Panasonic has announced that it is ceasing production of plasma screen televisions in December.
The Japanese electronics giant will withdraw from the sector entirely in March next year, citing “rapid, drastic changes in the business environment” as the reason for the shift.
Plasma screen displays remain competitive against their LCD and LED counterparts, but with OLED and 4K technology gaining traction, Panasonic is investing its resources elsewhere.
The company is undergoing sweeping changes across the board, announcing in September that it is withdrawing from the consumer smartphone market.
Panasonic has also teamed up with Sony to develop a next-generation disc format that could serve as a successor to Blu-ray.
The firm unveiled its flagship ZT60 series of plasma TVs at CES in January.
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A shame in some respects as in my opinion, Panasonic did make the best Plasma screens on the market, but even theirs did not perform well in brightly lit or sunlit rooms. This is where LCD and LED lit LCD screens perform much better.
Plasma has always been the reserve of dark home cinema style rooms where they create the best dark blacks, but they reflect too much light to do this in bright rooms.
Confused about the difference between LCD & LED?
Don’t be…
Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) is the screen technology in both. It’s all about how they are lit.
Screens labelled LCD are still lit from behind with florescent strip lights much like a miniature kitchen strip light and this works very well.
Screens labelled LED are still a Liquid Crystal Display. The LED part is merely the lighting technology behind the screen. A grid of hundreds of tiny bright white LED’s can give a brighter truer white than florescent tubes.
Some viewers like the bright white and some think it’s a bit cynical or cold looking.
The best advice if you are looking for a new set is go and compare similar size screens of the same brand in LCD and LED and choose the one you prefer to look at.
Remember… It’s the same screen and identical detail !