Advice Needed On Buying Lcd/plasma Tv

[jezchesters]

Hi!

I'm on the lookout for a new LCD/Plasma HD ready TV. Can anyone recommend which shops in Bangkok offer the best bargains? Also, for something around the 30,000 Baht mark, does anyone have any make/model recommendations?

Thanks!

Jez

[Simmo]

The only HD set you'll get for that price are 32inch LCD sets. Samsung is popular here and has 32 inch sets ranging from 27,000 to 42,000b - different contrast ratios, inputs & features.

[miltonbentley]

I bought a 42" Samsung LCD for 28,000 in Makro Chiang Mai - great value

[spacebass]

I bought a 42" Samsung LCD for 28,000 in Makro Chiang Mai - great value

Carrefour Pattaya had 42" Samsung Plama 10,000 :1 contrast 35,000thb (not a one off ,stock)

[Simmo]

He asked for a HD set, those are standard def.

[LivinLOS]

He asked for a HD set, those are standard def.

Most are 1365x768 and above with HD inputs.. Whats SD about that ?? I haven't seen a LCD SD panel in ages.. Sure thy may not be 1920x1080 but they are over 720p.

I saw a 32 inch set with no HDMI input (DVI / RGB and component) for 19,990 the other day.. Considered it for the bedroom but dont need it..

[Simmo]

The 42" plasma that spacebass referred to is a standard def resolution. 852*480.

http://www.samsung.com/th/products/tv/plasmatv/ps_42c7s.asp

The cheapest 42" lcd 1365x768 set I've seen is the Aconatic at approx 45,000 b. Samsung 42" lcd's start at 49,000 so post 3 sounds like fiction.

I'd love to be corrected as I want to get a 42" HD set in that budget too.

[LivinLOS]

Samsung 40 inchers are under 40k here.. As I said there was some no name 32 or 30 (fairly sure it was 32) for 19,900..

Sorry I missed the plasma one and thought you were referring to the LCD's.. The price on these is just dropping every time I look..

[manutoo]

I bought a 42" Samsung LCD for 28,000 in Makro Chiang Mai - great value

more likely to be a plasma rather than a LCD, and even probably an exposition model...

Samsung doesn't do 42" LCD since a couple of years.

[jezchesters]

Cheers guys!

All good advice - I'm wondering whether to get rid of the HD ready spec as I can't see Truevision rolling it out in the near future and I'm certainly not ready to commit to either Blu-Ray or the other one!

So, disregarding hi-def for now, it's looking like big plasma or smaller lcd - what do you reckon?

[nikster]

Heya, I just - last week - bought a 32" LCD from Samsung for 30,000. Picture quality is brilliant - I have never seen DVD movies in this quality, not with backlit TVs nor projectors. It's amazing.

Of course I could only see that at home because inexplicably, PowerBuy where I bought it from could not manage a decent signal in their showroom. So you would see all these fancy expensive TV sets, all with crap picture. TIT

7000:1 contrast ratio and 500 (nit?) brightness make for an amazing picture. I bought some good component cables with it - I don't know if it makes a difference but the standard chinch cables in this country are such that the plugs tend to fall off so I thought might as well spend 1000 bht for gold plated ones.

There was also a 42" Samsung plasma on the floor which looked brilliant. It had the 800-something resolution, much less than the 1366 my LCD has, but was only 34,900 Baht. Amazing picture quality too. 10,000:1 contrast ratio.

I think I would have bought the plasma if I mainly wanted to watch TV on it. But for DVD I think the LCD is just as good if not better, and it's certainly better for future xbox or PS3 use as well as HD DVDs and so on.

A friend has this plasma and uses it for standard TV and there it really shines. Just looks like a big, beautiful, though low-rez, TV. Whereas LCDs often have bad artifacting when showing low resolution TV.

I have not tried mine for that but I am sure the plasma would be better. The LCD ruthlessly exposes bad quality DVDs and even medium quality DVDs. You can see a big difference between a good DVD 5 and a real DVD 9.

I was considering a brand new 32" LG LCD as well. The LG shop managed to hook it up to a proper component input and the image looked at least as good as on the Samsung, which is to say _very_ good. It had a claimed 8000:1 contrast ratio and cost 26,000. I am sure you can find it easily.

The main reason I didn't buy the LG is that I have had many quality issues with LG products whereas Samsung generally has a very good reputation. I didn't want to have any trouble so I stayed away from LG.

