With the digital transition coming in 2009 the LCD HDTV market is booming as people upgrade to new TVs. When it comes time to buy a new HDTV you have to decide between LCD or plasma technology for the most part. Samsung has introduced several new HDTV models recently including some new plasma sets.

Samsung didn’t leave the LCD HDTV fan out either and introduced a new Series 8 line that includes models 850 and 860 both in 46-inch or 52-inch screen sizes. The new TVs feature the Samsung Touch of Color design that puts color inside the plastic housing of the TV rather than simply painting it on. Both the 850 and 860 models share similar specs with 50,000:1 contrast ratio, 120Hz refresh rate and four HDMI inputs as well as other input types. The TVs are also very thin at only 1.9-inches at the thickest part.

I have reviewed lots of TVs over the years and by and large I find myself a plasma TV man. In my home right now I have both a LCD HDTV and a plasma HDTV and I prefer to watch on the plasma much more than the LCD. The plasma TV is brighter, has better blacks and colors as well. The catch with the plasma is that it puts out lots of heat, which is an issue during Texas summers when it is already 150 degrees outside and not much cooler indoors.

Despite the heat I’ll take a nice plasma TV over a LCD any day and Samsung has come to the plasma fans assistance with a new series of plasma sets called the 7 Series. Engadget reports that the 7 Series includes sets with 50-inch, 58-inch and 63-inch screen sizes.

When it comes to cameras I really don’t care what they look like for the most part as long as the image quality is good and the camera isn’t pink or some other girly hue. I normally shoot with a Nikon D80 DSLR to get the best image quality, but the thing is heavy.

I have found myself wishing on several occasions though that I was using a nice and compact point-and-shoot. I particularly like the new thin style point-and-shoot cameras like the new Samsung TL9 that have internal optical zoom. This features means that the lens doesn’t protrude out the front of the camera at all and you still get good levels of zoom.

The king of the touchscreen pile in the smartphone world is the Apple iPhone. Many challengers to the iPhone throne have come forward and none have been able to touch the success of the iPhone to date. While still far from dethroning the iPhone, Samsung’s Instinct has come closer to matching the iPhone than any other handset.

The Instinct is a Sprint exclusive and has proven to be so popular that it has broken sales records for Sprint leading to problems with availability of the device. Best Buy announced today that the Instinct has sold more than any other handset it has carried in the last 2 years.

Since YouTube has become such a popular destination for users looking to post videos and those looking to view videos, camcorders aimed specifically at YouTube have started becoming more and more common. These camcorders store video digitally in formats compatible with YouTube.

The latest such camcorder is the Samsung SC-MX20. The camcorder uses H.264 compression to allow up to 4 hours of video to be stored on one 8GB SDHC card. The camera supports SD and SDHC cards up to 32GB.

Many fans of technology know that most analysts are predicting that SSDs will replace the traditional HDD in computer systems in the coming years. For now at least that transition simply isn’t happening because of the low capacities of SSDs, the high cost of SSDs, and the shorter typical lifespan of a SSD.

Samsung announced that it now has its multi-level cell (MLC) SSDs in production in 128GB and 64GB capacities. The main benefit of using MLC NAND flash as opposed to single-level cell is the lifespan. Samsung says that its MLC SSDs will have a life span 20 times longer than that of typical hard drives in today’s computers.