Plasmas use way too much electricity compared to LED TVs. Plasmas also suffer from burn-in. Forget about hooking your PC up to a plasma.
Also, the black levels and contrast ratios of the newer VA panels in LED TVs can match or exceed what you can get with a plasma. You get way more brightness with an LED TV as well.
From what I am reading, the Hisense TVs use the same panels as Samsung TVs. I'm really happy with mine. You guys can get them through Walmart for next to nothing in the states. I had a hard time tracking one down in Canada.
Sorry, no.
You'll get more brightness from LED-LCD TVs, but you aren't exceeding the contrast ratios or even approaching the black levels of recent-generation Plasmas.
Also, burn in is significantly reduced, to the point that you have to try, or be ignorant, to suffer permanent damage.
If you leave a computer on the desktop or, really, leave any static image on the screen for too long, yes, you'll get that. But in reality, that same scenario can cause a similar burn-in on some LCDs. Not all, but some.
If you own a plasma, you simply understand you don't leave a static image on for long. If you need to leave something on a static display, you turn the display off. And on my Panasonic plasma, if you have reasons the display must remain powered on, you can go into the menu and turn off the image without turning off the entire unit. (good if audio from a connected device, including my receiver, apparently, stops audio output from, say, my Roku, if the TV itself is off)
Which is to say: you simply pay attention. So if you don't care to educate those who live in your house, don't get a plasma.
I won't upgrade my plasma until OLED panels are affordable. No current display can remotely match what the last generation of Panasonic Plasma Display Panels (PDP) can produce.
They do use more electricity, but unless you leave your TV on 24/7, it isn't going to cause a significant difference. Most large-screen LCD's are not sipping electricity either. Remember that usage is also tied to what is displayed on plasmas, and I think the peak wattage on power ratings is based on the highest possible output, which is presumably an all-white image. Plasmas have a variable power consumption, as there isn't a backlight that is a constant source. I think I have seen numbers around 100-150w for most 50" LCD panels, and something close to 200-250w for a 50" Panasonic Plasma. Those numbers may seem largely different, but you're looking at perhaps $10-20 more per year. If cutting every single watt is absolutely the driving factor in all of your decisions, you have the information you need. Personally, I'd pay that difference to have a superior image.
To be fair: if you have to have a TV in a room that is always bathed in sunlight, and you can't control the sunlight, a PDP is probably the worst choice. Though the Samsung PDPs were said to be brighter, so that is an option as well.
Not that it much matters, as any PDP is going to be hard to come by these days, except used. You might get lucky, though.
The march toward better images will have to wait until OLED matures and the price is driven down.
My HTPC is connected to my Plasma. I have no issues. But my HTPC is also using WMC (with an HD HomeRun Prime) and XBMC. I also use a keyboard and mouse for browsing from time to time, and have messed around with Steam Big Picture Mode.
Granted, it's all put away right for now reasons I don't care to get into for this thread, but I plan to get more into Steam on it and once I upgrade my desktop to one of the GTX 9xx series Nvidia cards, I'll get back into trying out the in-home streaming. I beta-tested the software-only version; I wasn't much impressed, but it was software only using CPU, instead of using hardware encode using the desktop's GPU. I also played PS3 games.
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