I recently bought the Panasonic Viera TH-42PZ80U 42″ 1080p Plasma HDTV and I’ve been using it for about 2 months.
Picture:
I was a little skeptical of the virtue of plasma’s over LCD’s because, in those white-washed, warehouse stores, the difference in contrast looks to be negligable. I was wrong. This set produces outstanding blacks. I have another LCD in the house and I didn’t know what I was missing. Contrast ratio on this set is very, very good. Blu-Rays on my PS3 look amazing. I just watched “The Incredible Hulk” and I was SHOCKED at how good it looked. It is unbelievable what this 1080p set can do with the right content. There is far more detail in 1080p than there is in 720p. In the short amount of time I’ve had the Viera, I’ve viewed almost everything I could: sports, news, sit-coms, dramas, HD, SD, Blu-rays, DVD’s, video games, computer games, PC use.
It crushes almost everything you throw at it with ease. (I say almost because of problems using it as a computer monitor, see below) Also, the screen itself is glossy, not matte like some LCD’s. Personally, I’ve always prefered the deeper color and slightly more glarey picture of glossy screens over the more-washed out, less reflective matte screens. The Viera has an anti-reflictive coating (aparently) and it does help with glare a lot, at least compared to glossy laptop screens, and TV’s I’ve seen. I have a window behind my seat and I really can’t say I’ve been bothered by reflections at all.
I hesitated buying Samsung LN52A650 52-Inch 1080p 120Hz LCD HDTV with Red Touch of Color until I read that a firmware update fixed the shut-off issue. I bought mine today – hooked up a Samsung (DVD-HD860)unconverting DVD player (HDMI) and Wow.
The DVD player is only a 1080i – I’m gonna get the 1080p version or wait for Blu-Ray (read below). The picture on this TV is simply amazing. If you’re thinking about this TV, just do it. I’ve been researching and waiting for 3 months. Incredible PQ. HD channels look great and DVDs are fantastic. I’ll be getting a Blu-ray player as soon as the new versions come out later this summer (I hope).
I played a home movie DVD that I made and saw colors and detail I hadn’t seen in the same movie on another (DLP)TV/DVD player. BTW, I called Samsung for the firmware update – the gal told me it would be harmful to my TV unless it had the shut-off problem and advised against it.
Panasonic Viera TH-50PZ80U 50-Inch 1080p Plasma HDTV, I can’t rave about it enough!
We did a ton of research on LCD Vs. Plasma and decided to go with Plasma because of the sharper picture quality and the fact that Plasma’s are better at handling high speed images which comes in handy since I watch a lot of sports.
Like other reviewers have mentioned, last years model was among the highest rated Plasma’s out there and although the reviews are just starting to come in this set seems to have picked up where last years models left off.