gas plasma display screens pricelist
A plasma display panel (PDP) is a type of flat panel display that uses small cells containing plasma: ionized gas that responds to electric fields. Plasma televisions were the first large (over 32 inches diagonal) flat panel displays to be released to the public.
Until about 2007, plasma displays were commonly used in large televisions (30 inches (76 cm) and larger). By 2013, they had lost nearly all market share due to competition from low-cost LCDs and more expensive but high-contrast OLED flat-panel displays. Manufacturing of plasma displays for the United States retail market ended in 2014,
Plasma displays are bright (1,000 lux or higher for the display module), have a wide color gamut, and can be produced in fairly large sizes—up to 3.8 metres (150 in) diagonally. They had a very low luminance "dark-room" black level compared with the lighter grey of the unilluminated parts of an LCD screen. (As plasma panels are locally lit and do not require a back light, blacks are blacker on plasma and grayer on LCD"s.)LED-backlit LCD televisions have been developed to reduce this distinction. The display panel itself is about 6 cm (2.4 in) thick, generally allowing the device"s total thickness (including electronics) to be less than 10 cm (3.9 in). Power consumption varies greatly with picture content, with bright scenes drawing significantly more power than darker ones – this is also true for CRTs as well as modern LCDs where LED backlight brightness is adjusted dynamically. The plasma that illuminates the screen can reach a temperature of at least 1200 °C (2200 °F). Typical power consumption is 400 watts for a 127 cm (50 in) screen. Most screens are set to "vivid" mode by default in the factory (which maximizes the brightness and raises the contrast so the image on the screen looks good under the extremely bright lights that are common in big box stores), which draws at least twice the power (around 500–700 watts) of a "home" setting of less extreme brightness.
Plasma screens are made out of glass, which may result in glare on the screen from nearby light sources. Plasma display panels cannot be economically manufactured in screen sizes smaller than 82 centimetres (32 in).enhanced-definition televisions (EDTV) this small, even fewer have made 32 inch plasma HDTVs. With the trend toward large-screen television technology, the 32 inch screen size is rapidly disappearing. Though considered bulky and thick compared with their LCD counterparts, some sets such as Panasonic"s Z1 and Samsung"s B860 series are as slim as 2.5 cm (1 in) thick making them comparable to LCDs in this respect.
Wider viewing angles than those of LCD; images do not suffer from degradation at less than straight ahead angles like LCDs. LCDs using IPS technology have the widest angles, but they do not equal the range of plasma primarily due to "IPS glow", a generally whitish haze that appears due to the nature of the IPS pixel design.
Less visible motion blur, thanks in large part to very high refresh rates and a faster response time, contributing to superior performance when displaying content with significant amounts of rapid motion such as auto racing, hockey, baseball, etc.
Earlier generation displays were more susceptible to screen burn-in and image retention. Recent models have a pixel orbiter that moves the entire picture slower than is noticeable to the human eye, which reduces the effect of burn-in but does not prevent it.
Due to the bistable nature of the color and intensity generating method, some people will notice that plasma displays have a shimmering or flickering effect with a number of hues, intensities and dither patterns.
Earlier generation displays (circa 2006 and prior) had phosphors that lost luminosity over time, resulting in gradual decline of absolute image brightness. Newer models have advertised lifespans exceeding 100,000 hours (11 years), far longer than older CRTs.
Uses more electrical power, on average, than an LCD TV using a LED backlight. Older CCFL backlights for LCD panels used quite a bit more power, and older plasma TVs used quite a bit more power than recent models.
Fixed-pixel displays such as plasma TVs scale the video image of each incoming signal to the native resolution of the display panel. The most common native resolutions for plasma display panels are 852×480 (EDTV), 1,366×768 and 1920×1080 (HDTV). As a result, picture quality varies depending on the performance of the video scaling processor and the upscaling and downscaling algorithms used by each display manufacturer.
Early plasma televisions were enhanced-definition (ED) with a native resolution of 840×480 (discontinued) or 852×480 and down-scaled their incoming high-definition video signals to match their native display resolutions.
The following ED resolutions were common prior to the introduction of HD displays, but have long been phased out in favor of HD displays, as well as because the overall pixel count in ED displays is lower than the pixel count on SD PAL displays (852×480 vs 720×576, respectively).
Early high-definition (HD) plasma displays had a resolution of 1024x1024 and were alternate lighting of surfaces (ALiS) panels made by Fujitsu and Hitachi.
Later HDTV plasma televisions usually have a resolution of 1,024×768 found on many 42 inch plasma screens, 1280×768 and 1,366×768 found on 50 in, 60 in, and 65 in plasma screens, or 1920×1080 found on plasma screen sizes from 42 inch to 103 inch. These displays are usually progressive displays, with non-square pixels, and will up-scale and de-interlace their incoming standard-definition signals to match their native display resolutions. 1024×768 resolution requires that 720p content be downscaled in one direction and upscaled in the other.
Ionized gases such as the ones shown here are confined to millions of tiny individual compartments across the face of a plasma display, to collectively form a visual image.
A panel of a plasma display typically comprises millions of tiny compartments in between two panels of glass. These compartments, or "bulbs" or "cells", hold a mixture of noble gases and a minuscule amount of another gas (e.g., mercury vapor). Just as in the fluorescent lamps over an office desk, when a high voltage is applied across the cell, the gas in the cells forms a plasma. With flow of electricity (electrons), some of the electrons strike mercury particles as the electrons move through the plasma, momentarily increasing the energy level of the atom until the excess energy is shed. Mercury sheds the energy as ultraviolet (UV) photons. The UV photons then strike phosphor that is painted on the inside of the cell. When the UV photon strikes a phosphor molecule, it momentarily raises the energy level of an outer orbit electron in the phosphor molecule, moving the electron from a stable to an unstable state; the electron then sheds the excess energy as a photon at a lower energy level than UV light; the lower energy photons are mostly in the infrared range but about 40% are in the visible light range. Thus the input energy is converted to mostly infrared but also as visible light. The screen heats up to between 30 and 41 °C (86 and 106 °F) during operation. Depending on the phosphors used, different colors of visible light can be achieved. Each pixel in a plasma display is made up of three cells comprising the primary colors of visible light. Varying the voltage of the signals to the cells thus allows different perceived colors.
