When you want the best quality in TV, high-end plasmas are the only way to go. Not to rain on LCD’s parade, but try watching a top-end LCD TV in a dark room – ugly gray pixels right on the screen. Then, try a plasma in the same conditions. Hell, make it pitch black even.

The best plasma TVs pretty much leave competing LCD units in the dust. Hell, they leave competing plasma units in the dust.

Pioneer Kuro PDP-LX6090

Super expensive and retailing up to twice the price of many similarly-sized plasma units, you pay premium for the best that television technology has to offer. This is the 9th generation of plasma TVs from Pioneer and, if this is any indication, the 10th should be nothing short of heaven. The only TV to successfully allow complete control in luminance of every single pixel in its 1920 x 1080 resolution. Ghosting continues to be noticeable (in smaller forms) for all TVs in existence with white texts on black backgrounds except this model. Witness white that’s really white, perhaps for the first time in your viewing life.

This 60-inch plasma is the best television in the world – regardless of size, price and other features.

Panasonic TH-58PZ700B

While not as good as Pioneer’s 60-incher LX6090, it retails at close to half its price and is a seriously powerful TV. Sporting an odd 58-inch configuration, Panasonic’s best plasma to date brings HD realism in full stunning glory by rendering colors (whether heavily saturated shades or subtle hues) powerfully. It falls a tad short in delivering true, honest-to-goodness black but its great performance elsewhere more than makes up for the lack. The built-in audio is probably the best available in any plasma unit.

Samsung PS-63P76FD

With a minimalist tone and unassuming features, Samsung’s 63-inch panel offers deceptively powerful performance, easily outdoing many of its rivals. Sure, you can find units that may slightly edge this model but none for the same price to performance ratio. Quite possibly the best Plasma TV purchase available.