Plasma TV Prices Are Falling Drastically

The first plasma television to hit the market was a 42-inch model, carrying a hefty price tag of about $12,000. The technology was still new and while LCD televisions have been providing flat screen, enhanced color television pictures for years, they were still limited in sizes up to about 32-inches. When other manufacturers began competing for a share of the market for a plasma TV, prices began a slow decline.

It is typical among many technology devices that their introduction price is high, while the manufacturer hopes to recoup quickly some of its development expenses and by being first on the market with a new toy, they can make up quite a bit of their initial investment. However, the LCD manufacturers were not sitting idly by watching the plasma TV prices settle at the top of the technology charts.

As manufacturers of LCD monitors, which held a tight reign on the smaller television and computer monitor market began to develop new manufacturing technologies allowing them to produce larger monitors, plasma TV prices began to fall even faster, partly because of increased competition and partly because of less-expensive manufacturing techniques.

Not All Plasma Created Equal

Even with the falling plasma TV prices, there is still some disparity within the plasma TV market itself. Consumers may also be confused when they see a large difference between two different plasma TV prices, believing that all plasma televisions are high definition. This is not the case and the difference can be significant depending on the quality of the manufacturer.

There are actually two technologies used in the resolution of plasma televisions, one is true high definition and the other is enhanced definition. For those with a plasma television featuring enhanced definition, the picture quality likely won’t be noticed when viewing broadcasts that are not in high definition format. They will notice a sizable difference in the plasma TV prices for those units.

High definition, defined by the industry as having a height of 720 pixel width, may also cause a difference in plasma TV prices for those with a width of 1040 to 1365 pixels. The larger monitors will have a wider pixel count for true high definition resolution reception of high definition broadcasts.

While high definition images on a high definition monitor are noticeably better, a high definition monitor cannot make an image of lesser quality any better. Even with higher plasma TV prices on some units, if the signal input is sub-par, so will be the picture quality.