The long electrodes are stripes of electrically conducting material that also lies between the glass plates in front of and behind the cells. The "address electrodes" sit behind the cells, along the rear glass plate, and can be opaque. The transparent display electrodes are mounted in front of the cell, along the front glass plate. As can be seen in the illustration, the electrodes are covered by an insulating protective layer.
Control circuitry charges the electrodes that cross paths at a cell, creating a voltage difference between front and back. Some of the atoms in the gas of a cell then lose electrons and become ionized, which creates an electrically conducting plasma of atoms, free electrons, and ions. The collisions of the flowing electrons in the plasma with the inert gas atoms leads to light emission; such light-emitting plasmas are known as glow discharges.
Relative spectral power of red, green and blue phosphors of a common plasma display. The units of spectral power are simply raw sensor values (with a linear response at specific wavelengths).
In a monochrome plasma panel, the gas is mostly neon, and the color is the characteristic orange of a neon-filled lamp (or sign). Once a glow discharge has been initiated in a cell, it can be maintained by applying a low-level voltage between all the horizontal and vertical electrodes–even after the ionizing voltage is removed. To erase a cell all voltage is removed from a pair of electrodes. This type of panel has inherent memory. A small amount of nitrogen is added to the neon to increase hysteresis.phosphor. The ultraviolet photons emitted by the plasma excite these phosphors, which give off visible light with colors determined by the phosphor materials. This aspect is comparable to fluorescent lamps and to the neon signs that use colored phosphors.
Every pixel is made up of three separate subpixel cells, each with different colored phosphors. One subpixel has a red light phosphor, one subpixel has a green light phosphor and one subpixel has a blue light phosphor. These colors blend together to create the overall color of the pixel, the same as a triad of a shadow mask CRT or color LCD. Plasma panels use pulse-width modulation (PWM) to control brightness: by varying the pulses of current flowing through the different cells thousands of times per second, the control system can increase or decrease the intensity of each subpixel color to create billions of different combinations of red, green and blue. In this way, the control system can produce most of the visible colors. Plasma displays use the same phosphors as CRTs, which accounts for the extremely accurate color reproduction when viewing television or computer video images (which use an RGB color system designed for CRT displays).
Plasma displays are different from liquid crystal displays (LCDs), another lightweight flat-screen display using very different technology. LCDs may use one or two large fluorescent lamps as a backlight source, but the different colors are controlled by LCD units, which in effect behave as gates that allow or block light through red, green, or blue filters on the front of the LCD panel.
To produce light, the cells need to be driven at a relatively high voltage (~300 volts) and the pressure of the gases inside the cell needs to be low (~500 torr).
Contrast ratio is the difference between the brightest and darkest parts of an image, measured in discrete steps, at any given moment. Generally, the higher the contrast ratio, the more realistic the image is (though the "realism" of an image depends on many factors including color accuracy, luminance linearity, and spatial linearity). Contrast ratios for plasma displays are often advertised as high as 5,000,000:1.organic light-emitting diode. Although there are no industry-wide guidelines for reporting contrast ratio, most manufacturers follow either the ANSI standard or perform a full-on-full-off test. The ANSI standard uses a checkered test pattern whereby the darkest blacks and the lightest whites are simultaneously measured, yielding the most accurate "real-world" ratings. In contrast, a full-on-full-off test measures the ratio using a pure black screen and a pure white screen, which gives higher values but does not represent a typical viewing scenario. Some displays, using many different technologies, have some "leakage" of light, through either optical or electronic means, from lit pixels to adjacent pixels so that dark pixels that are near bright ones appear less dark than they do during a full-off display. Manufacturers can further artificially improve the reported contrast ratio by increasing the contrast and brightness settings to achieve the highest test values. However, a contrast ratio generated by this method is misleading, as content would be essentially unwatchable at such settings.
Each cell on a plasma display must be precharged before it is lit, otherwise the cell would not respond quickly enough. Precharging normally increases power consumption, so energy recovery mechanisms may be in place to avoid an increase in power consumption.LED illumination can automatically reduce the backlighting on darker scenes, though this method cannot be used in high-contrast scenes, leaving some light showing from black parts of an image with bright parts, such as (at the extreme) a solid black screen with one fine intense bright line. This is called a "halo" effect which has been minimized on newer LED-backlit LCDs with local dimming. Edgelit models cannot compete with this as the light is reflected via a light guide to distribute the light behind the panel.
Image burn-in occurs on CRTs and plasma panels when the same picture is displayed for long periods. This causes the phosphors to overheat, losing some of their luminosity and producing a "shadow" image that is visible with the power off. Burn-in is especially a problem on plasma panels because they run hotter than CRTs. Early plasma televisions were plagued by burn-in, making it impossible to use video games or anything else that displayed static images.
Plasma displays also exhibit another image retention issue which is sometimes confused with screen burn-in damage. In this mode, when a group of pixels are run at high brightness (when displaying white, for example) for an extended period, a charge build-up in the pixel structure occurs and a ghost image can be seen. However, unlike burn-in, this charge build-up is transient and self-corrects after the image condition that caused the effect has been removed and a long enough period has passed (with the display either off or on).
Plasma manufacturers have tried various ways of reducing burn-in such as using gray pillarboxes, pixel orbiters and image washing routines, but none to date have eliminated the problem and all plasma manufacturers continue to exclude burn-in from their warranties.
The first practical plasma video display was co-invented in 1964 at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign by Donald Bitzer, H. Gene Slottow, and graduate student Robert Willson for the PLATO computer system.Owens-Illinois were very popular in the early 1970s because they were rugged and needed neither memory nor circuitry to refresh the images.CRT displays cheaper than the $2500 USD 512 × 512 PLATO plasma displays.
Burroughs Corporation, a maker of adding machines and computers, developed the Panaplex display in the early 1970s. The Panaplex display, generically referred to as a gas-discharge or gas-plasma display,seven-segment display for use in adding machines. They became popular for their bright orange luminous look and found nearly ubiquitous use throughout the late 1970s and into the 1990s in cash registers, calculators, pinball machines, aircraft avionics such as radios, navigational instruments, and stormscopes; test equipment such as frequency counters and multimeters; and generally anything that previously used nixie tube or numitron displays with a high digit-count. These displays were eventually replaced by LEDs because of their low current-draw and module-flexibility, but are still found in some applications where their high brightness is desired, such as pinball machines and avionics.
