A while ago I posted about this plasma display on the "XBOX360 on Plasma or LCD TV, which is better" thread. At the time I was deciding between this plasma display and the Panasonic PT-AE900 projector. Unfortunately the room that's supposed to be converted to AV room has now become the guest room and storeroom. So that rules out the AE900.

Originally the seller only advertises the 4202TW and 4222TW which were EDTV (852 x 480) plasmas. I inquired about the 4203TW which supports HDTV resolution at 1366x768 and he confirms he can get this model also.

I did some research and managed to find info about the Plaxio brand and AIC. This display goes by a few different names. Plaxio, Disteck, Techview are the ones that came up during my research. The panels are either LG or Samsung plasma panels. To cut a long story short, I placed the order for the 4203TW.

I picked up the plasma about 2 weeks ago. Upon unpacking everything I saw the brand that I got is Disteck, meant for US market. I noticed something else also, the sticker at the back says this is model 4202TW, not 4203TW that I ordered. The packing box and manual also says this is the 4202TW. A quick call to Frankie (the seller's LYN nick) and he assured me that except for the stickers, that is the 4203TW.

To test and confirm that the plasma that I received is indeed the HDTV capable 4203TW I plugged in my notebook to the VGA port, enabled dual screen and lo and behold Powerstrip detects the display as having a max native resolution of 1366x768. I also plugged the XBOX 360 to the VGA port and the display output to 1280x720p. The plasma detects this and set itself to 1280x720. I ran a series of 720P test images and confirmed that the display is indeed the 4203TW.

First order of business is to break-in the display. Plugged my DVD player to the component input and ran the break-in SVCD for plasma display for 16 hours. Links at the bottom of this post. Once that is done I calibrated the display using AVIA dvd. For Component input I can only adjust the brightness, contrast and sharpness. There are no adjustments for hue and saturation. Brightness and contrast can be adjusted in 100 steps while sharpness is limited to 5 pre-set settings (Softest - Soft - Normal - Sharp - Sharpest). When using the VGA input, there two extra adjustments, phase and frequency. Strangely, you can adjust hue and saturation (color and tint) on the S-Video input.

As with most plasmas, you can get burn-in issues. With this plasma I do notice slight burn-in from time to time. This is especially noticeable when the plasma displays a dark or black background, such as game intro/loading screens when launching from the dashboard, where you can see the outlines of the dashboard on the screen. Fortunately it's not permanent. Once the game is running it's gone.

For 5k, it's not bad display, I'd say a generation or two behind current plasma display technology. The display is nice and sharp, even at about 2-3 feet distance you don't notice the mask/filter grid. You do get limited adjustability when it comes to tweaking the display, and only 1 component input. No HDMI input, but DVI is there, along with VGA, S-Video and 2 SCART input.

This post has been edited by MK84: Apr 3 2006, 03:21 PM

On to the photos.

All photo's taken with Canon EOS 300D DSLR with Tamron SP AF28-75MM F/2.8 XR Di lens at 28mm, F2.8, speed 1/30 without flash. Handheld.

Post-editing only limited to resizing and cropping the photos to fit. No levels adjustment made.

XBOX360 is attached to VGA input. DVD Player attached to component input.

XBOX360 dashboard


DVD playback.





Cars Trailer at 720P, played from XBOX360




This post has been edited by MK84: Apr 3 2006, 03:39 PM

Links.

Product page at AIC
LYN Bulk Buy thread
Plasma Display Burn-in/Break-in thread at AVSForum

This post has been edited by MK84: Apr 3 2006, 03:31 PM

The games picture all came out blur, since I cannot pause the action. Will try and get more snaps this weekend.

March? I don't know... it's April already....

marauderz: Yup hehe.... you like Wash eh... hehe

This post has been edited by MK84: Apr 3 2006, 04:54 PM

LoL.. good anology.

Yup. Before the 4202 was RM4800.

Most newer plasmas, LCD and SEDs all goes up 1080p. But the price.... foooh.....

Eh... hmm I remember there was a slew of new product annoucements sometime back regarding 1080p plasmas. Have to check again.

This post has been edited by MK84: Apr 5 2006, 07:08 PM

Oi! Enough. If you two want to slug it out then please do it off this thread.

alkt; welwitchia, zaakath and a few others using the Dell. The thread is here.

One thing to keep in mind though, with the Dell LCD you'll be seating a lot closer compared to the TV, so perspective-wise the Dell is bigger.

What do you mean by upscaling to 720P?

So far no lag or ghosting issues with games. Only got some screen tearing during Oblivion intro screen. VSync problem maybe?

Haven't really tried with 1080i.
Got the VGA cable from Djinn.
Lifespan, can't remember this one, have to check the manual again.
Convert SCART to composite? You mean the other way around issit? Convert composite/component/xbox to SCART? You need to buy the cables.

Low shutter speed 1/30 , big aperture F2.8. And a steady hand.

This post has been edited by MK84: Apr 18 2006, 06:44 PM

Canon 300D with Tamron 28-75mm F2.8 lens.

Can only get 1024x768 with my laptop. I cannot set custom resolution for it. #*&%#(*&% Intel GMA chip.

Viewable, but kinda squashed lah. Unless you set it to 4:3.

Yeah... Buy new. That's Plasma.