Customer Reviews

Where have you been all my life?
This is my first HD TV purchase ever, so I made sure to do my homework. I spent days researching brands, plasmas v. LCDs, 720p v. 1080p resolutions, and 42" v. 50" screens. Friends and family kept telling me, "Get a LCD. Get a 1080p."

The fact is after combing through review after review from consumers and professional critics alike, it became evident that Panasonic is leading the way with plasma technology, and the years-old issues with these TVs (burn-in, heat, glare) are all but resolved. In fact, plasmas offer smoother motion, deeper blacks and wider viewing angles than their LCD rivals.

Screen size and resolution, I found, go hand-in-hand. The rule of thumb: 50" or less in screen size is not worth the extra $$ for 1080p. The increase in resolution only really becomes appreciable with screen sizes over 50". Too, one can only truly take advantage of 1080p with a Blu-ray DVD player. HD channels are sent at lower resolutions, though obviously much better than standard 480i.

Armed with this knowledge, I set out to find the best 50" plasma 720p I could find that fit within my budget. Sony and Pioneer were out. The next tier included Samsung, Toshiba, and Panasonic. The latter won hands down.

Whether I am watching DirectTV HD or my standard DVD player, the picture quality is nothing short of amazing. I love the anti-reflective coating on the screen; works beautifully in our well-lit room and does not mute the colors. It took a minute for my two year-old to get over Scooby-Doo outsizing him, but he's hooked now.

The one minor complaint I see in other reviews is bass distortion with the speakers. I do not use the "bass boost" function and have not noticed anything but clean sound. In fact, speech, music, and effects sound quite good and balanced. Most will use surround sound for movies anyway, I suspect. The only thing that peeves me is the digital audio out. It only supports 2 channel stereo to a receiver.

In closing, I believe this is the best value you will find for a top quality product in this category. Get one, and you won't just watch TV, you'll experience it.

Great TV!
Just bought this tv over the weekend. The picture is great, the colors are vibrant and clear and the sound is wonderful!

This is a 720p tv, so it isn't as clear as the higher-end 1080p units. I can see the pixelation when I'm about 4' from the tv, but farther than that, it fades away.

Standard definition cable tv is definitely serviceable. The colors are nice, balance, etc., but as expected a little blurry (from content). Definitely not going to keep me from watching standard def programs I like, but noticeably not as sharp (not the tv's fault, I suppose).

The exterior is understated with a glossy black frame (approximately 2" wide) around the screen. A foldaway cover hides front HDMI, component and SD card inputs, and there are two HDMI, svideo, component inputs (plus more I can't recall) in the back. The speakers are located below the screen. Setting the surround mode to on really fills the room with sound.

The viewing angle is quite wide. I can clearly see the picture well beyond the 45 degree angle.

The menu is easy to use, and the remote is intuitive. The resulting mix is a relatively straightforward adjustments to picture, sound, screen fill, channel preferences, etc.

Seeing pictures from the SD card was one of the unexpected joys I've had in trying this set out. My 5 MP pictures popped out of the screen with clarity and true color that I didn't expect.

A couple of caveats:

1) The channel lag could be a little annoying-- the screen goes to black for a little less than 0.5 seconds when changing the channel. THis doesn't concern me since I'm using a cable box.

2) This set is not 1080p. According to my research, TV's less than 50" do not benefit all that much from 1080p, due to the how many pixels you can cram into a limited space. Truthfully, I wasn't really in the market for a 1080p so I didn't really do a strict comparison.

3) with the bass boost on, sound on some commercials gets a little distorted. Since this only happens during those certain commercials, it must have something to do with the original content.

4) this is the first HDTV I've purchased, so I don't have much to compare it to. DVD's and HD cable have looked great on this set, but I haven't had a chance to test out Blu-ray on it. Also haven't had a chance to test out video games either.

Can't wait to see my Seattle Mariners play on the beautiful green grass of Safeco field on this TV!

Excellent Plasma
This is the 3rd plasma that I ordered from Panasonic, and this technology never let me down. I love this product! I have it hooked up to my DirecTV satellite and tested the picture quality with the regular signal and HD signal. With both signals, the pictures is crisp and clear from watching about 4 feet away from the screen and everything is the same at 8 feet away. This plasma is 720p native resolution and it is great. So unless you have a small room where you need a 1080p native resolution, that is if you are watching very close and ruin your eyes at the same time, you really don't need a 1080p resolution. So save yourself some big bucks by getting the 720p instead of 1080p. Buy yourself some good recliners and of course the flat panel tv stand or wall mount instead, because you gonna need them.