In 1983, IBM introduced a 19-inch (48 cm) orange-on-black monochrome display (Model 3290 Information Panel) which was able to show up to four simultaneous IBM 3270 terminal sessions. By the end of the decade, orange monochrome plasma displays were used in a number of high-end AC-powered portable computers, such as the Compaq Portable 386 (1987) and the IBM P75 (1990). Plasma displays had a better contrast ratio, viewability angle, and less motion blur than the LCDs that were available at the time, and were used until the introduction of active-matrix color LCD displays in 1992.
Due to heavy competition from monochrome LCDs used in laptops and the high costs of plasma display technology, in 1987 IBM planned to shut down its factory in Kingston, New York, the largest plasma plant in the world, in favor of manufacturing mainframe computers, which would have left development to Japanese companies.Larry F. Weber, a University of Illinois ECE PhD (in plasma display research) and staff scientist working at CERL (home of the PLATO System), co-founded Plasmaco with Stephen Globus and IBM plant manager James Kehoe, and bought the plant from IBM for US$50,000. Weber stayed in Urbana as CTO until 1990, then moved to upstate New York to work at Plasmaco.
In 1992, Fujitsu introduced the world"s first 21-inch (53 cm) full-color display. It was based on technology created at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign and NHK Science & Technology Research Laboratories.
In 1994, Weber demonstrated a color plasma display at an industry convention in San Jose. Panasonic Corporation began a joint development project with Plasmaco, which led in 1996 to the purchase of Plasmaco, its color AC technology, and its American factory for US$26 million.
In 1995, Fujitsu introduced the first 42-inch (107 cm) plasma display panel;Philips introduced the first large commercially available flat-panel TV, using the Fujitsu panels. It was available at four Sears locations in the US for $14,999, including in-home installation. Pioneer also began selling plasma televisions that year, and other manufacturers followed. By the year 2000 prices had dropped to $10,000.
In the year 2000, the first 60-inch plasma display was developed by Plasmaco. Panasonic was also reported to have developed a process to make plasma displays using ordinary window glass instead of the much more expensive "high strain point" glass.
In late 2006, analysts noted that LCDs had overtaken plasmas, particularly in the 40-inch (100 cm) and above segment where plasma had previously gained market share.
Until the early 2000s, plasma displays were the most popular choice for HDTV flat panel display as they had many benefits over LCDs. Beyond plasma"s deeper blacks, increased contrast, faster response time, greater color spectrum, and wider viewing angle; they were also much bigger than LCDs, and it was believed that LCDs were suited only to smaller sized televisions. However, improvements in VLSI fabrication narrowed the technological gap. The increased size, lower weight, falling prices, and often lower electrical power consumption of LCDs made them competitive with plasma television sets.
Screen sizes have increased since the introduction of plasma displays. The largest plasma video display in the world at the 2008 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada, was a 150-inch (380 cm) unit manufactured by Matsushita Electric Industrial (Panasonic) standing 6 ft (180 cm) tall by 11 ft (330 cm) wide.
At the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Panasonic introduced their 152" 2160p 3D plasma. In 2010, Panasonic shipped 19.1 million plasma TV panels.
Panasonic was the biggest plasma display manufacturer until 2013, when it decided to discontinue plasma production. In the following months, Samsung and LG also ceased production of plasma sets. Panasonic, Samsung and LG were the last plasma manufacturers for the U.S. retail market.
Plasma televisions, along with LCD TVs, are a popular type of thin, flat panel TV display. Plasma TVs often have better contrast and black levels (intensity of the various shades of black), more accurate color reproduction and better viewing angles than LCD TVs. However, plasma TVs consume more power, can be heavier than LCD TVs and are still slightly susceptible to screen burn-in.
Plasma TVs generally display 720P or 1080P lines of high-definition vertical resolution, meaning each frame of video is fully displayed with either 720 or 1080 lines.
The smaller plasma TVs have a viewing diagonal of 42" ($600to $1,000) and 46" ($1,000to $1,300), such as the Panasonic VIERA X1 Series TC-P42X1 42" Plasma 720P HDTV at only $600or, for 1080P resolution, the Panasonic VIERA G10 Series TC-P42G10 42" for $900. The Panasonic VIERA G10 Series TC-P46G10 1080P TV is a 46" panel at around $1,100.
The next sizes up are 50" ($1,200-$1,800), 54" ($1,600to $2,400) and 58" ($1,800to $2,900) displays. The Samsung PN50B650 is a 50" 1080P display for around $1,200. For a 54" display, the Panasonic VIERA TC-P54G10 is $1,600. The Samsung PN58B650 58" plasma TV at $1,800has received good reviews.
In larger sizes, plasma TVs come in 60" ($1,800to $4,000), 63" ($2,400to $4,000) and 65" ($2,700to $5,000) diagonals. The 60" 1080P 600Hz LG 60PS60[1] is $1,800; the Samsung PN63B550 at 63" is around $2,700; and the 65" Panasonic VIERA TC-P65V10 costs around $4,000.
The technology behind plasma TVs consists of hundreds of thousands of tiny pixel cells containing gases which are held between two sheets of glass. When the gases in these cells are excited by electricity, the gas is turned into plasma and light is emitted, which in turn is translated into color and images.
In addition to the plasma TV panel itself, there should also be a remote control and batteries, a cleaning cloth and a ferrite core (used to shield cables from interference).
To wall mount the plasma TV, the cost can range from a few hundred for materials and a simple self-install to several hundred for more difficult setups requiring professional installation.
Panasonic[2] , Samsung[3] and LG[4] are the larger and more reliable manufacturers of plasma TVs. Store retailers such as Best Buy[5] and Sears[6] offer plasma TVs.
Our plasma tubes are made from durable clear borosilicate glass, filled with an inert gas mix that produces a bright blue ribbon of plasma. This blue fill is our brightest plasma display, eye-catching even in ambient light, and brilliantly glowing in the dark. The plasma follows a random, wavy path inside the tube, but also attracts to touch, much like a plasma globe. A mesmerizing lighting effect like no other, plasma tubes can be made in a variety of lengths and diameters to enhance any display setting.
Plasma tubes can also be tinted in a wide range of colors by applying a phosphor powder coating to the inside of the glass. When the gas is energized, the phosphor will also glow as the filament of light moves throughout the tube.
