Plasma tv life expectancy

The critical factor in determining the useful life of a plasma tv is determining the life span of the plasma screen. Flat panel display manufacturers claim a plasma tv life expectancy of anything between 20,000 and 50,000 hours for their sets. The 20,000 hours plasma tv life is generally for models using older technologies and manufacturing techniques where as the 50,000 hours plasma tv life expectancy will be for the latest models from the manufacturers at the forefront of plasma development.

The hours quoted by the manufacturers for plasma tv life expectancy don't actually mean that your plasma display will be totally dead at that stage, rather that the brightness of the screen will have dropped to 50% of its original level, so there will still be a little bit of life in the old dog yet.

Taking even the lowest figure of 20,000 hours for plasma tv life expectancy and working with an average of 6 hours use a day gives a plasma screen life of over 9 years. For the 50,000 hour models, it would be a whopping 22 years. Easily comparable with the life span of current CRT televisions.

This plasma life span of course drops dramatically if you happened to want to use your display 24/7. Then for a 20,000 hour model you are looking at an estimated useful life of a plasma tv of just oven 2 years. In such a heavy usage situation a newer generation model with a 50,000 hour life expectancy might be a better bet, having an expected life span of almost 6 years before the screen will be at 50% of its original brightness.

And, of course, plasma screen technology is still relatively young. As more research and development is carried out by the leading companies in the industry, we can expect the life span of plasma tv's to keep increasing.