I also think that both the Samsung I bought and this LG looked way, way better than any other LCD panels in the mall. Others looked washed out and dim in comparison. I went to the Sony store and only the highest-end Bravia sets could compete in terms of image quality. These were then also 1080p (true HD), over 42", and well over 100,000 Baht. But the cheaper ones, up to 50k Baht could not compete with Samsung/LG in terms of color brilliance/brightness/contrast. Not even close - maybe this is a new generation of panels or something?

I would say that my LCD has easily as good a picture as a plasma in terms of colors and contrast. The advantage that plasmas once enjoyed in these areas seems to be gone now.

[DeputyDawg]

I bought a phillips 32" LCD ( higher res than a samsung however not quiet as stylish ) has HD input PC looks great on it 27,500 from Big C Pattaya

[jezchesters]

Fantastic!

Thanks for all of your well-informed responses - I'll let you know what I settle on...

[Phil Conners]

LCD:

Positive: excellent sharpness, very bright, no reflection in screen, doesn't wear out (except the lamps - can be replaced fairly cheap), square pixels, low power consumption, fairly light (apart from LG/Philips, around 20kg for 40"), no burn-in effect problem

Negative: contrast issues; as it blocks light, it has problems producing really deep black; usually lousy speakers, can get dead pixels like LCD screens, pricier than plasma in large sizes, sensitive to touch (can produce dead pixels), lousier view-angle (depends on model, most better models now 178 degree horizontally viewable, but vertically it still leaves a lot to be desired)

Good for: HD TV, SD TV, home theater, computer display, game console display

Plasma:

Positive: better colors, smoother picture, deeper black color (better contrast), cheaper compared to LCD on big sizes, better viewing angle (both horizontal as vertical)

Negative: heavy, plasma panel wears out with use, burn-in effect problem, many (most) 1024x768 resolution on 16:9 panel - stretches computer graphic (which isn't good to use anyway because of burn-in effect issue), unimpressive audio

Good for: SD TV, HD TV, home theater

My take (after a couple of plasmas an finally on 2nd LCD): Plasma is on the way out. It's too heavy, reflection on the screen does become irritating when watching dark scenes of a movie, though colors look richer. As with CRT and CRT back projection, the panel suffers from burn-in effect (high contrast in certain area of the screen will gradually wear out that area, appearing darker). It's useless as a computer or game device's monitor, for the same issue. It does (especially 480p panels) produce better looking image for SD video.

LCD on the other hand has higher resolution and sharper image, no reflection, no burn-in effect, making it perfect for wider area of usage. Some panels have uneven lighting (you may notice slightly lighter patches on the screen) which can be irritating. While real contrast is lower than plasma panels, dynamic contrast (having several steps of lamp brightness, dynamically adjusted according to the brightness of the image on the screen) counters that a bit, but plasma still looks somewhat more pleasant to the eyes... like a crude cheap digital camera snap (LCD) versus a smooth image out of a D-SLR camera.

LCD TVs as well as plasmas are getting cheaper. I believe you should take a 720p panel regardless, if you expect to use it more than a couple of years. The HD camcorders and bluray/HD-DVD player prices are dropping monthly, and you wouldn't want to be stuck with display not supporting their resolution in a couple of years, when they basically cost the same.

Philips and LG use the same panels. Sony and Samsung are also basically the same TVs in different boxes (hence not worth paying for Sony). Panasonic and Toshiba also share manufacturing plant.

My recommendation (after doing significant research and even buying a couple) would be to go for a Samsung LCD TV with a 5000:1 or higher dynamic contrast. There's visible difference between 3000:1 and 5000:1 dynamic contrast ratio models, but none noticeable between 5000 and 6000, and 6000 and 8000, which is what the latest R8 series have.

You should be able to get 26" for below 20k baht, 32" for below 30k and 40" between 40 and 50k. On R7/R8 series you're basically paying extra for the triangular or oval design, but specs are the same as M (flat bottom) series.

Samsung and Sony up-scale the SD video (component input) way better than LG and Philips. Never tested Toshiba and Panasonic, so I can't tell.

I'd avoid nonames in the business (TCL, Aconatic,...) just for the sake of not knowing the quality of product and same cost as recognized brands.