But now flat-panel plasma televisions are on sale at Circuit City and other mainstream television retailers nationwide. They are expensive _ $10,000 or more _ finicky and fragile. And the technology has not been perfected. Nonetheless, for a variety of reasons, they almost certainly represent the future of television, almost within reach.
Almost every TV manufacturer that showed products at the recent Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas had plasma monitors on display, even though the high prices ensure that they will remain a specialty product for now.
Direct-view sets cannot be manufactured to display full-resolution, high-definition images at anything even approaching an affordable price. It is simply too hard to squeeze 2-million picture elements, or pixels, onto the screen of even a 40-inch conventional set, the largest size possible. (An inviolable law rules the consumer electronics industry: No television set can ever be so large that it will not fit through an ordinary door.)
Flat-panel plasma sets can be as large as they need to be, and still be relatively unobtrusive, because they are extraordinarily thin. In fact, Pioneer Electronics is selling a 50-inch plasma monitor capable of displaying high-definition images. And it is less than 4 inches deep, about as wide as your hand, so it can easily fit through a door.
I tested the Pioneer and three other plasma sets, manufactured by Fujitsu, Philips Electronics and Runco International. All of them are wide-screen sets. And all but one are just monitors _ to function, a monitor has to be attached to a television tuner, such as a VCR. Their prices range from the startling to the absurd: $10,999 to $25,000.
At first glance, a plasma set is arresting. Anyone spying it invariably walks up and peers around the back to be sure more equipment isn"t built into the wall somehow. But there isn"t.
You can, in fact, hang them up, assuming you have selected a load-bearing wall. They weigh 80 to 100 pounds. Several recent magazine advertisements have shown them artfully displayed on a proud new owner"s wall like a piece of fine art, hung unobtrusively between what looks like a Cezanne and a Monet. Not shown, however, are the fat cables that feed the set, some nearly as plump as your arm. They dangle to the floor.
But that is not to say there are no problems. It turns out that the plasma process is extraordinarily inefficient. As a result, plasma displays are dimmer than conventional television sets, which means plasma displays cannot render the color black.
Televisions, of course, cannot actually project black, which is simply the absence of light. A television screen portrays the black portions of a picture by projecting no light. And we see black because television screens are tinted that color. When no light is coming through, you are looking at black glass.
Direct-view sets are generally as bright as torches so the picture is strong, even when projected through black-tinted glass. But plasma sets are so inefficient that the picture would be too dim to watch if it had to pass through black-tinted glass. As a result, the darkest images most plasma sets can render are a dark gray. That gives the picture a noticeably washed-out look.
Now, however, Fujitsu is selling a second-generation model with a 42-inch screen at half the price _ $10,999 _ and the picture is much improved. This one can render a very dark gray, so the problem is much less obtrusive. This is among the least expensive plasma sets using current technology, and one of the best.
Philips licensed Fujitsu"s plasma technology and used it to produce its own plasma set, called the Flat TV. It is heavily advertised in national magazines and costs $15,000, even though the Philips set produces a picture not quite as good as Fujitsu"s. But the Philips system includes its own television tuner, so there is no need to connect it to a VCR to receive television programing.
But plasma technology is evolving quickly. Each new entry is notably better, giving power to the idea that plasma displays will eventually become a mainstream product for consumers not interested in deciding between a new car and a new television. And the two latest entries in the market, from Runco and Pioneer, prove the point.
Runco, a high-end manufacturer of home-theater products, sells a 42-inch plasma monitor that is based on a plasma mechanism manufactured by the NEC Corp., the Japanese computer company. Brightness measurements show that it projects more light than any other plasma display on the market. That means it can come closer to portraying true black. This unit costs $13,995, partly because it comes with a nifty (and expensive) touch-screen remote control.
Finally comes the Cadillac of the category, Pioneer"s high-definition plasma display, so nicknamed because you could buy a Cadillac for the price of this television: $25,000. It is 50 inches wide, wider than any conventional direct-view television sold in the United States. Yet it is only about 4 inches deep.
The Pioneer monitor can display 983,040 pixels, nearly three times as many as a conventional television. That is just enough to allow it to qualify as a high-definition television. But a full-resolution HDTV can display more than 2-million pixels. As a result, when a high-definition signal is fed to this monitor, it looks quite nice but lacks the clarity and sparkle that makes a full-resolution signal look almost real.
But then, this is a brand-new product category. Researchers at several major consumer electronics companies are still trying to overcome the hurdles that will make plasma displays a mainstream product, so bumps along the way are not only understandable, but expected.
A plasma monitor is like a honeycomb sandwiched between two sheets of glass. Each cell in the honeycomb represents a pixel, or picture element, and holds a mixture of neon-xenon gas and a tiny bit of phosphorescent material in one of the three primary colors: red, green and blue.
A tiny, transparent electrode is attached to the front of each cell, and another to the back. When a charge is applied to these electrodes, it passes through the cell, exciting the gas so it enters a plasma state and begins emitting ultraviolet light. That excites the colored phosphorescent material, or phosphors, which then project light to create a picture.
A plasma computer display is a type of flat panel display that uses tiny cells filled with electrically charged ionized gases to produce images. This display technology is used in computer monitors, televisions, and even digital billboards.The plasma computer screens are generally available in large sizes ranging from 30 inches to 50 inches, but the actual specifications depend on the brand names. This article will tell you more about plasma computer displays, while we also took time to explain other types of monitors, as well.
A plasma monitor uses gas molecules to create images. The display is composed of many cells with pixels, each one filled with plasma. Their number and size determine the resolution and the overall picture quality.
Plasma monitors bring a high level of color detail to users. These characteristics make them ideal for professional users, particularly graphic artists or studio photographers, where accurate colors are important.
Many people are afraid of plasma monitors because they sound more complex than regular monitors, but the actual technology behind them is not that hard to grasp.
A plasma display is made up of millions of cells filled with a gas, or plasma-electrically conductive gas, which contains negatively charged ions and positively charged ions.
The monitor is one of the key components of a computer system. Also known as a display, it is the part of a computer system that produces images and text that can be seen by the user.
The first plasma monitor was invented by Hiram Slottow, Robert Willson, and Donald Bitzer of the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, in the 1960s, for education purposes.
Although this type of monitor was first patented in 1969 by its founders at the University of Illinois, it would take 10 years before the first commercial displays were introduced. Initially called "phosphor-based white displays,” these plasma monitors had slow refresh rates and poor-quality images.
