Our resident AV expert offers advice on replacing plasma TVs, if cheap OLEDs are worth it, and the surprising return of Sharp TVs
In this installment of You Asked, resident AV expert Caleb Denison answers your questions about the best plasma TV replacement, cheap OLED versus high-end LCD, the best cheap TV for movies, and what he thinks of the new Sharp mini-LED TV.Plasma replacements
Kevin Maple writes: I have a Pioneer 60-inch 1080p Kuro Plasma that, in many cases, outperforms, my two-year-old Sony 4K. I struggle with whether I should replace it. The viewing angle and black levels are better than my Sony, and it looks fabulous – and probably better with sports broadcasts that, for reasons you addressed, are still either 720p, 1080i, or 1080p. It has HDMI (but not the latest) and performs well with my AppleTV. What’s really to gain by dumping what is about a 14- to 15-year-old TV (dumb TV) for a newer $3,000-plus option? Budget’s not the roadblock; I just really don’t see newer TVs with broadcast TV and sports bringing any benefit. And in the case of viewing angle, LED seems to lose. I guess I would gain with Netflix 4K shows, but the old Pioneer does a great job with compressed video.
So, Kevin, I’m curious about what your Sony 4K TV is. But since you mentioned that the Kuro’s black levels and viewing angle are superior, I’m going to venture a guess that it’s an LCD-based TV. And, if that’s the case, yeah, I understand being reluctant to replace the Kuro with an LCD TV. That’s why I would suggest looking at OLED TVs, which have measurably superior black levels and off-angle viewing to your Kuro. And, I suspect, that if you were to buy a similarly sized TV to the Kuro, 65 inches would be the way to go, unless you want to downsize. Then you would notice that the OLED looks better in almost every way, save one: slow-panning shots on movies. That’s where OLED can have a sort of flashing effect because its pixels are so instantaneously fast that the movement of light from one pixel to the next can be a little jarring to some viewers.
Check out my video titled Plasma vs. OLED 2023 and see what you think. If you have more questions after watching that, please write again. But, also, I would suggest a 65-inch Sony A95K if you can get your hands on one.
@tomeliason3480 also had a plasma replacement question: My Samsung 8500 plasma just died. Should I go with the LG C2, LG C3, or TCL QM8?
Mine, too! In the Plasma vs. OLED 2023 video I mentioned above, I used an F8500 plasma, and that TV just died about a week and a half ago. I’m not going to get too deep into it, but there was a tiny flame, a poof of smoke, and the main board was fried — this after the TV just went black, even though you could still hear audio. Does any of that sound familiar? I’m super curious, so please write in to YouAsked@digitaltrends.com and let me know. And once we get chatting, maybe we can dial in which TV you should get because — as I mentioned in the sixth installment of YouAsked — I need more info than you gave me.
