I presently own a Dell Widescreen 17 inch LCD monitor/tv. I bought it from their refurb store with a special $100.00 off price.
I would not have paid full price for a new one as to me it just was not worth it.
After some teething problems where I went thru two of these monitors I have now found the third to be reliable.
Basically I believe I got a bad external "brick" power supply with the first one and I told Dell I thought it was the power supply but they instead sent a new monitor without a power supply and it promptly cooked the 2nd one.
On the third go around I was very specific that I get a replacement power supply along with a replacement monitor.
It has now been several months with the monitor working fine.
Dell tells me that my warranty gets reset back to the start each time the monitor dies during the warranty. Of course since I have owned it less that a year I have not needed to call them to task on this.
At this stage I look at that 42 inch Plasma and have to think twice if I would want to go thru this again.
Dude it's a dud is still ringing in my ears.
But they did replace the LCD each time and I can't complain about that.
I just can't imagine shipping a Plasma back and forth. But... Dell does pay the shipping both ways.
Also a extended warranty sounds like a plan with a Plasma.
