DLP from Samsung. The only technology that might take that lead is Laser-DLP. I have not seen a Laser-DLP yet, but I am told that it will cost far more than LED-DLP, so the laser-DLP will leave market share for best picture to Samsung’s LED-DLP, mostly because it is so inexpensive, and has a great picture. Check out the Samsung LED-DLP 61” model for $1749. I rate it with 5 stars for best bang for the buck.



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