1. You get movie theater picture quality on a huge screen in the comfort of your own home.

2. A good plasma has stunning picture quality. It is sharp and has over 16 million colors available, so you can see amazingly life like detail displayed in rich color with deep levels of black.

3. The slim, widescreen format is compatible with almost all home entertainment equipment.  Many plasma screens now come HDTV (High Definition TV) ready.

Here's some information to help you make your choice.

What's good about plasmas?:

• even with a plasma images can be fuzzy - look at a variety of displays
• they are prone to screen burn-in (this means if you leave the same picture showing for a long period it gets burnt into the screen for good and appears as a ghostly image on the display)
• plasmas have a shorter working life than traditional TVs - about 50,000 hours gas life
• they don't work as well at high altitudes

Shop carefully because picture quality, clarity, definition and sound quality all vary quite considerably, even for plasma displays at the same price. And don't forget to consider warranty and back up support, because a plasma TV is a significant purchase that should last you for 5 to 10 years (and relative to traditional CRT TVs the long-term reliability is still to be proven). 

A plasma screen is actually made up of thousands of cells (or pixels), each of which is filled with a gas. When the gas is 'excited' electrically it triggers a phosphor, which gives out light. 

In a way, each pixel is a tiny version of the TV tube that is used in a traditional TV set. It's this technology that allows the plasma screen to be so thin that you can hang it on your wall.