The first commercially plasma monitors were produced in 1981 by SONY and were called the “PS-42”, with a display size of 42 inches. They began to compete commercially with CRT-based monitors and televisions.
Many electronics companies such as Samsung, Panasonic have ended the production of Plasma TVs and monitors. After the introduction of better technologies such as LCDs, LEDs, and OLEDs, plasma monitors and TVs will be a past technology.
The founders of the plasma monitor were Hiram Slottow, Robert Willson, and Donald Bitzer of the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, in the 1960s.
When choosing a plasma screen as a computer monitor, you need to be aware of the different features available on the market. Here are some of the more important features that you should consider when deciding to purchase a plasma monitor.
With the arrival of better monitor technologies, plasma monitors became the least priority, and if you walk into an electronics store these days, there are very few gas plasma display monitors on display.
The reason; many people have shifted to buying LCD, LED, and other flat-panel monitors due to their superior features. The disadvantages of a plasma system monitor are:
Plasma monitor picture quality is great because it has more pixels per inch than in cathode-ray tube or CRT displays. Its higher contrast ratio also translates to great images that are crisp, sharp, and detailed. Unfortunately, Plasmas and CRTs have a common problem with backlight bleeding, simply put, a leakage of light from the edges of the screen.
This is a very common question that people ask when they want to buy a plasma monitor or when they notice their prices are higher than usual. The answer depends on several factors, such as the features they come with, brand, and size. The larger and more features it comes with, the more you should expect to pay.The average price of plasma monitors ranges from $150 to $1000, depending on the brand, size, and features.
Energy consumption of plasma monitors refers to the amount of power consumed by these devices while they are in use, either for viewing a video or presenting graphics.
These types of monitorsconsume more electricity during operation than LEDs, LCDs, according to Energy Use Calculator. Here is a table that supports this. I have included LCD displays for comparison.
Most plasma monitors have a lifespan of 100,000 hours or 11 years of use. When you take great care of them, you can count on your plasma screen to last for years before needing any repairs or replacements.
Before you run right out and buy a plasma monitor, you’ll want to make sure it has the vital capabilities you need. Having done some research online, I consider these plasma monitors to be the best since they come with the right features.
Choosing the right plasma computer monitor for your computer is no easy task. There are so many different models, sizes, brands, etc., to choose from. That"s why I"ve created this section to help you easily find the right monitor.It’s important that you are able to identify these things in order to eliminate the risk of having buyer’s remorse. The following are just a few of the features that should be considered; Screen size, screen resolution, screen aspect ratio, connectivity type, speakers, response time, color depth or picture quality, power consumption or energy efficiency.
The most important feature of a plasma pc monitor is its display resolution. Resolution is the number of pixels in a display and determines image quality.
Screen size is also an important consideration. Think about how and where you"ll be using it—if you want something portable, 15 inches is probably the max. If you plan on using it for gaming or movies, bigger is better.It is worth noting that the majority of plasma pc monitors have big screens. A larger monitor will give you more viewing area and can make editing applications easier to use. It also allows you to see more of your work at the same time, which is nice if you have more than one window open or are reading various documents and texts simultaneously.
A monitor"s refresh rate is measured in Hz, or hertz - indicates the number of times in one second that the display can completely update itself to show new data. If you are planning on purchasing a plasma gaming monitor, I would recommend that you find one with a higher refresh rate, from 75Hz and upwards.
A plasma gaming monitor with a high refresh rate will help create smoother motion on the screen. A low refresh rate will cause distracting motion blur around moving objects or distort the image when playing games.
Most plasma monitors for sale come equipped with a variety of ports and jacks for connecting computer accessories to the monitor. Make sure that the display you choose comes with the ports that you need or will require.
Installing your Dell or Hitachi plasma display monitor should not be difficult. Just gather the tools needed and follow these steps, and your new pc monitor will be up and running in no time.
Step 2: Determine the area of the wall that you want to install your plasma monitor. Make sure the area that you have chosen does not have any water pipes or electrical wires in it.
Clearing a gas plasma monitor off dust, fingerprints and other contaminations is an important maintenance routine for your computer monitor.Cleaning your monitorat least once a month will help maintain clear visibility while using your computer.
If you have a plasma monitor that is no longer in use, one solution is to turn it into a TV. It would make a good TV since many of them have large screens. To achieve this, you would need a video cable such as an HDMI or DisplayPort and a cable TV box.
DisplayPort- it looks similar to HDMI but transmits more signals, or you can achieve higher bandwidth with it. It carries both digital and analog signals, supports high resolutions, sound and video.
Do you own a plasma emission monitor? You should know about common problems you might encounter with it, including flickers or stutters, dead or stuck pixels. I will also include their solutions in this section.
Screen burn-in is a discoloration on some areas of your plasma computer monitor. It shows the remnants of images displayed for an extended period. There are many factors that can cause screen burn-in, including the use of a static image on a monitor for a long period of time.
The image is burned into the monitor, which reduces the life expectancy of the monitor. Screen burn-in can only be prevented by not leaving the display showing the same image for extended periods.
Yes, plasma monitors are suitable for gaming. They have one of the highest contrast ratios, are available with high refresh rates, have large screens and wide viewing angles too.
These great specs have gamers who want to invest in plasma monitors. They also produce better quality images which are great for entertainment like watching sports, movies, and gaming. The best plasma screens support high resolutions such as 1680 x 1050 and 1920 x 1080, which provide sharp details of things.
Businesses are becoming busier and busier, and as such, they are beginning to look for certain products to make life easier. One of the main products that businesses require is a plasma monitor for use in business meetings.
LCD (liquid crystal display) monitors use liquid crystals to produce images on the screen, while plasma monitors use gas-filled cells to produce images.
Plasma screens, on the other hand, use tiny cells with gas that gets excited when electricity is passed through them. This, in turn, produces light which lights up the color pixels.
The average cost of a plasma TV in 2003 was $10,156. Back then, plasma TVs ranked fifth on the list of Top Digital Product Categories by value. Today, plasma TVs is number four on that list, though the average sales price has dropped 90 per cent to $1,030, according to the Canon Digital Life Index, compiled by GfK Retail & Technology.
It’s been a turbulent 10 years for the plasma TV category, with a multitude of major players entering and then exiting the category. With help from Current.com.au’s parent magazine, Appliance Retailer, editor Patrick Avenell looks back on A Decade of Plasma TVs.
