My personal choice would definitely be Plasma... by far.
Over the past two years, I've played on both a 42" Panasonic plasma and a 32" Sony LED-LCD.
Without digging through all the tech nonsense the Plasma just has a better picture, a far more natural contrast and color saturation. Not to mention a viewing angle comparable to the old CRT squares your parents had.

The ONLY downside with a Plasma is if you're in an extremely bright room.

LCD screens (which is what LED's are-as other posters have pointed out) have an absolutely rediculous viewing angle which frustrates me to no end.... move a few steps to the right or left and the image quality starts to wash out. Why would I want that?

As far as burn-in goes with plasma displays, it's a thing of the past. Even lower end models come with displays that eliminate permanent burn-in, like pixel switching which jogs the pixels around behind the screen on a static picture to prevent burn-in, and wipe a bar utility which, in essence, washes the screen if necessary. I've played Halo for over 5 hours straight, with the score box always sitting in the same spot.. no burn in. ESPN with the continuous score ticker on the bottom... no burn in. You don't have to worry about it.

Not to mention most games are still programmed natively at 720p or less, which will probably be the case for years to come because of the insane cost of game production. You could get away with a 720p plasma for less than $500, if not cheaper. Other than a few, scattered titles, the only reason I can see going with a 1080p television is for Blue-ray movies, which means most of your games have to be upscaled from the resolution the developers programmed it in, I'd rather go with exactly how they intended it to look.

Who said anything about what anyone can afford? If it's not about money, then why not buy the VERY best, every year or two? And who needs a tv that's gonna last 50 years? I mean since your led will last "10x longer" and all. I'm not doubting that you have yourself a good tv there but plasma tech is proven over LED at this point. Only the very best LED's are competing with plasma. The fanboy comment is in response to your use of phrases like "plasma is junk" "LED by far" and so on. This matter of fact attitude is very fanboyish indeed. Relax man, don't be so defensive about your tv, enjoy it and there really is no need to attack people's income, that shit is just childish. But for the record, I do very well in that department.

I dunno, make people arrogant about their foolish purchase perhaps?

What you mean plasma's are bulky? My plasma is like 2cms thin and it costed me 1500 euros, around the same price of a comparable LED tv.

LOL Plasma will die quick? Stop talking lies buddy, Plasmas have now 100,000 hours before the phosphors are half as bright(half life), this means watching your plasma for 18 years/3hours a day.

Face it, Plasmas are superior. People preferring LEDS fall for all the hype in the store: "its so thin!" "its so shiny!", stores WANT you to buy a LED, thats why they are in better settings then plasmas in stores.

When its time to replace my Samsung plasma I'll go with a Panasonic, the VT50 plasmas are near perfect, not there yet with the best TV ever made but almost: Pioneer Kuro 500A

you guys are making me feel really bad for choosing LED over plasma :( ... It can't be that THAT worse, can it?

playerx, those expensive HDMI cords are a complete scam, made and advertised in a sneaky way to take advantage of people who don't know better and tech-files that want to 'think' they have the absolute best.
There is absolutely no difference in picture quality between a $20 HDMI and $100 one. There are minimum 'carry' loads that every HDMI has to support, in other words, there are no t.v.'s or game systems or blue ray players that send more information than a cheap HDMI cord can't handle.
You don't always get what you pay for, sometimes you get the same regardless and HDMI cords are certainly in the latter category.

also spaceguy, did you really buy a 100$ HDMI cable? LOL! Buddy my 10 bucks 1.4 HDMI cable gets the job done.

One of the reasons I would never buy a LED tv is that they have ugly bleeding problems and clouding, eew.

oops.. sorry playerx, that was meant for spaceguy

EXACTLY! You know the company that makes 100$ HDMI cables and rip people off? Monster Cable, the same company that makes the overhyped, overpriced mediocre headphones called Beats by dre. :D

We don't agree when it comes to gaming platforms but we are cut from the same cloth regarding this matter. Funny you mention the in store hype and Spaceguy linked Bestbuy as they are universally known to be THE WORST for their tv settings in stores. I bet the asshole working there talked him into his tv purchase along with that completely stupid HDMI cable.