I last bought a TV in summer of 2002 so the current market is an unknown factor. However, I read recently that all manufacturers are discontinuing plasma units (or already have) so you may run into a challenge in finding one.

That being said, the unit I bought 12 years ago was a plasma and it has been excellent for the duration.

Plasma's are dead end tech. No one will be building them after this year. Check out LG's OLED. Best picture ever by all that have reviewed it.

I suspect that relatively soon, repair parts for plasma TVs will be unavailable.

i guess that's what happens when you wait for the technology to get better and the price to go down. the s.out of luck factor .

I realize the original post was December but thought I'd share my opinion anyway. My Panasonic plasma TV (55 VT30) is four yrs old and I still love the picture. I had it professionally calibrated when I bought it, and the colors are incredibly natural and accurate, not oversaturated. But as others have pointed out, I believe they have discontinued producing them. If I were in the market for a new TV though, I wouldn't hesitate to buy another, provided I could find one.

A couple of years ago, I bought a VCR from Sony with a one-year warranty, and it stopped working after a month. The store where I bought it wouldn't take it back, told me to return it to Sony for a replacement. When I called Sony customer service, they first tried to convince me that the problem was not with their VCR but either my setup was faulty or there was something wrong with my TV. After I told them I wanted nothing else than a replacement unit, they wouldn't send me one without my credit card number.

After I filed a complaint with Quebec's Consumer Protection Act, the store accepted to give me a replacement but it had to be another brand because they had too much returns on Sony units. The customer service supervisor from Sony called me and asked why I filed a complaint, and tried to talk me into removing my complaint, but still would not take the unit back without my credit card number!!! His reason was that too many people send out empty boxes. My suggestion of waiting until they acknowledge reception of my broken down unit to send me a new one didn't seem like a reasonable option to them. I have a feeling they wanted my credit card number so they could charge me some handling fees of some sort.

Because of this incident I will never buy another Sony product again, even if you paid me.

I think their products were very good products up to the late 90's, and many people still see them as king of the hill even though their overall quality went way down. And I don't care how CNET rates their TV's, those I see on display in stores or at friends' houses never impress me.

If I needed to buy a new TV today, it would be either a Samsung or a Panasonic.

I agree w/ A/V Consulting - Samsungs are excellent TVs. I own two Samsung LED smart TVs. The pictures are phenomenal and have lasted very well. One even fell off its stand and cracked the plastic housing. I thought that would be the end of the TV. Much to my surprise, the TV fired right up and is as good as new.

I did also own a Sony TV a few years ago and was not impressed. The picture didn't seem as sharp and it did not have smart tv features - like Netflix, Amazon, HBO Go, etc. The black levels were not as deep as the Samsung's. Sony TVs pictures seem to have a certain "look" that is distinctly Sony - some like this some don't. I'm in the don't like category, but that's a purely personal preference.

As far as recent reviews, CNET ranks Samsung and Sony pretty much neck-in-neck except the Sony costing much more.

I'm sorry jstogner, but you obviously don't know what you're talking about. And your not in the industry.

First, TVs have become a commodity in our industry and there is very little money to be made on ANY brand (literally 5%-10% in with a very rare exception on the pro models and ultra large 85" and over displays)... in fact, I would make bit more if I chose to deal with Sony.

The fact is, we only provide displays as part of a larger system, and that is mainly as a courtesy to our clients, so we can provide top notch service and keep the entire project within our control. As well as providing warranty support. Many AV Companies have stopped dealing with TV's altogether and just let the customer source their own, but that's not our business model.

I stopped dealing with Sony for the above mentioned reasons. Very poor customer service and product lacking reliability. (BTW.. if you want to see something funny, go to youtube and search "Sony POS" for a video by the Onion. Hilarious and true)

Also, Sony has a large presence here in San Diego with many of their offices within miles of mine. Many of my clients have friends in the upper management there. Needless to say the word got up to them that I wouldn't install Sony and they reached out to me. I told them point blank my reasons. They were aware and said they've tried to fix it. That was several years ago. Then recently (about 9 months ago) I met the VP of sales(one of them anyway) and that's when I was told that they are pulling out of consumer electronics for the most part and going for a more high end product and commercial... and that literally with the downturn in the economy a while back, the playstation was the only thing that kept them going... So that's straight from the horses mouth..

Plasma is a non-factor any more. All manufacturers discontinued production by Dec 2014. Check Samsung, LG LED's, LG OLED is best picture in the industry, Vizio has improved, HiSense & TCL (Chinese) is up and coming. It's tough for Japanese to compete with Korean manufacturers, the reason for demise of Sanyo, Toshiba, Sharp. Mitsubishi, Panasonic has become a non entity, Sony was almost bankrupt because of bad optical blocks in their rear projection sets 8 years ago. Sharp was purchased by HiSense and built in Mexico. Of course everyone is featuring 4K sets now, and pricing has dropped dramatically. If you don't mind the price and looking for the best picture go LG OLED

I'm surprised this thread is still up after so many years. But since there has been a comment recently i'll add my own opinion on it. I would really advice against it since pictures being burnt into the screen is a real thing. It gets increasingly obnoxious over time.

SONY OLED 20,000 dollars ! Thats the best. Sony has always made the best tv's! I love sony. LG OLED is good too, but it doesn't say SONY! lol i hate samsung tv's.

Agreeing with A/V consulting and yes we don't sell TVs anymore as there is no margin in them. If a client insists we will sell to them at $200 over Amazon prices to cover inevitable power supply failures, I/O board failures or even apps on the Smart TVs that no longer work (all of which have happened to us with Samsung, LG and Sony TVs within the first year). Most say no in which case they just pay for it with a service call. Hate to to business this way but with so much downward price pressure on TVs there was no other choice. OLED's are a great choice for all those Plasma owners out there, and some would say they are even better. Others of course say they are not. The bottom line is that the market has changed since the days of the Pioneer Elite Kuro Pro-150-FD so you might as well change with the times.

My Panasonic 42" plasma unit will be 15 years old in two months. Not yet a peep of trouble from it.

I am sure it doesn't. But no one makes TVs with that type of build quality anymore unfortunately.

Panasonic does not make plasma anymore and they are having a very hard time competing in the LED/OLED 4K makeplace.