“Despite the price, we are predicting a firm swing into retail, which already accounts for 50 per cent of our sales of Plasmavision” — Bill Gillett, Fujitsu.
“Styling and appearance are a key focus on these products. Consumers don’t understand the technology behind plasma, however, Plasma WEGA is a step forward in design and aesthetics” — Di Frugtniet, Sony.
“Not all plasma displays are equal. According to industry research, Hitachi claimed 18 per cent worldwide market share in plasma in 2002” — Michael Mannasz, Hitachi.
Plasma HDTVs create images using phosphors, tiny plasma containers placed between two sheets of glass. These emit ultraviolet light at colored spots of phosphor on the screen, which then glow to create the picture.
Plasma TVs tend to have deeper blacks, and stabler color over the screen"s breadth from a variety of angles, leading to smoother, more natural images than seen on LED-lit LCD screens. Plasma screens also show crisp, fast motion without blur or ghosting.
According to CNET, LED-lit LCD TVs are the brightest available. They are capable of 100 footlamberts, although this is bright enough to cause eye fatigue in a dark room. Plasmas are less bright, so they might be more difficult to see in a bright room, and will dim over time.
Plasma screens normally range from 42 inches to approximately 65 inches. Panasonic also offer some larger models, including a 152 inch TV. Plasma screens also weigh more than LED-lit LCD screens.
Plasma TVs are less energy efficient than LED-lit LCD TVs. According to Which magazine, a 42 inch screen LED-lit LCD TV will use an average of 64 watts, while an average 42 inch Plasma TV uses 195 watts.
According to PC World, users of Panasonic’s plasma TVs rate them highly reliable, with very few serious problems. In 2010, just 1 in 20 Panasonic users reported a major problem with their TVs. Older plasma TVs have a lifespan of 20,000 hours, although some newer TVs have up to 60,000 hours.
LED-lit LCD TVs are typically more expensive than Plasma TVs. For example, on Amazon.com a Panasonic LED-lit LCD 42 inch TV was listed for $900 while a Panasonic Plasma 42 inch TV costs $600.
LCD screen TVs are the most popular, followed by LED-backlit screens (which are also LCD screens, by the way). Plasma screens are less popular and more commonly available in larger sizes.1,274 LCD TVs
All major TV manufacturers sell LED-lit LCD TVs. Panasonic focuses its TV range on the Plasma TV, while other brands, such as LG and Samsung, only produce a few models, and some, such as Sony and Toshiba, no longer produce Plasma TVs at all.
The xenon and neon gas in a plasma television is contained in hundreds of thousands of tiny cells positioned between two plates of glass. Long electrodes are also sandwiched between the glass plates, on both sides of the cells. The address electrodes sit behind the cells, along the rear glass plate. The transparent display electrodes, which are surrounded by an insulating dielectric material and covered by a magnesium oxide protective layer, are mounted above the cell, along the front glass plate.
Both sets of electrodes extend across the entire screen. The display electrodes are arranged in horizontal rows along the screen and the address electrodes are arranged in vertical columns. As you can see in the diagram below, the vertical and horizontal electrodes form a basic grid.
To ionize the gas in a particular cell, the plasma display"s computer charges the electrodes that intersect at that cell. It does this thousands of times in a small fraction of a second, charging each cell in turn.
When the intersecting electrodes are charged (with a voltage difference between them), an electric current flows through the gas in the cell. As we saw in the last section, the current creates a rapid flow of charged particles, which stimulates the gas atoms to release ultraviolet photons.
The phosphors in a plasma display give off colored light when they are excited. Every pixel is made up of three separate subpixel cells, each with different colored phosphors. One subpixel has a red light phosphor, one subpixel has a green light phosphor and one subpixel has a blue light phosphor. These colors blend together to create the overall color of the pixel.
The main advantage of plasma display technology is that you can produce a very wide screen using extremely thin materials. And because each pixel is lit individually, the image is very bright and looks good from almost every angle. The image quality isn"t quite up to the standards of the best cathode ray tube sets, but it certainly meets most people"s expectations.
The biggest drawback of this technology has been the price. However, falling prices and advances in technology mean that the plasma display may soon edge out the old CRT sets.
Many of the first plasma displays on the market weren"t technically televisions, because they didn"t have TV tuners. The television tuner is the device that takes a television signal (the one coming from a cable wire, for example) and interprets it to create a video image.
Like LCD monitors, these plasma displays were just monitors that display a standard video signal. To watch television on them, you had to hook them up to a separate unit that has its own television tuner, such as a VCR. Today, most of the plasma-screen devices you can buy at electronics stores are TVs and have digital television tuners.
Although plasma displays have many advantages in providing a good viewing experience in dark places, it should also be mentioned that they are susceptible to the "scorch" effect of blurry spots that appear on the screen.
You may not know that LCD screens and LED screens are basically the same. This is because LCD screens use LEDs as light sources instead of traditional cold cathode fluorescent lamps (CCFLs).
LED displays are currently a favorite in the Digital Sginage world. As we mentioned earlier, they can be considered a hybrid of LCD technology, with new backlighting features, rather than classic fluorescent lamps, as they provide lighter contrast, deeper darkness, and more attractive colors.
Obviously, there doesn"t seem to be much of a difference between LED and OLED, but these new displays they are very thin and flexible. This is possible because each pixel is illuminated independently.
Fortunately for the end customer, LED display technology is still easier to obtain than the new OLED, although the latter is expected to drop in price.
Plasma, LCD, LED and OLED screens are different and have common elements. For example, they can provide more than 100.000 hours of operating time. Although it is difficult to compare them with each other, when each technology offers models with different characteristics and prices.
Fujitsu Ltd. makes some of the best flat panel televisions in the business. Its researchers helped pioneer the plasma display panel industry, and its factories have been cranking out units for at least a decade. In the U.S., the company"s subsidiary backs its plasma TVs with the best warranty in the business. But it won"t honor the warranty on any units sold over the Internet.
No doubt, Fujitsu has some of the best plasma display panel technology on the market. One pair of 42-inch plasma displays launched earlier this year boasts 1024 x 1024 pixel resolution, a 1000-to-1 contrast ratio, and 1000 candelas per square meter in brightness. The P42HCA11WH is aimed at commercial and industrial applications while the P42HHA10WS is for the consumer market. List prices are $8,000 for both, while street prices found in a Warranty Week survey average $5,250 and $5,600, respectively.
