Worth noting these were pushing very close to if not true 1080i on the final models with 1000~ lines of vertical res, when most LCD or plasmas were doing 1024x7

Worth noting these were pushing very close to if not true 1080i on the final models with 1000~ lines of vertical res, when most LCD or plasmas were doing 1024x768(yep, non square pixels), or even 800x480. Only the REALLY expensive ones were true 720p, even. They looked so much obviously better that it took plasma into the late 2000s to catch up The closest comparison i can think of is gaming laptops vs desktops. You got objectively better performance for less money, at the cost of it being large and heavy. They were also pretty reliable, especially compared to early plasmas that blew various expensive boards constantly.(and i would know, i scored several for free this way)