Surveying the Newest Crop of Flat-Screen Displays

[Gregg Lengling]

Our search for the best of an ever-expanding breed leads us to an unlikely winner.
By Shoshana Berger, April 21, 2003

Of all the eye candy I saw at the Consumer Electronics Show earlier this year, the image that still burns brightest in my retinas is of the wall-to-wall flat-screen displays. Nearly every major electronics maker had lined its booth with a bank of plasma, HDTV, and LCD TVs flashing hair-raisingly lifelike pictures.

Some of those displays started arriving in stores last month. But since even this gizmo girl has little sense of their differences, I thought I'd survey a few models for the best in show: the Sharp Aquos 37-inch LCD TV, and two 42-inch plasma models from Fujitsu (one HDTV-compatible, one not). Each of them sports a sliver-thin, light metallic chassis. The Fujitsu packages ship with only the monitor (no speakers or mount); the Sharp comes with detachable speakers and a stand.


The Fujitsu P42HCA11 Plasmavision monitor can display the output from virtually any video source, and it's compatible with HDTV and DTV signals as well as the video output from a computer. A Discovery Channel-style HDTV feed about insects shows so vividly that it induces goose bumps. The 1,024 by 1,024 resolution screen is virtually free of motion artifacts at full-screen display. But the Fujitsu P42VCA21 model -- which, at 852 by 480 pixels, is not able to accept the full resolution of an HDTV signal -- is almost indistinguishable from its pricier cousin in terms of picture quality. Each model features a built-in 10- by 10-watt stereo amplifier plus external speaker outputs.


Though a Sharp plasma screen showed favorably next to the two Fujitsus, the word on the street is that the company is now focusing on LCD TVs. The new 37-inch in the Aquos line is certainly a sexy consumer-market play, with its sculptural stand and detachable speakers. A separate AVC box houses all the terminal connections (for video and computer input), so there's no wire clutter when the screen is wall-mounted. But, watching a DVD, I was disappointed by the color reproduction, and even at its crispest resolution settings (i.e., less than full-screen), the 1,366 by 768 resolution didn't stand up to the picture provided by the plasma screens. To be fair, I didn't watch an HDTV feed on the Sharp LCD TV (which requires a decoder box), but since it costs as much as a 5-inch-larger, HDTV-ready Fujitsu model, I expected to be wowed.


Of course, I cross-examined only the newest of an ever-breeding pack. But for my money, the lower-resolution 42-inch Fujitsu is the clear pick in terms of performance. And since it costs $3,000 less than the other two, it's like cashing in on the underdog.


Fujitsu Plasmavision 42-inch SlimScreens P42HCA11: $7,999; P42VCA21: $4,999; //www.plasmavision.com. Sharp Aquos 37-inch LCD TV: $7,999.95; //www.sharpelectronics.com.