They certainly have the best warranty in the plasma display panel industry, covering the above listed models with a three-year warranty on parts and labor (one year on the actual display panel). Only Hitachi America Ltd. and Samsung Electronics America Inc. come close, with two-year warranties offered on select models.
As the chart shows, only five plasma display models carry anything better than the benchmark one-year parts-and-labor warranty. Only two models carry anything less (Philips covers labor costs for just the first 90 days). Even Fujitsu and Hitachi offer only one-year warranties on their commercial units, reserving the better warranties for consumer units. However, Fujitsu PDP sales conducted over the Internet are essentially made "as is" with no manufacturer"s warranty, because Fujitsu overtly disclaims it in those cases. No other plasma manufacturer does likewise, although several warn against purchases made from unauthorized dealers.
Philips and Warrantech Corp. seem to dominate the market for plasma display extended warranties. Although Philips sells plasma displays under its own name, it also covers the brands of its competitors with service plans. For instance, a five-year Philips Priority Service Program for one Fujitsu unit was priced at $695 at one dealership.
Another dealer offers a three-year extended warranty on a Pioneer plasma unit for $499. A five-year extended warranty is priced at $799. Another retailer sells an extended warranty for the ViewSonic, priced at $640 for two years and $840 for three years from the date of purchase. The manufacturer"s warranty, which these plans partially overlap, is for one year.
Those dealers that offer Warrantech RepairMaster service plans seem to be free to set their own prices. One dealer wanted $422 and $541 for two- and four-year RepairMaster plans, respectively. Another wanted $200 and $254 for the same plans. At AudioSound.com, the Warrantech extended warranty option for a $6,200 JVC plasma unit cost $600 for two years and $796 for four years.
Plasma display panels are normally sold along with installation, configuration, and calibration services, but some bargain-hunters insist on setting them up themselves. If they do that, they might not hear an expert tell them not to freeze-frame images for long periods of time, lest they burn the images into the screen. And they might not hear how to properly clean their units, nor how important it is to protect them from electrical surges. Add to that the fact that some units are sold without built-in TV tuners, while others list items such as speakers and table stands as options, and you have an excellent chance of producing a do-it-yourself nightmare scenario: customers get less than they wanted, and what they do get they don"t know how to operate.
Gary Fitzgerald, an installer with Plasma Professionals Inc. of Southampton NY, said there are more connections, more cables, and more settings to consider with plasma than with a traditional tube TV. "It"s a lot more high-tech than a regular television," he said. Plus, there"s an additional construction aspect that comes into play. First it"s like hanging a heavy picture frame or a mirror, and then it"s like hooking up a stereo or a new set of speakers. In addition, some people want all the wiring hidden.
Still, it"s not rocket science. "Once you do one, they are all more or less the same," Fitzgerald said. "There are a couple of different variations, but they"re all very similar." He gets the feeling that many consumers with a little experience in high-end home audio could easily install a plasma TV themselves, if they wanted to. But many prefer the convenience, and don"t mind paying a few extra hundred dollars, to see that an item they just paid multiple thousands to purchase is installed professionally.
Numerous awards have also come its way. The Society for Information Display honored FHP in 2001 with a special recognition award. In 2002, Fujitsu won an Emmy Award from the National Association of Television Arts and Sciences for its efforts and accomplishments in plasma display panel development.
Fujitsu began covering its larger plasma monitors with a three-year warranty in 2001. The first 42-inch model covered by a three-year warranty was the PDS-4242, which shipped in August 2001. Earlier this year, Fujitsu lengthened that list with the launch of the P42HHA10WS and the P42VHA20US, while trimming the warranties on the older models back to the industry-standard one-year term.
The reason we"re concentrating on 42-inch models is to make price and feature comparisons that are meaningful in the U.S. market, where the warranties are offered. In the U.S., we found 22 manufacturers and 65 dealers offering 45 different models at that size -- more than any other screen size. Most of the PDPs are made in Japan, Taiwan, or South Korea, and are then imported into the U.S. Indeed, 42-inch models are considered too big for the domestic Japanese market, while in the U.S. the 32- and 37-inch screens are considered too small. Go figure. In all cases, however, the warranties for the models we discuss are offered by the U.S. subsidiaries.
Here are links to the plasma display panel warranties offered by ten of the 22 manufacturers surveyed. For easy comparison, we have mirrored each document in the Warranty Week library, in either an HTML or an Adobe PDF format. In the case of companies such as Toshiba and Philips, the warranty is included as the last few pages of a PDP owner"s manual. We warn our readers that those documents are somewhat lengthy, and may take some time to download. Those who need an Adobe PDF document reader can get one by clicking here.
Fujitsu General instituted the Internet sales ban in May 2002. According to a statement attributed to senior vice president Tedd Rozylowicz, "the purchase and sale of plasma products require an extensive amount of pre- and post-sale support -- support that cannot be adequately provided over the Internet. While there is an opportunity to sell much more product by authorizing Internet sales, we believe that by managing our distribution in this way the Fujitsu brand, our authorized dealers and the end-users will benefit."
The statement said the warranty is valid only if the plasma display monitor was purchased new from an authorized Fujitsu dealer and the original factory serial numbers of the monitor have not been removed, defaced or replaced in any way. Authorized dealers are not allowed to sell Fujitsu Plasmavision monitors on the Internet, through any on-line retailer, or similar e-tailing Web site. A spokesman for Fujitsu General declined to provide further comments on the Internet ban.
"That is totally false," countered Joe Miller, a salesman with Plasma House in Brooklyn NY. "We have installers nationwide. They"re fully professional. They adjust it. They make sure everything works. We do home theater installations that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. They can"t say that we are unprofessional."
Plasma House sells a table-stand installation package for $346; a wall-mount install is $486; and a wall-mount with concealed wiring is $586. Miller said the Fujitsu plasma units are sold "as is" with no manufacturer"s warranty, although a three-year Mack in-home service plan can be bought for $900 and a four-year Warrantech in-home service plan is available for $1,000.
In total, Plasma House sells 13 different Fujitsu plasma displays, including seven that are 42 inches in size. Six of those are from the older PDS series. The seventh is the new P42HHA10WS, a high-resolution top-of-the-line unit that Plasma House sells for $5,780 -- slightly more than other dealers, and significantly more than similar units sold under other brand names. Plasma House sells a comparable Philips unit for $1,300 less, and a comparable Hitachi unit sells for $1,700 less.