Central Power Buy offers something called 3 Plus - it's an extended warranty to 3 years and includes some insurance against accidentally dropping the thing, damage from fire and electric shocks. It costs 6% of the price and is well worth the investment.

Most LCD TVs come with 1-2 year warranty from manufacturer.

I'm not a big fan of Samsung in general, but need to admit that the picture quality on their panels is vastly superior to other manufacturers (ok, on par with new Sony Bravia models) for the same price as more milky looking competitors, and significantly cheaper than Sony.

On the plasma side, the only plasmas I've ever really enjoyed (but gotten rid off because of the burn-in effect, making me paranoid about pressing pause button or watching image with black bars) was Pioneer. They're truly excellent, but waaaaaay too expensive.

LG's plasmas and LCDs have a "time machine" hard disk recorders built in, which is nice, but not worth the effort, considering how cheap the DVD recorders with hard disk drives have become - and they can burn things to DVDs later. The no "time machine" 42" model of LG LCD costs 49,900. It's great for HD, and RF (antenna) SD TV, but awful in upscaling component video, as well as too contrasty on AV input. While image colors are nowhere near the Samsung's intensity, the picture is decent (if you don't have a cow effect on it like what I had on all they had replaced, and finally refunded). Not very recommended if you want to use it for digital UBC - it'll look blocky, awful, even with MPEG noise reduction set to maximum.

Just one last negative note on Samsung and Sony - remote controls of both of them are not particularly responsive. You need to hold button for a couple of seconds sometimes for anything to happen. LG and Pioneer were much better in that arena.

Make that last 2 things... while LG produces blocky image with lousy MPEG input (like UBC, which isn't good enough for anything bigger than 21" CRT), Sony and Samsung cause a trail of objects, which can be annoying on moving scenes. Seems they take several frames to calculate the shapes of objects or something, sometimes making the picture distorted. Overall it still looks better than LG though.

If you're after LG, you may wish to consider analogue UBC and upscaling DVD player with HDMI output.

Great and informative post, THANK YOU!!

[nikster]

And to Nikster - Sony's newest Bravia range is actually repackaged Samsung, so no wonder the picture quality is the same and they both have the same flaws (like remote control responsiveness, for example). The older Bravia series had very low contrast, even nonames were better. But it did scale SD image better than others. The worst in terms of contrast is Toshiba at the moment (800:1).

Hmm... I have not noticed any remote control lag. I didn't specifically look for it, but I can guarantee you that its not "several seconds" of delay 'cause that would have driven me mad. Perhaps they fixed it in the latest iteration? Seems like it would be easy to fix, remote controls are not exactly rocket science...

Come to think of it I tend to change volume all the time so I am pretty sure there's zero lag with volume. Will check tomorrow (mrs asleep and does not appreciate late night experiments with the TV.. )

[nikster]

tomaz - I think LCD screens are a bit of a moving target, sort of like computer technology. They advance by leaps and bounds and what may be true about a brand at any given time might not be true once the next models come out.

I agree with most of what you said - plasmas are certainly on the way out, and they will be missed for their excellent SD image. They get such a good picture because the low resolution fits SD better, and because plasma pixels have a more analogue feel to them than LCDs.

Minor disagreements:

- Samsung remote is not slow. Maybe they fixed that? I notice no lag. It has a 1-2 second lag turning on, but after that everything works as expected.

- The newest LG 32" LCD has excellent SD (component) reproduction. I remember because LG were the only ones in the mall who had hooked their TVs up to a proper DVD player with component cables and I was just blown away by the picture. I thought it was some sort of HD content, but I checked the cables and DVD player, it was just a standard DVD. Cost 26K

- Didn't notice any amalog/digital conversion artifacts on my Samsung. I see many digital artifacts with the lower grade DVDs I have, but my originals have no artifacts. It looks incredible, I never knew there's so much detail on a plain old DVD.

- (not a correction) The Sonys that have great picture quality cost 50K baht +

[carlosacao]

Hi Phil,

Just a quick question, do you know if a HDTV from USA will work in Thailand? Im not sure about the compatibility of the HDTV systems of the 2 countries. I do know about the difference between PAL and NTSC.

