The G10 will outperform the 850 in every category (higher black levels, better colors, more shades of gradation, better processing, lower energy consumption, etc).
Only buy the 850U if the G10 isn't in your price range, and you aren't willing to save.
Noticeably outperform or just a bit? Really just curious how much improvement has occured in the last year.
What people call "burn-in" is really just uneven phosphor wear, the phosphors loosing brightness with use, and those displaying brighter colors loosing that brightness faster than those displaying darker ones. So, for instance, if you watched nothing 4:3 video with black sidebars for long enough, and then put up an all light color image that covers the whole screen, you'd find the part of the display where the sidebars are somewhat brighter than the part where the video was displayed. That can be easily corrected in all but the most extreme cases though, simply by running content that evenly uses the full screen long enough to even out the phosphor wear, because the rate of wear slows down the more the phosphors are used. You can get even quicker results from displaying images with inverted color to that which caused the uneven wear, for instance running white sidebars to get rid of the uneven wear from black sidebars....I don't want to leave that desktop up there for long periods of time, even though 2009+ plasmas are safe from burn in due to pixel shift.
Plasmas are BAD for gaming. I myself have a 52" Sammy - but i use it for movies mainly.
The reason is that Plasmas suffer from "screen retention" (temporary burn-in) - so i would NOT recommend them for gaming really. It would burn in your HUDs and whatever and you would have a hard time to get rid those after-images again.
The other factor for me is that they use a LOT of power and i wouldnt want to use a big-screen TV as monitor sitting there 18hrs/day....at least not here in EU where utlitities are insanely high.
plasmas are fine for gaming, if you're using consoles and don't keep it in the menu screan for too long. For a PC display that spends alot of time in the desktop area or with stationary bars for long periods of times plasma will eventually get permanent burn ins.
In general I just don't like plasmas, period. LCD's are still the way to go.
I went with the new Samsung plasma instead of the Panasonic due to the feature set (24P on all models being one). And while I don't use it as a primary display, it makes all LCDs look disgustingly terrible. I almost can't stand LCDs now besides when forced.
Plasmas are BAD for gaming. I myself have a 52" Sammy - but i use it for movies mainly.
I wouldn't get plasma. Get LED LCD. Deep black, better color contrast. I find most plasmas (other than the Pioneer Elite) have a dull color. LCDs have brighter colors. But the plasma guys will say that "dull color" is "natural color". I guess I prefer bright colors of LCDs.
I totally disagree, Plasmas are usually taken BECAUSE they have the better blacks, "brighter" colors and better viewing angles.
It's not a matter of "dull" or "natural". It's a matter of accuracy. Plasmas tend to be better at accurately displaying color data from the source, which is usually very important to enthusiasts. If you don't like how accurate color reproduction looks, that's your personal preference, and the deficiencies of LCD in that regard don't affect you.
Brightness is a different measurement entirely, and it's true that LCDs typically have an advantage in bright ambient settings, but as you've noted black levels usually suffer. LED is definitely a step up, but at a premium price. Comparing an LED LCD with a Kuro plasma would be about as close as you can get to a fair showdown.
Edit: Also, I should mention that I game on my Pioneer plasma and have had no issues whatsoever. I much prefer the picture to the Samsung LCD I had previously. Image retention has gotten much better in newer plasmas and I don't worry so much about it, but to be fair, most of the games I've played haven't had persistent HUDs or status displays and the like. A lot of newer games make health bars, etc. fade automatically, probably to address these concerns.
All of that said, I would never use a plasma for a PC monitor.
I think for gaming, color saturation (even if artificially saturated like in most LCDs) is more preferable for color accuracy. You're not going to sit there and analyze each color pixels in gaming do you? In fact, many games would go to the extreme to make sure their graphics are over-saturated with color.
Kuro Plasmas are still quite expensive! A 42" Kuro can cost over $2500 out the door. Yesterday I saw a Samsung 46" LED LCD at Costco for aroung $1900. And LED LCD are coming down in price rapidly too. The same can't be said of Kuro series. In 6-12 month time, there is even less incentives to get plasmas (maybe except for a series Kuro for a video hardcore) over LED LCD.
What plasmas are you referring to? When I went to Costco and checked out the plasmas they have there from Samsung and Panasonic, it's clear to my eyes that plasmas don't have brighter colors.