Harrison said Tri-State currently doesn"t sell Fujitsu, though it might in the future. But he notes that no other plasma manufacturer has ever made a claim that online retailers cannot properly sell plasma displays.
At the receiving end of those orders are companies that are accustomed to living with a $100 or less profit margin on a $5,000 item. They have no time to explain the subtle differences between units and options. They have no time -- period. All they want is to sell boxes. Indeed, one can only guess how many plasma display purchasers were disappointed and surprised to discover that their bargain-basement units didn"t include a TV tuner or even a table stand. One dealer even made a joke out of the choices available for wall or desktop installation. The last option on the pull-down menu was "no thanks, I"ll hold it between my hands."
To a large extent, however, the Internet ban seems to be working among storefront dealers who also maintain an Internet sales presence. For instance, Fujitsu General identifies Harvey Electronics Inc. as an authorized dealer of its PDP units. However, on Harvey"s Web page advertising prices for nearly two dozen plasma displays, no Fujitsu models were listed.
Unfortunately, the Internet ban plays into the hands of companies such as Sharp Electronics Corp. and others, which reluctantly sells some plasma products but which prefers to sell units made with its own liquid crystal display and/or projection TV technology. They"re not quite saying that plasma is inferior -- just that LCD is superior. And indeed, some of the manufacturer"s warranties given on LCD, projection, and tube TVs are significantly better than one year.
What"s clear, however, is that the days of traditional tube TVs are drawing to a close. Hitachi said in its 2002 annual report that sales of plasma TVs were up, but that sales of traditional tube TVs were on a fast decline. Last year, Hitachi closed tube TV plants in the UK, Singapore, and China, part of a worldwide "strategic withdrawal" from the old cathode ray TV and PC monitor business.
Hitachi and Fujitsu are actually in a joint venture to manufacture the actual screens used in both of their respective PDP product lines. Fujitsu Hitachi Plasma Display Ltd., formed four years ago, supplies not only its two parent companies with plasma displays, but also sells the screens to OEM customers such as Philips, Sony, ViewSonic Corp., and others.
On April 25, Fujitsu Ltd. released its 2002 annual report, in which it said plasma sales became profitable last year, thanks to a fortunate mix of increased sales and decreased costs. Fujitsu said capital expenditures attributable to the PDP line of business decreased to 4.2 billion yen in fiscal 2002, from 25.1 billion yen in fiscal 2001. The company said it expects to make PDP-related capital expenditures of 11 billion yen in the current fiscal year.
Fujitsu Hitachi Plasma Display Ltd., however, was geared up for a plasma boom years ago. Soon after the partners announced their joint venture, they unveiled plans to dramatically expand their PDP factory. Fujitsu Ltd. global public relations manager Robert Pomeroy said the factory is currently running at a rate of 30,000 units per month, but press reports from the 2000-2001 period suggest the companies once planned for double that rate of output.
Pomeroy said although plasma display technology continues to become more complex, Fujitsu Hitachi Plasma"s production technology has improved and matured at an even faster pace. "There"s been a lot of investment in the business," he said. "But the market in many ways is still in its early stages. Industrial and commercial displays -- seeing them in airports, and things like that -- has been the larger part of the overall PDP market for a number of years. But with digital television coming along, and as prices come down, and as volumes increase, we"re pretty confident now that the market is taking off."
Plasma displays, however, are for the most part a new technology, with unknown characteristics in terms of reliability and longevity. Like high-resolution computer monitors, they are somewhat susceptible to having persistent images "burned" into the screen, which suggests to us that some day an entrepreneur now riding the mobile phone ring tone wave will launch a plasma screen saver business. In addition, plasma TVs are more susceptible to extremes of altitude, temperature, and humidity. Plus, they not only consume more electricity than traditional tube TVs, but they also emit more heat.
The question, though, is how long will plasma displays last? Most manufacturers say they"ll last at least 20,000 hours, although some say 30,000 or even 50,000 hours. Assuming that most consumers operate the displays for 4 to 6 hours per day, they should last for a good long time. At four hours per day, 20,000 hours is 13.7 years. At six hours per day, 20,000 hours is 9.1 years. Even if they were left on 24 hours a day, as many commercial and industrial units are, 20,000 hours is more than two years -- longer than all but Fujitsu"s warranties.
However, he explains that rather than a complete breakdown, what"s more likely for aged plasma displays is a slow decline, one pixel at a time. He wrote that although the manufacturers generally say the sets will last 20,000 to 30,000 hours, by 20,000 hours many are down to 68% of original brightness, as individual pixels continue to burn out. By 30,000 to 50,000 hours they might be down to only 50% of brightness. The problem is that very few units outside of the manufacturers" own testing laboratories have been in operation long enough to put these theories to the test.
Nobody, however, suggests that plasma displays in and of themselves are unreliable or short-lived. The problems seem to be with the human operator. Many consumers don"t know what they"re buying beyond the cachet of having a flat panel TV on their wall. However, both manufacturers and dealers do a poor job of educating the consumer about their choices. Should they buy a unit with a built-in tuner, or should they buy a separate set-top box? Is their unit ready for high definition television? Or more basically, should they mount their screen on a wall, or prop it up on a floor/table/desk stand?
In general, Warranty Week finds that the importance of options such as a tuner, table stand, or wall mount are not explained well, if at all. Granted, there"s no concealment of these facts, but after 50 years of living with tube TVs that stand themselves up and tune themselves in, consumers can be forgiven for not understanding what they"re getting when they buy a plasma display panel. Those sold without tuners might cause customer dissatisfaction. In fact, a case might be made that they violate the implied warranty of fitness for a particular purpose, if one assumes a TV is usually capable of tuning in a channel. Then again, these are PDPs, not TVs.
Besides sales tax (which is supposed to figure into all consumer purchases but which frequently doesn"t factor into interstate purchases), the other major variants are shipping and setup. Warranty Week found that shipping can cost the buyer anywhere from $100 to $250 per display. But it also can be free.
Setup services can be $150 for labor alone. If it"s not included in the package, an "optional" desk or table stand can be priced at $300 to $400. A wall mount kit can cost $200 to $350, but those fees fee may or may not include labor. At BestBuyPlasma.com, an installation service performed by a third party called The Install Company is priced at $495 for fl