Thanks

Carlosa

LCD:

Positive: excellent sharpness, very bright, no reflection in screen, doesn't wear out (except the lamps - can be replaced fairly cheap), square pixels, low power consumption, fairly light (apart from LG/Philips, around 20kg for 40"), no burn-in effect problem

Negative: contrast issues; as it blocks light, it has problems producing really deep black; usually lousy speakers, can get dead pixels like LCD screens, pricier than plasma in large sizes, sensitive to touch (can produce dead pixels), lousier view-angle (depends on model, most better models now 178 degree horizontally viewable, but vertically it still leaves a lot to be desired)

Good for: HD TV, SD TV, home theater, computer display, game console display

Plasma:

Positive: better colors, smoother picture, deeper black color (better contrast), cheaper compared to LCD on big sizes, better viewing angle (both horizontal as vertical)

Negative: heavy, plasma panel wears out with use, burn-in effect problem, many (most) 1024x768 resolution on 16:9 panel - stretches computer graphic (which isn't good to use anyway because of burn-in effect issue), unimpressive audio

Good for: SD TV, HD TV, home theater

My take (after a couple of plasmas an finally on 2nd LCD): Plasma is on the way out. It's too heavy, reflection on the screen does become irritating when watching dark scenes of a movie, though colors look richer. As with CRT and CRT back projection, the panel suffers from burn-in effect (high contrast in certain area of the screen will gradually wear out that area, appearing darker). It's useless as a computer or game device's monitor, for the same issue. It does (especially 480p panels) produce better looking image for SD video.

LCD on the other hand has higher resolution and sharper image, no reflection, no burn-in effect, making it perfect for wider area of usage. Some panels have uneven lighting (you may notice slightly lighter patches on the screen) which can be irritating. While real contrast is lower than plasma panels, dynamic contrast (having several steps of lamp brightness, dynamically adjusted according to the brightness of the image on the screen) counters that a bit, but plasma still looks somewhat more pleasant to the eyes... like a crude cheap digital camera snap (LCD) versus a smooth image out of a D-SLR camera.

LCD TVs as well as plasmas are getting cheaper. I believe you should take a 720p panel regardless, if you expect to use it more than a couple of years. The HD camcorders and bluray/HD-DVD player prices are dropping monthly, and you wouldn't want to be stuck with display not supporting their resolution in a couple of years, when they basically cost the same.

Philips and LG use the same panels. Sony and Samsung are also basically the same TVs in different boxes (hence not worth paying for Sony). Panasonic and Toshiba also share manufacturing plant.

My recommendation (after doing significant research and even buying a couple) would be to go for a Samsung LCD TV with a 5000:1 or higher dynamic contrast. There's visible difference between 3000:1 and 5000:1 dynamic contrast ratio models, but none noticeable between 5000 and 6000, and 6000 and 8000, which is what the latest R8 series have.

You should be able to get 26" for below 20k baht, 32" for below 30k and 40" between 40 and 50k. On R7/R8 series you're basically paying extra for the triangular or oval design, but specs are the same as M (flat bottom) series.

Samsung and Sony up-scale the SD video (component input) way better than LG and Philips. Never tested Toshiba and Panasonic, so I can't tell.

I'd avoid nonames in the business (TCL, Aconatic,...) just for the sake of not knowing the quality of product and same cost as recognized brands.

Central Power Buy offers something called 3 Plus - it's an extended warranty to 3 years and includes some insurance against accidentally dropping the thing, damage from fire and electric shocks. It costs 6% of the price and is well worth the investment.

Most LCD TVs come with 1-2 year warranty from manufacturer.

I'm not a big fan of Samsung in general, but need to admit that the picture quality on their panels is vastly superior to other manufacturers (ok, on par with new Sony Bravia models) for the same price as more milky looking competitors, and significantly cheaper than Sony.

On the plasma side, the only plasmas I've ever really enjoyed (but gotten rid off because of the burn-in effect, making me paranoid about pressing pause button or watching image with black bars) was Pioneer. They're truly excellent, but waaaaaay too expensive.

LG's plasmas and LCDs have a "time machine" hard disk recorders built in, which is nice, but not worth the effort, considering how cheap the DVD recorders with hard disk drives have become - and they can burn things to DVDs later. The no "time machine" 42" model of LG LCD costs 49,900. It's great for HD, and RF (antenna) SD TV, but awful in upscaling component video, as well as too contrasty on AV input. While image colors are nowhere near the Samsung's intensity, the picture is decent (if you don't have a cow effect on it like what I had on all they had replaced, and finally refunded). Not very recommended if you want to use it for digital UBC - it'll look blocky, awful, even with MPEG noise reduction set to maximum.

