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I am deciding between purchasing a Plasma vs. LCD television. However, I was told by a sales rep that LCD televisions have a light bulb that needs to be replaced every 2 years (~$150-200).
Is this information correct? and what other details should I consider before buying?
thanks.
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The hours a bulb lasts can be related to environment, the number of hours you use the device and more. To state it's 2 years shows a lack of information about this.
Cheers,
bob
What would you expect to be the average lifespan for an LCD television bulb?
Considering average use ~12 hours/day.
In a LCD direct view TVs have cold cathode fluorescent lamps or back lamps. How long they last????? Not a lot of info out there. One brand is calming 50,000 hours, it this is true that would be good. But the cost of replacement is NOT KNOWN, how long to get them replaced???
LCD pc monitors are the same, but they only cost $200~300 not the $1500~2500 of LCD HD tvs.
Plasma do not have any lamps since the plasma creates the light.
Rear projector LCD,DLP,LCoS have a lamp easy to replace, will last 4000~7000 hours. John
Most LCD manufacturers use lamps that are rated for 60 to 80 thousand hours. I'm an LCD technician for Dell so I can honestly tell you this. Although usually, the circuit boards in them burn up before those bulbs do 
THANK YOU for the info. This has been a gray area about LCD displaies in general, how long will the back lamps last. John
ok....for the most part, there are 2 kinds of lcd's. lcd FLAT-PANEL and lcd REAR PROJECTION.
the lcd flat-panels are the ones with the light SOURCE that is rated for 60,000-80,000 hours. most of the time, something else goes wrong with the tv before this light source actually "breaks".
lcd rear projections are the ones that require a new LAMP every 5,000-8,000 hours depending on which tv you have. that can be from 2 to at least 6 years depending on your "living" conditions and the equipment that u have hooked up to it.
if you're looking for a tv 42inch or bigger without spending too much money, go for a plasma. if you're looking at a 37 inch tv or smaller, go with an lcd.
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