I bought a new telly 2 years ago so I did a bit of pre homework.
The older plasma tv's were particularly energy hungry while the newer ones are much more efficient .
If you're buying through one of the normal retailers it will have an energy rating sticker on it . Check it out at :
http://www.energyrating.gov.au/
It all depends on what you want however . If your just watching the news rather than watching videos then you may let price do the choosing . Heaps of cheap lcd tv's on the market that will do. However , if you are into a good movie experience then you may want to spend more .
The argument used to be that the plasma picture was superior ( blacker blacks etc ) although that may have changed by now. The new plasmas are now far more efficient than the old ones. I ended up buying a more efficient plasma for a few reasons.
I don't watch too much telly but I do want the picture quality so energy consumption was of less importance .
At the time the deal on the plasma vs backlit led was significantly cheaper . It would easily offset the energy use.
Because I was buying a system , the brand I bought had better features than the ones with led tvs.
One thing I found interesting . In the shop when you're trying to compare picture quality with all the different tvs , it gets a bit hard to choose . What I found is that once you have the tv at home , you have nothing to compare it to so you stop worrying so much about the picture quality .
A couple of final things . The backlit leds ( better than side lit ) provide a really good picture . Also if you watch ball sports ( fast moving ) some of the tv processors didn't handle it well . For this reason , make sure you watch some sport in the shop . If your into gaming , same reasoning .
