Laptop Displays – Why LCD? Why Not Plasma?

Most laptops screens liquid crystals and not plasma. Plasma screens are known to offer greater brightness, contrast ratio, or deeper black levels than LCD. Moreover, the viewing angles offered by plasma are much better than LCD. Then why do laptop makers use LCD for their laptops instead of plasma. Here are a few reasons why plasma is not used for laptop screens:-

LCD screens are Lighter – Laptops have been designed for portability. When comparing an LCD screen and a plasma screen of the same size, the former will most probably be lighter than the latter. Therefore enabling easier portability.

LCD offer higher resolution – Again if you compare an LCD screen and a plasma screen of the same size, the LCD will offer a higher resolution than its plasma counterpart. This means better clarity with LCD screens.

LCD consumes lesser power – Laptops are powered by batteries. Those laptops, especially netbooks, that are designed for travel, need to offer high battery lives. So that the user doe not get stranded with no juice left in his netbook. LCD screens are known for consuming lesser power than an equivalent plasma screen. Moreover, LCD screens are supposed to offer better lifespans than plasma screens.

Burn-in effect – Plasma screens suffer from something called as image burn-in. This happens when an image is displayed for a long period of time. A ghost-like picture of that image gets retained on the screen. LCD screens don’t suffer from this problem.

Thus LCD is more preferred to plasma for laptops.