Just one last negative note on Samsung and Sony - remote controls of both of them are not particularly responsive. You need to hold button for a couple of seconds sometimes for anything to happen. LG and Pioneer were much better in that arena.

Make that last 2 things... while LG produces blocky image with lousy MPEG input (like UBC, which isn't good enough for anything bigger than 21" CRT), Sony and Samsung cause a trail of objects, which can be annoying on moving scenes. Seems they take several frames to calculate the shapes of objects or something, sometimes making the picture distorted. Overall it still looks better than LG though.

If you're after LG, you may wish to consider analogue UBC and upscaling DVD player with HDMI output.

Great and informative post, THANK YOU!!

[carlosacao]

Hi Nikster,

Just a quick question, do you know if a HDTV from USA will work in Thailand? Im not sure about the compatibility of the HDTV systems of the 2 countries. I do know about the difference between PAL and NTSC.

Thanks

Carlosa

tomaz - I think LCD screens are a bit of a moving target, sort of like computer technology. They advance by leaps and bounds and what may be true about a brand at any given time might not be true once the next models come out.

I agree with most of what you said - plasmas are certainly on the way out, and they will be missed for their excellent SD image. They get such a good picture because the low resolution fits SD better, and because plasma pixels have a more analogue feel to them than LCDs.

Minor disagreements:

- Samsung remote is not slow. Maybe they fixed that? I notice no lag. It has a 1-2 second lag turning on, but after that everything works as expected.

- The newest LG 32" LCD has excellent SD (component) reproduction. I remember because LG were the only ones in the mall who had hooked their TVs up to a proper DVD player with component cables and I was just blown away by the picture. I thought it was some sort of HD content, but I checked the cables and DVD player, it was just a standard DVD. Cost 26K

- Didn't notice any amalog/digital conversion artifacts on my Samsung. I see many digital artifacts with the lower grade DVDs I have, but my originals have no artifacts. It looks incredible, I never knew there's so much detail on a plain old DVD.

- (not a correction) The Sonys that have great picture quality cost 50K baht +

[sumrit]

As with CRT and CRT back projection, the panel suffers from burn-in effect (high contrast in certain area of the screen will gradually wear out that area, appearing darker).

Unlike CRT's and back projection that use CRT's the image burn on a Plasma is not permanent and can be removed. Some plasma sets have a facility to do this built in to the customer menu although, especially if the image burn is particularly bad, the procedure must be repeated several times to be successful. Having said that I agree with you that Plasma TV's are on the way out and LCD TV's are improving 'daily'. There's also an organic 'system' that sounds impressive. I retired as a TV engineer two years ago so I haven't had much information since then but was told recently that Sony had started to put it into production. One other point, I'm surprised you didn't mention Sharp. They were always world leaders in LCD technology.

[Phil Conners]

Hi Phil,

Just a quick question, do you know if a HDTV from USA will work in Thailand? Im not sure about the compatibility of the HDTV systems of the 2 countries. I do know about the difference between PAL and NTSC.

Thanks

Carlosa

You probably meant to ask tomazbodner but it's a simple question that even I can answer: No, your USA NTSC TV will not work in Thailand. PAL is used here. In fact, afaik only USA uses NTSC now, hopelessly behind the times just like with cellular phones.

[Simmo]

There's also an organic 'system' that sounds impressive. I retired as a TV engineer two years ago so I haven't had much information since then but was told recently that Sony had started to put it into production.

You're thinking of OLED

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oled

Lifetime problems and a patent minefield - won't be showing up anytiime soon.

[nikster]

Hi Phil,

Just a quick question, do you know if a HDTV from USA will work in Thailand? Im not sure about the compatibility of the HDTV systems of the 2 countries. I do know about the difference between PAL and NTSC.

Thanks

Carlosa

You probably meant to ask tomazbodner but it's a simple question that even I can answer: No, your USA NTSC TV will not work in Thailand. PAL is used here. In fact, afaik only USA uses NTSC now, hopelessly behind the times just like with cellular phones.

AFAIK the multiple HDTV standards are actual standards and not different in different parts of the world. 720p, 1080p, 1080i - all standardized.

For standard definition TV (SD) there is the PAL vs NTSC issue, though I know from old analog TV sets that they often supported both standards. I would imagine LCD panels can do the same?!

