Widely regarded as making the best model of Plasma TV on the market, Pioneer have pulled the plug on manufacturing Plasma TVs. This of course includes the industry-leading Pioneer Kuro range, offering superior black levels. This announcement comes despite announcing a bunch of new plasma sets at this years CES only last month.
This continues a growing trend of TV manufacturers moving away from Plasma display technology in favor of LCD. Even though a number of manufacturers still have Plasma displays for sale, these are more commonly made from someone else and simply rebranded.
In the early days of large screen TVs LCD’s of large sizes were prohibitively expensive to manufacture. As the technology has evolved and volumes have increased this cost has dropped – dramatically. LCD’s even at large sizes are now down to an affordable level and with the current economic conditions, they’re set to drop even further.
Earlier this year I picked up a 52” Sony Bravia Full HD LCD for A$2,999. 2-3 years ago this set would have easily cost $6-7k.
Look for plasma TVs to die very quickly over the next 2 years.
