Plasma Televisions as Computer Monitors
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Can I use plasma televisions as computer monitors?
If you've remembered the difference between a plasma television and a plasma display in the Plasma Basics article, you'll know that a plasma display has no support for receiving a television signal. An ordinary plasma display or plasma screen can be likened to your typical computer monitor (other types of monitors include cathode-ray tube or CRT monitors and liquid crystal display or LCD monitors). These plasma display monitors are a bit cheaper than plasma televisions, but that also means you'll have to buy additional components for audio and video functions, particularly for TV, if you don't already have these.
While plasma screens have almost become synonymous to its subset of plasma televisions, technology has now allowed us to choose plasma for computer monitors, aside from the more common CRTs or LCDs. Sometimes it is also cost-effective for you to purchase a plasma television which doubles as a computer monitor, especially when there are videos on your desktop that you would like to play back immediately. In other instances, you would want a separate appliance for your computing and for watching television.
Inspecting the pros and cons of using plasma televisions should allow you to decide whether a plasma monitor is for you or not. Plasma screens have become very popular in the electronics market because of its ability to display the clearest and most crisp images—and some people would love to have this with their desktops.
A crucial factor, too, is a plasma display's weakness when it comes to static images—a phenomenon called burn-in. If you leave your plasma-powered desktop to display a non-changing image for long periods, whether it's a paused video playing or a workspace you left for a long time, the pixels that make up the display on your screen slowly "burn up," get stuck to the glass, and no longer change even after the picture changes. Screensavers are used to combat this phenomenon, but experts still say that plasma-powered screens are better used for viewing constantly-changing scenes on television shows and movies.
Bottom line: expect a relatively shorter lifespan when you choose plasma displays over LCDs (or CRTs) for mostly computing work and little video. When it's movie-watching you're after, Plasma screens will rock those colors quite nicely.
Once you've sorted out that criterion, you can move on to other items on your decision-making checklist, which includes questions like "Can this plasma monitor display the computer resolution that I want?" "How big is the plasma display that I need?" "Can I afford to buy plasma over other types of displays?"
Check out the difference between Plasma Televisions and LCDs here.
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