We had a modded PlayStation back in Europe and I remember that it would play U.S. games in NTSC + the TV would switch into NTSC mode automatically. Some games were *much* faster in NTSC because the frame rate was somehow tied to the TV frame rate, so PAL would have 50 Hz and NTSC 60. Which made the PAL based games dead slow... Tekken was like in slow motion... I wouldn't call NTSC a worse standard - fewer lines but better refresh rate.

Check your TV specs to see if it can do both PAL and NTSC.

I imagine it would be pretty inconvenient with the power conversion 220V - 110V unless your TV is dual voltage capable.

[Phil Conners]

I think PAL/NTSC is the receiver so if you're only going to use it with a computer/DVD player there probably isn't much difference. Nikster got a more important point, if it's US it's probably 110 VAC which isn't available here. You can get a step-up transformer but you'd have to have a lot of ugly and heat producing transformers standing around your condo helping your with your aircon bill ....

[solo siam]

I think PAL/NTSC is the receiver so if you're only going to use it with a computer/DVD player there probably isn't much difference. Nikster got a more important point, if it's US it's probably 110 VAC which isn't available here. You can get a step-up transformer but you'd have to have a lot of ugly and heat producing transformers standing around your condo helping your with your aircon bill ....

If its 220v then you could hook it up to a HTPC and it wouldn't matter if the TV was only NTSC.

[sumrit]

There's also an organic 'system' that sounds impressive. I retired as a TV engineer two years ago so I haven't had much information since then but was told recently that Sony had started to put it into production.

You're thinking of OLED

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oled

Lifetime problems and a patent minefield - won't be showing up anytiime soon.

This was part of the article I had read. It was in one of the UK on line newspapers.

In the race for ever thinner displays for TVs, cell phones and other gadgets, Sony may have developed one to beat them all - a razor-thin display that bends like paper while showing full-colour video.

Sony Corporation posted video of the new 2.5 inch display on its' web page.

In the video, a hand squeezes the 0.3 millimetre (0.01 inch)-thick display, which shows color video of a bicyclist stuntman, a picturesque lake and other images.

Sony will present the research and video at an academic symposium in Long Beach, California, for the Society for Information Display this week, the Japanese electronics and entertainment company said.

The display combines Sony's organic thin film transistor, or TFT, technology, which is required to make flexible displays, with another kind of technology called organic electroluminescent display, it said.

[DragonQuest]

I will buying a playstation 3, which is the best tv out there? i was thinking of a sony bravia full HD, but they dont make the full-hd on a 32 inch, but they said it will be comming out soon, should i wait?

[Simmo]

Interesting .. this thread is now the 4th hit in google on a search for "lcd tv thailand".

I did a good hunt around stores in bkk on the weekend for the best prices on lcd tv's and these are the best deals I came up with.

Samsung 32" 32S81B 29,900 (2 HDMI ports)

LG 37" 37LC7R 42,900

LG 42" 42LC2R 49,900

Once the 37" inch sets go under 40,000 I'll be in .

[Phil Conners]

And once the 42" sets go under 40K I'll join you

[PETERTHEEATER]

Hi!

I'm on the lookout for a new LCD/Plasma HD ready TV. Can anyone recommend which shops in Bangkok offer the best bargains? Also, for something around the 30,000 Baht mark, does anyone have any make/model recommendations?

Thanks!

Jez

The Bangkok Post of 29 May had a front page ad for a Tatung 32 inch LCD TV 'Onyx' at 19,900 available at Power Buy and Home Pro. Take a look if money is tight.

[sumrit]

Hi!

I'm on the lookout for a new LCD/Plasma HD ready TV. Can anyone recommend which shops in Bangkok offer the best bargains? Also, for something around the 30,000 Baht mark, does anyone have any make/model recommendations?

Thanks!

Jez

The Bangkok Post of 29 May had a front page ad for a Tatung 32 inch LCD TV 'Onyx' at 19,900 available at Power Buy and Home Pro. Take a look if money is tight.

I used to work for Tatung in the UK several years ago (in fact thats how I first got involved with Thailand, they also have a factory here in Chonburi). They also make both LCD and Plasma TV's for Hitachi and Panasonic. A Thai friend of mine who still works there says that the cost of LCD panels are going to drop even further over the next year or so, so shop prices should come down even more as well.